Piloxing – Day 54

With both my girls having suffered from the lurgy in the past week, I was keen to get out of the house for a few hours. I helped out at the junior hockey club to start with but, aware that I had a mild sore throat, I opted for the quieter and smiley approach instead of my usual “shouty encouragement” for the kids. It seemed to suitably unnerve them. After the club session finished, I went to join Tara of Versatile Fitness Choice for a Pilloxing Class.

Pilloxing is a fitness class based on a mixture of Pilates, Boxing and Dancing and as I have already tried all three of those on my previous challenges; I went in with full confidence. Once Tara had provided us all with our resistance giving gloves (which had a faint whiff of cheese and onion crisps), she explained that the class would be non-stop and to grab a drink when necessary. Once I pitched up camp at my standard back of the room, boom - we went straight into the high octane dance music.

This class was sassy and Tara’s charisma was magnetic. I found the moves easy to follow and I especially enjoyed the boxing aspect to the class. Tara encouraged us to dig deep and when sufficiently sweaty we were rewarded with a “woop woop.” The next set of moves involved us incorporating some Cha-Cha. Since my foray into FitSteps, I am all about the Cha-Cha. We developed the movement to include a skip and a reach to the air and to the side. I went up on the skip, with a smile on my face, full of enthusiasm and energy but by the time I landed, I had a wave of pain convulse from my back, which quickly spread through the whole of my body.

I looked up to see if anybody else had suffered this invisible debilitation but as I looked around, everybody else was still laughing and shaking their booties in time to the music. My throat started to tighten in pain and my body felt heavy as I tried to maintain the rhythm and follow the moves. I felt like a car which had broken down on the fast lane of the motorway and I had to try and limp to the hard shoulder.
The clock said we had twenty minutes to go. I had to finish the class, so I opted for the smaller movements and I tried to steer my boat from the rocks. I was feeling the burn in my legs, as we worked on toning our tushes but unfortunately, I was also feeling the burn in my cheeks, while my body started to feel cold. I have never experienced anything quite like it. The end of the class ended with us shouting “Sleek! Sexy! Powerful!” in a unison of feminine, exercise-induced endorphins but for me it was more “Sham! Sickly! Pitiful!”

I got through that and the girls stood for the obligatory “I was there” photo. I thanked Tara and apologised for my lack of exertions in the latter part of the class before making a quick exit, as I felt completely gripped by a terrible ache all over. I made it home and went to bed, where I stayed for 48 hours, with no lights and barely any food. I have renamed my illness Wotsit-it is, as everything smelt of a variation of crisp to me.

Really, I should count Pilloxing as half and not a full challenge down but I do want to return to do a full class, after I finish my challenge, as I really enjoyed it up until the lurgy stuck me down. It certainly had everything I enjoy in a class: sassiness, girl power, cardio, punching, toning and high energy – definitely worth giving a go, just make sure you aren’t borderline flu-like before you attend and you’ll be fine.

Sofa Dodger; One Woman's Quest to Try 100 Different Sports and Fitness Classes in a Year is available on Amazon, please click here