At the core

I went to pilates last night. It was with a teacher who is known to be a nasty person but she teaches a halfway decent pilates class after 6pm so I sometimes go to it.

We were all setting up our mats and she seemed to be having trouble counting the number of people because everyone was scattered willy nilly around the room. She's probably in her mid-forties and I think she used to be a ballerina, which might explain why the experience of her is so severe. She has her bright red hair cropped into a pageboy haircut that I would believe was a wig if you told me and I might believe it anyway.

For some reason, counting us was extremely important to her yesterday. So she proceeds to have a hissy fit about getting people lined up just so - one person behind another in a very precise way (ballerina heritage?). I had the nerve to suggest that we set up in a staggered formation so that people could actually see something other than the back of the person in front of them.

This subversive suggestion got me moved to the front row. Not the front row with other people in it, where I tried to move when she told me to move up. No - the front row with the teacher. She was apparently so irritated by my desire to see that she decided to make everyone watch me do pilates for an hour.

"No one ever said they couldn't see before. I think it's because everyone comes so regularly that they all know the exercises and don't need to see," she snapped at me while getting ready to start class.

She begins class (it's about ten minutes late now). Then, after the first set of exercises, she pulls a fast one: stands up, picks up her mat, collects her other belongings, walks to the back of the room, has everyone turn around, and proceeds to teach the rest of the class from the back of the room, meaning I am now at the very back of the room. In a row all by myself.

I shared the story with Eric over dinner in an effort to determine whether I should take this personally.

"No, for her to have done that intentionally requires her to be thinking two or three moves ahead," figured Eric. "That seems unlikely."

Yeah. But still. Weird, no?