The gift of gym...or not

For Mother's Day my lovely husband purchased me a two week pass to the local gym...now you might be excused for thinking it to be a strange gift, especially those that know me and the lengths I go to, to avoid excericse.  But there was a lot of thinking behind the gift...the gym has a spa section with sauna. jacuzzi and swimming pool and it also has a large Costa coffee shop... the idea being that I could go there to chill...

I went last Monday to activate my membership card and as part of the deal I got shown around the whole gym by one of the staff.  I am actually familiar with this particular gym as I was a member for about six months a long while back (yep I went 2 or 3 times a week) but life gets in the way, time and priorities change...

He showed me the swimming pool first which was packed to bursting with ladies leaping about doing aqua aerobics, loud music blaring out and the instructor shouting loudly to be heard over the top of it...calming it was not...

Then onto the gym which at 9.30am on a Monday morning was heaving...again mostly women all on the running and rowing machines...it was noisy, hectic, chaotic and swirly...and smelt of old sweat...

Classes next...there were two exercise classes in progress both were packed to the rafters and again all ladies squished in like sardines...very overwhelming...

However the Costa coffee was empty...

I am not saying that gyms are a bad place, not only was I a member a couple of years ago, pre children I used to go regularly after work and loved it.  But that was a long time ago and my ideas have changed.

Two weeks ago I started going to a She Flow Yoga class held by a friend, in fact to be honest I signed up:

a. to support her new venture,
b. coz Tracey said it would be good for me and she's too scary to argue with...
and c. because I suffer from polyarthralgia (side affect of having ulcerative colitis) and the consultant said I should do some yoga or pilates to ease my joints...well I did one kundalini yoga session from You Tube and nearly killed myself and purchased a pilates DVD that is still in the box...

Anyway I digress...back to She Flow Yoga...well blow me down with a feather, twirl me round and call me Susan..I LOVE IT!

What the gym gift has actually done partnered with my new found love of She Flow Yoga is to give me a butt kick and make me reassess my eating habits AND to start practising my new yoga skills every day and I am enjoying every moment.

So a huge thank you to my gorgeous husband for his gift that was very well received, just perhaps not with quite the effect that he meant and a big thank you to http://sassyology.com/flow/ for the gift of sacred movement yoga.

Excuse me...I am off to wake up my Shakti...