I thought that Miraval would be the perfect place for me to start to get my old body back. Steve wasn’t sure about going to a spa. “What do you do there?” As I ran down the list of activities that included a state of the art gym, horseback riding, rock climbing, mud wraps, facials, yoga…….
“Ooh, honey they have something called Pilates”
“What the hell is Pilates?” I asked and looked it up in the glossary that was in the back of the brochure.
Pilates – a series of controlled movements engaging the body and mind, promoting physical harmony and balance for people of all ages and physical conditions; focuses on improving flexibility and strength for the whole body; promotes the release of negative thoughts; lengthens and streamlines the body
hmmm…. It sounded interesting as I looked it up on the internet to see if I could find out more. I discovered that Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Goldie Hawn and a slew of celebrities all did this Pilates. Based on the definition that I found in the spa brochure, it sure didn’t seem like much, but I couldn’t wait to try it.
It took seven hours and two airplanes before Steve and I arrived at Miraval. A driver met us at the airport, took our bags and drove us through the Arizona desert to a place that I could only describe as paradise. The smell of lavender filled the air as we walked into the lobby greeted with a fine mist of cool water. This was better than I had expected, in fact, it was perfect!
This was exactly the type of place that my body needed after having two kids. First I needed to have my gall bladder removed; which should never be done as an outpatient, but somehow I let the surgeon talk me into it. I remember waking up from surgery feeling like I had been shot. I just wanted to get the hell out of there, but for some reason, the nurse wanted me to walk and pee before sending me on my way. I am assuming that was some kind of medical test to evaluate whether or not that I would be able to live through the night. When I continued to have pain months after the surgery, I was convinced that it was a result of the operation. The pain was in my ribs. It wasn’t anything that I could pinpoint, but it would strike without notice and the pain was severe enough to bring me to my knees. The doctors hadn’t a clue what was wrong with me, but since they couldn’t find anything after running test after test they assumed that I must be a drug seeker…….. because that would be the next most logical choice. Of course the fact that I had no history of hospital visits or anything in my blood work that looked suspicious didn’t seem to make a difference to the emergency room doctor on duty that night. I had a better chance of scoring a percacet on the streets of Bethlehem, than getting a prescription for pain medication from a doctor at St. Luke’s Hospital.
After seeing the third doctor in the third specialized field of medicine it was decided that the best solution for the official diagnosis of “chronic pain” was to operate on my spine to block the nerve that led to my ribcage. “Seriously? I said to the doctor. Are you kidding me? “Listen, I am NOT a chronic pain person. What is blocking the nerve going to do other than keep me from feeling pain that would otherwise be there if I don’t let you cut into my spine? First of all, that doesn’t make ANY sense whatsoever, and second of all, Why would you do that?” Basically, they didn’t know what else to do, so cutting open my spine seemed like a great idea. For me, it wasn’t an option. Thanks, but I will learn to live with it.
I didn’t come to Miraval looking to solve my pain problem, but I was willing to try just about anything within reason. My old gym routine wasn’t working for me anymore. Lifting weights was killing my joints, I didn’t like to run, aerobics hurt my knees and yoga was just too “warm and fuzzy “for my taste. Not that Pilates was my last resort, but I had pretty much exhausted everything else. I took my first Pilates class the next morning. There were a dozen of us lying on the floor on mats as the teacher asked us to focus on our breathing, inhaling and exhaling. “This is what the celebrities are all raving about?” I thought to myself. At that point, I was trying to figure out how I was going to get Madonna’s body by just breathing. There had to be more to Pilates than this, and apparently I had spoken too soon. That first few minutes of what appeared to be harmless breathing was only a guise to prepare me for the pain that was about to take place. In the calmest, sweetest voice possible, the teacher wanted me to pull my navel to my spine, pull my knees to my chest, bend forward and begin to pump my arms up and down. That’s when things got ugly. Yeah sure laying still and breathing turned into a routine that involved inhaling for a count of five followed by exhaling for a count of five while staying bent forward AND pumping my arms up and down. I was fairly certain that the breathing was thrown in there as a way to distract my attention away from my burning stomach muscles. Pilates was hard and I wasn’t even half way through the class. After the first exercise that the teacher called the hundred, she had me rolling up and down, stretching to my toes, followed by sticking my one leg straight up in the air to make circles in two directions. I was rocking back and forth in a fetal position, and then laying on my side and my stomach. I was having a hard time keeping up as the teacher kept adding in more and more simple and basic movements that I was struggling to get through. By the end of class, I felt like my body was at least an inch taller. I wasn’t sure exactly how Pilates worked, but so far I was a believer or at least impressed enough to come back the next day. I stayed after class to ask the teacher a few questions and if she knew anything about the machine called the reformer. She said “We have one here if you would like to schedule a lesson” I was so excited after taking the mat class, that I couldn’t wait to get on the reformer. My teacher had an opening the next day at 1:00…….I’ll take it!
