It was the day my swimsuit exploded.
In the year before lockdown, I had taken to attending Dingwall Leisure Centre roughly four times a week, for yoga and body balance classes. The gradual benefits to my feeble arms and troublesome lower back were huge; I felt bendy and fit, and I made a bunch of new friends.
The lovely thing about these “slow” classes, I realised, was that I actually looked forward to them. It seems an obvious thing to say, but, for me, it’s not.
In the years prior, with low self-esteem and a strong “no pain, no gain” outlook, I’d drag myself off to high-impact classes and take my place at the back of the room with a sigh, knowing that, very soon, I’d be gasping for breath, muscles screaming for mercy, face purple, slacking when the instructor wasn’t looking. I’d push my glasses back up my sweaty, slippery nose and glare murderously at the clock on the wall, which seemed to run in reverse.
Add to that the two days of stiffness which inevitably followed, and you’ve got yourself an ordeal rather than a workout.
So, with a lovely new regime of gentle, mindful movement classes in full swing, I was sad when lockdown cast us all adrift to the vagaries of our own devices. But I was not to be put off.
Fitness slid down the priority list
With the sort of enthusiastic optimism which hindsight now adjudges heartbreakingly misplaced, I spent £100 on a 12-month subscription to an online fitness channel so that the lovely, stretchy classes could continue in the comfort of my own home.
I did two half-hearted classes in the first couple of weeks, and that was it. Everything fell by the wayside, especially my tummy muscles. Later, adding insult to financial injury, I forgot that I’d paid the subscription by direct debit and, so, as year one of lockdown heaved into year two, another £100 sailed out of my account, never to be seen again.
The leisure centre thankfully reopened for classes some time ago, a fact which, until recently, I had chosen to disregard. That’s the thing, isn’t it? Once you get out of the habit, it seems too much of a faff to get back into it.
And maybe there’s more to it than that. In the aftermath of lockdown, many of us have forgotten how to function in public, or lost confidence.
My clothes still went on, maybe a tad more snugly, but who was counting?
My fitness slid down the priority list. With no need to buy frocks for Christmas – or, indeed, any – parties, no theatre trips requiring nice breeks and a bonnie top, nothing to smarten up for at all, basically, those classes with all their toning benefits became a distant memory.
My clothes still went on, maybe a tad more snugly, but who was counting? I try to value good health over the numbers on the bathroom scales and this was, surely, lockdown’s fault and would right itself eventually.
Swimming plunged me back into my schooldays
Anyway, last week my friend Jane asked me to go swimming with her. Not a dip in Loch Achilty or a scoot in and out of the waves at Rosemarkie beach as we’d been doing over the summer, but an actual swimming session in a pool. Proper exercise. Yikes.
Soon, I was counting off lengths, my slow, screw kick breast stroke unchanged in 40 years
Rolling my cossie up in my towel and following her into the changing rooms, I was transported back to the swimming classes of my Dingwall Academy schooldays. Diving for bricks. Nervy, timed races. Period panics. The wretchedness of only having five minutes to attempt to yank tan tights back up damp legs before heading into the cold to get back up the hill in time for double maths. Good times.
I climbed into my swimsuit, sensible plain black with a sturdy, and useful, front zip – no more shoulder dislocations in tiny cubicles for me! This time it felt… quite snug. My torso was taut as a wee black pudding. Swimming costumes shrink over time, don’t they?
The water was roasting compared with the splitting headache-inducing shock of the sea. But the warm water lent itself to movement and, soon, I was counting off lengths, my slow, screw kick breaststroke unchanged in 40 years.
Thank goodness the pool was quiet, is all I can say. For, as I swooped beneath the surface and spread my arms for a glorious underwater approach to the deep end wall, my cossie gave up the struggle. In a nanosecond, which I can only describe as astonishingly freeing, the zip burst open, from top to tummy button.
I can confirm, in situations like these, that modesty takes precedence over life-preservation. I was so busy casting about to check if anyone had seen, whilst hauling on the zipper, to worry about staying afloat, and so the emergency repair was carried out from the bottom of the pool, followed immediately by a hasty retreat.
I’m back at the yoga and body balance classes.
Erica Munro is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter and freelance editor
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