Comedy

Tonight's step class was, frankly, remedial, but I had fun and the two women who stuck it out (there was a third who, quite sensibly, left early on) were very positive about it. Knowing that it was supposed to be an "easy" class -- on a motor skills level, at least -- I planned a bunch of very old-school moves to give my imagined participants a good hard workout without having to think too much -- and it was really very entertaining going back to that mid-90s style and thinking a bit about what made classes fun back then. But in the end I only used a fraction of it, and the bits I kept were relatively contemporary.

Teaching a tiny class is quite taxing in some ways, because there's no momentum, no hurtling majority who can keep things going if you miss a cue or take time out to give coaching points, but there are rewards also. With so few people, you get to actually make a connection with each individual -- and see them improve, see them get things.

Of the various "Exercise to Music" (in YMCA parlance) disciplines, step is the most rigourous, given a crisply geometric structure by that simple rectangular prop. There's a lot more room for manœuvre in floor-based aerobics, a lot more scope for faking it. The step enforces a strict topological imperative, dividing space and creating its own coordinate system. It is not, by any means, rocket surgery -- although there are some fairly abstruse mathematics in the underlying symmetries, much owing to the extraordinary Evariste Galois -- but it can be a bit of a strain for those newly-acquainted with exercise, for whom (and this is not meant in any way pejoratively, though I fear it may sound so) just hefting their bodies around at the same time as remembering to breathe can be an effort.

We live in a schizoid culture that detaches us from physicality while idolizing physical perfection. That promises happiness in a Happy Meal and tells us to sit behind a desk, yet at the same time presents tall slender maidens and chiselled manly hunks as something we should all aspire to be. No wonder most people hate their own bodies; hate their own selves.

In such a context, there is nothing but pleasure to be derived from seeing someone find their way into a hamstring curl around the world. So what if it's a crappy, dated move? It's a little bit of control they've gained over their body, a little bit of selfhood in the face of corporate anonymity. And the giggling about not getting it? That's a reclamation of self as well.

I'm such a fucking romantic when you get right down to it.

The first two episodes of the new season of Black Books were, frankly, underachievers. Not without funny moments, but -- in comparison to the warped hysteria of their predecessors -- a disappointment. Not so tonight's outing, which was brilliantly, excruciatingly hilarious. I've just picked up series 2 on DVD, and am looking forward to revisiting those gems; in the meanwhile, there are (for those of us in the UK, at least) three more episodes of series 3 to go (Channel 4, Thursday, 10pm). Watch them. They're the Fawlty Towers of our time. Or at least fighting tooth and nail for that title against Spaced.

(I told you: call me sad.)
Posted by matt at March 26, 2004 01:46 AM