pilates

Here in Brazil it is pronounced 'pee-LOTS', which is apt because I always drink a lot of water before class and pee out lots afterwards.

And it's awesome. My fondest memories of Brazil will be of the ceilings and roof beams at the Kaizen studio, where I've learned more Portuguese than Rosetta Stone and Muito Prazer combined.

Thanks to Pilates I can count to twelve, or at least know when someone else is doing it. I also know all kinds of key vocab like glutes, abs, knees, breathe in, breath out, and 'Let's go!'

It's not just the weird machines with pulleys and springs and rolly-carts that rule. It's also the bouncy balls and bean balls and foam noodles and plastic arc-y things. And also that I love exercise that you do while lying down.

The teachers are also pretty fantastic, not just in their knowledge of anatomy and rolly-carts, but also in their ability to put up with how weak i am. (Machines and rolly-carts often have to be adjusted and sometimes disassembled and reassembled to accommodate my 'arms-of-a-six-year-old.')

I like my Pilates teachers so much that I do odd little things to be considerate of them.

The first time Mark saw me spritzing perfume onto the crotch of my pants he asked - with his eyebrows -  'But why?'

And i explained that often while adjusting springs on the rolly carts a Pilates teacher's head can come awful close to one's chach and that I want mine to like me.

It's not that I think I smell. Or even that they'd care if I did. Or notice.

But like, what if I did, and they did, and then I was kicked out and put in jail and told to never come back to the best Pilates studio in São Paulo? Where then would I learn Portuguese?