I quickly made friends doing pilates; and very soon we began to do what I named 'Après-pilates', which involved wine and good food after the class. In fact, Fridays became Girls' Day, to be respected as such by Husbands!
The ban on people getting together for classes of any kind stopped Nancy's classes in the local beauty parlour, where upstairs they had a proper air-conditioned room for pilates and yoga and similar activities, with a wall-bar and mirrors. You can see it in these shots, taken in February, just after a class:
Four of our Gang of Five are in that lower picture: me, Jackie, Jo and Valerie. Sue had had to dash off somewhere else.
So no more pilates - or Après-pilates - for maybe the whole of the summer! A glum thought.
But not long after the ban began in earnest, Nancy sent us all an email, proposing two online pilates classes, and one stretch class, forty minutes each, using Zoom. It sounded good. Surely a well-established video-conferencing app, much in the news, would be a good bet. There was no Friday morning class for pilates, but I said I'd like to join Nancy's Thursday evening class, which was the very next day.
So I installed Zoom on my laptop, and set up my lounge for the 7.00pm start. It was just over a week ago. I took pains to get the laptop camera aimed correctly, so that Nancy could see what I was doing.
The previews looked OK. It was almost time. I waited for Nancy's invitation to pop up on the screen.
And waited. And waited. Nothing happened! I gave up at 7.15pm, and sent Nancy an email, explaining that I'd had no invitation, and therefore nothing to click on, and so hadn't been able to join the class. She replied quickly, very apologetic. It turned out that she was new to Zoom too, and the one very successful class she'd already had using Zoom must have been a fluke! This time, it didn't go quite so well. She thought that in my case she had somehow overlooked inviting me, although she knew I eagerly wanted to join in, and she had all the contact information needed to establish a connection with me. Anyway, we now put it right, ready for the next time - two days ago on Tuesday morning at 11.00am.
Fast forward. Tuesday morning. More setting up. At first, in the same way as the previous Thursday, But then, while waiting for the class to begin, I saw that in broad daylight I needed to be facing my garden window, not away from it. So, I turned the mat around, and set the laptop up again.
And then suddenly Nancy was on screen, with a list of other attendees. And so we began.
Nancy had to cope with interruptions from curious pet dogs, and her husband, but it went very well indeed. I emailed her afterwards, and said that the lighting in her room could have been a little better, and the sound a little clearer, but these were quibbles: overall it was fine, and I was looking forward to next week's class. And that was the general feeling of everyone. It was much the same as a regular class. We generally used some simple equipment, and of course being at home most of us didn't have that, only our mats, and some cushions, and whatever support nearby furniture might give. But most kinds of exercise were possible. Nor did it feel one-to-one: I was well aware of the other participants, so we genuinely did it as a group.
I suppose the bigger the screen, the more like the 'real thing' it might be. My 13 inch laptop screen was only just large enough.
But nevertheless it was a success. I don't think Zoom is as slick as they make out, but it does work. And now I know that I'll get through the summer with pilates to look forward to every week.
