Bosnia

He keeps shouting Bosnia... and every time he does, I get even more confused and lost.

Let me start from the beginning. I think I might be confusing you. A couple of months ago, one of my seniors in the office told me how Wednesday is just the best day to hit aerobics. It is a great experience, the class is always full etc,etc blah blah blah. I was sufficiently impressed. Of course the thought was somehow forgotten for a few weeks until one fine Wednesday my pap's comes trotting down with his gym bag. A really pretty gym bag and I am not one to look pretty things in the face without feeling the need to connect with it. I am easily swayed by colourful advertising.

"Are you hitting the gym today?" That was my ignorance at play there. "You want to join me?" That was his ignorance at play. That is how I ended up in what I believe was the hardest endeavour of my life. You see, I have done many hard things in my life. I have peaked Kilimanjaro, I have slept in the cold , I have even had my eyebrows tweezed many times. But never in a million years did I experience the shame and pain that comes with taking an advanced aerobics class ..... as a beginner. I t was like a kindergarten child doing a college C.A.T!

So there I am. Quite late for my first class. So late infact that the veterans upfront were already sweating by the buckets. The instructor kept screaming in a foreign language from another universe. It was not English, and it was definitely not any dialect I had ever heard before. The veterans changed direction with every scream. That is when I opted to run left and right at intervals and occasionally turn in a circle until that part of the class ended. In my uncoordinated jumps, I found a kindred spirit at the back. She was my fortress. Every time, we found ourselves being faced by the class (literally, because he had barked in Kripton language for them to turn), we would look at each other knowingly and sadly. And we would know that all this would not be in vain. We shall conquer!!!! So after a couple of hours jumping up and down and turning in circles, he instructed us to take the steps thingies. Or rather, he instructed the others to take their step thingies. I just followed them. They could have been going to hell, and I'd have just followed them there. Now here is where it got interesting.... The language changed, the veterans jumped higher. However, to me, it was like turning on the turbo on a jalopy that has had too, too many years on it. It was brutal. This was when the instructor started screaming "BOSNIA!!" Now after the first few times, I came to understand, Bosnia is a barren land where only the fittest survive. Only those with the most gas in their tanks and food in their vaults lived to tell the tale. It was where brutality was born. And where the leader fed off the sweat off the weak. I started wondering if this was how I would die. Had I brought myself to slaughter. Why had no one warned me about my fate. It was BOSNIA!!

By the time I was done in Bosnia, all I wanted was for my gentle Saviour to carry me home. But the was not to be. I was to take myself home. And all this was after a warm down that included strange looking crunches that the instructor mus have invented to torture us, things that looked like we were riding bicycles upside down and little scissor like leg things that he counted into the hundreds. After something that felt like 12 hours of exercise, we did finally get to breathing exercises. It felt like we had reached the promised land. I was no longer in Bosnia. This was Canaan. The land of deep breaths and honey. It was where men did not sweat for their food. This was what freedom must feel like. As you may have noted, the breathing had 2 effects which I think this instructor deviously knew. 1. It made you believe that Bosnia was just a myth created by your own self-defeating mind 2. It made you believe that if he would start all over again, you might actually make it. That your mind was at peace with the body (all lies I tell you. All lies!!)

That is how I ended up going again after that. For a full month infact. I almost believe that I could conquer this class. That Bosnia had nothing on my resilient a*se. I have since moved to the center of the class and I almost understand what the instructor is screaming half the time. I have stopped moving side to side and now occasionally lift my knee and twirl graciously with everyone else. And I have since felt like I know what might come next. I am armed and ready for war. This will define me. Hopefully soon I shall come again and say "I HAVE CONQUERED BOSNIA!"