Nicole Takes Pilates in Hebrew....or so I thought.

After a long three week fight with the hills of Jerusalem I was defeated. I learned that two mile runs up a steep hill may be good for my butt, but my legs were yelling at me. While doing Yoga in my room without a Yoga mat was quite calming, I gave in and I joined a gym for the next month. Apparently there is a Groupon type entity in Jerusalem, "JReal" I believe it was called, so I bought a coupon to the gym down the road from me, from a girl who sprained her ankle.

Two days in and its already been an experience. Yesterday I tried running on the treadmill, but either they are all not working properly or somehow I now can run a 6.5 minute mile. I wish.

Now today, is really what I wanted to write about. Today, I decided to take a Pilates class. Of course when I joined I was really excited to get free classes along with it. What I didn't think about was that they are all in Hebrew.

All day I was excited about this Pilates class, having done Pilates on my own for several years. I get to the class and I instantly know I have a problem. While I'm not shy in English, in Hebrew its a completely different story. I walked in and thought that maybe I wasn't in a Pilates class and I had misread it. Even so, I watch the things the other women grabbed and found a spot on the floor. There is no way to have known what I was getting myself into.

What I thought was a Pilates class turned into what I felt was an Israeli dance party. As we listened to music from an Israeli club, the teacher I believe was instructing us to move are hips back and forth and our arms in wave like movements. The teacher just kept smiling and saying things as if I understood her. Which of course I did not. Not being fluent in Hebrew, it is impossible to listen while trying to move my hips at the same time. Every now and than I'd catch the word "Hand" or "Up" and of course I understood when she counted to 10. Trying to play it off as if I knew Hebrew and knew what was going on, I continued to shake my hips and move my hands in what seemed like some sort of belly dance move. I would randomly start laughing realizing how absurd this class was and how in the United States you don't get pilates mixed with some sort of middle eastern flow.

Eventually we started to do some moves that resembled Pilates. While I thought I was playing it off quite well that I knew what she was telling us to do, things began to take a wrong turn. First it began with the girl behind me, who kept saying things to me in Hebrew. I nodded my head and pretended as if I understood, but she kept looking at me strangely. Then the instructor kept telling me to correct what I was doing, but the pressure got to me and I couldn't focus well enough to understand. So what did I do, I nodded my head and said, "ken,ken" (yes, yes) several times until she gave up on me.

I didn't think this experience could get any stranger but I was mistaken. We all had these large exercise balls that we were balancing in a strange way on. Next thing I know, I hear a crash and see the instructor running over to this girl who had head first dived into the floor. It appeared that her glasses had cut up her face. It was pretty awful and I felt really bad because I didn't know if I could help not knowing Hebrew well enough. What disturbed me is that the instructor used her bare hands to cover this girls bleeding. It really got stranger though when the teacher eventually got up and finished the class with this girl still laying on the ground bleeding. Best part is that she did it with blood on her hand, not hers, the girl who had face dove into the wooden floor.

And that concludes the story of Nicole takes Pilates in Hebrew. Perhaps next time I'll do Yoga.