Becoming a BLMR (Badass Lady Medicare Recipient)– Part 1

Day Zero- “We don’t stop exercising because we grow old, we grow old because we stop exercising.”

I had returned from visiting my 93 year old mother in NY. Over a 2 month period, she had survived COVID, 3 falls, and a urinary tract infection (UTI) with a high fever. She came home after 4 days in the hospital and she was really struggling with many activities of daily living because she had no strength. She was improving, but it made me realize that becoming an old lady requires building muscles before you become an old lady. This was my impetus to build my old lady body, which I commenced with due haste. Having made this decision, I sought to upgrade my motivation by giving my life-affirming project a snappy name. Build a Better Old Lady Body (BBOLB)? When I threw that one out at a friend of mine, she reminded me that I am not an old lady. I came back with Lady Medicare Recipient and she approved. I then googled “motivational fitness quotes for women” and in the first list I perused, #10 stood out: “You only live once, you might as well be a badass.” I have embraced the idea of being a badass in other aspects of my life, most notably in cycling. There are 95 Rules of Cycling, and rule #9 states, “If you are out riding in bad weather, it means you are a badass. Period.” So there you have it, in 1 paragraph with 3 quotes, why this project was conceived and how it came to be named Becoming a BLMR. I knew that Becoming a BLMR would, without a doubt, spawn a great deal of writing worthy anecdotes and observations in addition to pain. I vowed to let my mind wander in any direction it sought in search of the truth along my journey, especially if it would help me hide the fact that like my mother, I have no abs.

Day 1 – “All it takes is a can-do attitude and a great workout playlist.”

Day 1 of Becoming a BLMR began with a tour of the YMCA of Western North Carolina, followed by the completion of forms including the signing of the waiver. That’s where you promise not to sue the Y if you get injured or killed even if your injury is clearly due to negligence on their part. Payment accepted, app downloaded, bar code uploaded to the app, and I was on my way to the locker room, to prepare for my first group exercise class, vinyasa yoga. That was the only class on the schedule at 11:15, so no decisions needed to be made. I am pretty sure all the other yogis were also Medicare Recipients and all but one were ladies. The class began with the instructor asking us to call out names of body parts that hurt and/or need extra TLC. Necks and shoulders were mentioned by a few ladies, and someone suggested this must be the result of sleeping wrong. I didn’t vocalize my objection to this reasoning, but I believe wholeheartedly that any sleeping is right, and never wrong, as opposed to not sleeping and watching Law and Order reruns at 2 am. In my mind, the epidemic of neck and shoulder discomfort was Monday’s casualty of a weekend of old lady partying. But I digress.

The class began after the Naming Of Faulty Body Parts, and that’s when I realized the class had no music. I never realized how much music contributes to a yoga class until there was no playlist. Perhaps not having any music was meant to make it easier to focus on hinging at the waist, bending and breathing into my belly button, and noticing how many muscles surround said belly button, all while being immersed in multi-syllabic Hindi words for poses, alignments, and resultant feelings of joy and peace. I don’t believe any of those words could be used to translate my inner voice when I was attempting to keep my belly button stuck to my spine while imitating a happy baby. It is at moments like this that my mind begins to search for appropriate lyrics from Grateful Dead songs. “Well the first days are the hardest days, don’t you worry anymore.” I was beginning to look forward to Shavasana, the little nap at the end of a yoga practice, because surely we must be getting close to the end of all this arching and bending and shoulder and neck appreciation, but when I looked at my watch, it had only been 20 minutes. OMG I still had another 40 minutes of immersion in this music-free cloud of multi-syllabic Hindi words for Impossible Positions of Yoga (IPY). Yes, that means you Pigeon, You are the King of IPY. I do realize that having a king or other royals in yoga practice is not permissible, but if I could assassinate one yoga pose it would be Pigeon. I finally made it to the end, through the downward dogs, planks, crescents, cats, cows and warriors, and got my little restorative nap as my reward. Day 1 of Becoming a BLMR was in the books! 

Day 2 – “Just do it, even if you suck.”

I decided to take a barre class. From the Y’s website: “Barre fitness is a hybrid workout class, combining ballet-inspired moves with elements of Pilates, dance, yoga and strength training. Barre focuses on high reps of small range movements.” I was expecting to enter a studio with a classic barre across one wall. Nope. When I entered the studio, I discovered that the barres are actually….. hurdles! Everyone gets their own personal barre. I told the instructor that this was my first barre class ever, to which she replied, “Welcome, this is my third.” She then listed the equipment I needed to gather:  hurdle, mat, blanket (oh! more napping), strap, and a pair of light weights. She suggested 1 lb weights, of which there were none. Maybe she will realize that when she teaches her fourth class. But, being as badass as I am, I did not hesitate to increase my weights by 100% and grab the 2 lb. weights. Here is the weird part- of all the equipment each participant gathered, we used only the mats and the weights. We never even used the barres. Perhaps after she has learned more about the equipment she will be able to incorporate use of the barre into her barre class. On the other hand, she taught us a sequence of kick-boxing dance moves that she had seen on TikTok which is probably more fun and safer than trying to transition from having one foot on top of the hurdle to a plie. In addition to TikTok inspired movements, the instructor did follow the guidelines concerning high reps of small range movements. From a bridge position, she instructed us to rotate the right hip toward the floor without moving your legs, ribs, arms, eyeballs, shoulders or spleen, only your right hip. As my father would often say, “Impossible!” This reminded me of the day after my son, Eric, was born via C-section. In the morning, the nurse gave me a painkiller and promised to come back in an hour to get me out of bed. She kept her promise. As I somehow managed to pull myself up and out of that bed, I felt as if every muscle in my body, including all the muscles associated with blinking, wiggling my toes, and engaging in peristalsis, were connected to my abdomen. Everything hurt. And now, 35 years later, I know everything is connected to everything, in my body and probably in the entire universe, and yet this barre lady is asking me to move only my right hip. Obviously she has never had a C-section. At this point, I looked around the room and realized that none of the other participants were likely to be reminiscing about childbirth, certainly not the two Barbie dolls flanking me. As we moved into another sequence of TikTok Pilates moves, I began to wonder if there was ever a Ballerina Barbie? Or a Jane Fonda Workout Barbie? Mattel has this covered.

For $17, you can purchase a Barbie Fitness doll. She doesn’t come with a barre, but she does have a puppy, yoga mat, weights, hula hoop, water bottle and a pink gym bag. Subtract the puppy and add the barre, and you have the next trendy group exercise class- Barbie at the Barre. Too bad I don’t know anything about TikTok. But, somewhere I do have a pink gym bag.