Dear Substitute Pilates Instructor,
Tell me what to do with my legs, arms, hands, feet, back and butt. Tell me to lift my toes, wrap my thigh muscles, bend my elbows. Tell me to look forward. Tell me to stop shrugging my shoulders. You're the boss. I submit.
But don't tell me to smile. That's the one muscle I get to fully to decide what to do with. I'm concentrating on all my various parts. As a busy mom, I have not a second to spare on a smile. I have something called a "powerhouse" that I'm supposed to be engaging. Times like these, I must not be distracted with frivolities.
And for that matter, where does anyone get off telling anyone else to smile? Nothing makes me want to stick a shank in some guy's gut faster than when a random stranger approaches and tells me to smile. Fuck you. What's next, telling me what to do with my uterus?
Exactly.
My smile is my domain. My smile is sincere and true. Or I'm trying to trick you into being at ease and liking me. But that's my call. I decide when I'm false. You decide when I half-assed my elephant and whether or not I need to do it again.
Sincerely,
Little Ms. Frowny Pants with the Tight Hamstrings
posted by RL @ 10:58 AM
8 comments
8 Comments:
That's one of my major pet peeves too. Smile at this, dickweed.
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It is physically impossible to smile while doing pilates.
Generally I scare people a little too much for them to tell me that, but I dislike it when a stranger tells me to smile, especially if they use cutesy words to do it.
I was doing music at an Episcopal retreat once where some numbnut decided a clown/mime Eucharist would be fun- when I got to the altar for my little piece of fish food, the fucking mime priest pulled the wafer back and made the universal 'smile' gesture, so I made the other universal gesture and snapped the thing out of his hands- I mean REALLY! YOU smile, white man.
Haaa! lengthen & strengthen those muscles and turn that frown upside down while yr at it! HAAAA.
she just wants a bunch of well-toned emoticons I guess. I've always wondered, when people say that, exactly why they're uncomfortable with someone not being smiley at that moment in time.
Smile? Just think of it as another set of muscles. The teacher isn't telling you to be happy (unless the teacher is an idiot); the teacher is giving you an exercise in concentration. Can you consciously control more than one muscle set at a time?
When my yoga teacher tells me to smile I oblige. When she tells me to hold my head at a certain angle or adjust my stance, I do that. Best I can.
You're back from Europe and already doing pilates? You are a goddess.
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