WHENEVER the anorexic heroine of Anna Maxted’s Running in Heels consumes anything, she takes to the treadmill (not in heels of course). At one of these gym sessions she runs into a Pilates instructor who tells her to try this workout. I’m thinking about the book, the only background I have of Pilates, as fitness consultant Ava Verma tells me to stand, weight balanced equally on both feet, tail bone slightly tucked under, shoulder blades forming a soft ‘V’, arms relaxed by the sides and chin parallel to the floor. Phew. She then points to my navel. ‘‘This is 0 per cent,’’ and touching my back says, ‘‘This is 100 per cent.’’ ‘‘Contract your belly button to the spine 100 per cent,’’ she orders. I oblige. ‘‘Now 50 per cent and release, now 30 per cent and release.’’ Thirty per cent, she informs, should be a constant state of being. I look at her incredulously and she nods knowingly. The workout was developed by Josef Pilates, a sickly child who grew up to be a martial arts expert and even sat for anatomy drawings. All the exercises initiate from the core or the powerhouse: deep muscles of the spine, abdominals, hips and buttocks, lower back, diaphragm and pelvic floor. And provide the strengthening of a gym workout, the flexibility of yoga and the grace of ballet. It usually takes about 10 sessions to get to beginner’s level, but since I want to get a feel of the programme, Verma puts me through some basics. Something called The Hundred, for one. Lying on your back, breathe in for five counts, breathe out for five. Easy? But there’s the shoulder V, the no arching of the back, the 30 per cent contraction to remember, plus you progress to raising your legs and head and pulsing arms to the floor in rhythm with your breath. There are simpler ways to breathe, surely? I love the next two—the Roll Up and the Rolling Ball—love the way I roll up the spine, ‘‘one vertebra at a time’’, to go into a C position as well as the rolling up and down as if I was a beach ball. The Roll Up is deceptively easy—the next day proves that I’ve galvanised all the wrong muscles. Things get a bit tougher after that. Mostly because I’m one of those people who will happily do marches, sidesteps and the grapevine in aerobics, but put them together and add some arm movements and I come to a standstill. ‘‘This woman came to me to learn Pilates but after the first session said it needs too much thinking and she couldn’t cope,’’ laughs Verma. I want to tell her I feel the same but refrain. Next, I try some Leg Kicks, saw off my little toes with the opposite hands (The Saw), and do what Verma calls the ‘point, lift, flex, pull’. ‘‘While in yoga the names are difficult to understand, the names of Pilates exercises tell you exactly what you are doing,’’ she says as she instructs me to point my toes as if I was ringing a doorbell. After I have rung a few, I am asked to draw circles on the ceiling—using my hip muscles and not my toes—all the while being reminded of what else, 30 per cent contraction, stable pelvis, no rocking or rolling of hips. Some swimming and cycling exercises follow, graceful when Verma demonstrates, clumsy when I try them. Pilates is not fat-burning (it complements other forms of exercise) but when I’m starving an hour or so later, I know I have worked out and feel absolutely no guilt as I dig into a vada pav. Maxted’s heroine, if I remember correctly, wasn’t too impressed with her first session, though later she’s hooked enough to become an instructor herself. But I’ve already decided I sort of like it. Even though when I wake up early the next morning for a yoga class, I hear a series of groans—one vertebra at a time.
