BALLS!!!

I don't think anyone has experienced the true definition of grace and poise until they have seen me on an exercise ball.  Nor have they fully grasped things like physics or gravity. 

I have a butt-bruise, babies! You woulda thunked that my generously padded patootie, sponsored by Sealy Posterpedic, would have protected me. But alas, no. I teetered, then tottered and finally toppled to the floor in a heap.  And I was just sitting on it! I wasn't going all Cirque de Soleil over it, I was merely sitting.  The smiling and artfully sweaty ball-babe on the dvd just kept right on going while I puzzled to myself, "What the hell just happened?!"

I've had some interesting times with this ball thingy.  When I took it out of its package, the list of accompanying warnings was terrifying:

DO NOT OVERINFLATE AS SERIOUS INJURY MAY OCCUR
DO NOT USE IF ROOM TEMPERATURE IS HIGHER THAN 43C AS SERIOUS INJURY MAY OCCUR
DO NOT USE IF YOU ARE OVER 250 LBS OR SERIOUS INJURY MAY OCCUR
DO NOT USE OR SERIOUS INJURY MAY OCCUR

Ok, I made the last one up, but c'mon! I don't have a thermostat in my living room, how the hell should I know what the temperature is? I kept on having images of the thing exploding under me and me going all splat on the floor.  Then I had to inflate it with the handy-dandy inflatormabob.  I broke a sweat.  But hang on...did I inflate it too much?  Not enough?  Either way, SEROUS INJURY MAY OCCUR.  I finally got it to a point where I thought a hospital jaunt would be unlikely and then, tried it out.

Sat. Wobbled. Worked it out. Steadied myself.  Attempted a crunch.  To the left, TO THE LEFT, TO THE LEFT!!!  Steady, steady, steady...one.  And again.  Ack, right, RIGHT, RIGHT!!! Steadyyyyy...two.  Mother of God, this is gonna be a nightmare!  Ok, let's try the squats up against the wall.

So, ball on wall, back on ball, roll down wall until knees are 90 degrees, hold, roll back up.  Not so bad.  Do it a couple of times. At the tenth (heading for 12 reps), I lose the strength to roll back up.  In fact, heading in quite the opposite direction. Shit, SHIT, SHIT!! Ball goes over my head, back slams into wall, feet so close to my ass that I haven't got the leverage to hoist my own petard, and so have to roll over onto my side to get up again. The ball has spoken: You are going down.

Right, so let's try this - lie on my back, take ball between my knees, squeeze knees together while raising and lowering legs, keeping lower back on floor at all times while engaging abs. So let me get this straight - you want me to squeeze, raise, lower, engage...all at the same time. When I lower my legs, I arch my lower back, when I'm squeezing the ball, my abs are thinking of something else. I mean, really!  Unless I'm getting dinner and a lift home in the morning, you gotta be kidding me. Who are these nameless, faceless devil-spawn who come up with these things? 

To be honest, I've gotten better and there does seem an eensy-weensy improvement in the middle kingdom, but all that went crashing to the floor yesterday when I sat on it. I wasn't concentrating, fine, ok, but I thought that by now I would have at least have mastered sitting. But the ball has wicked ways.  Its ruse-riddled roundness contains perils. Heed the warnings of the ball.  I did not, and look at what happened - now I have a bruise. On my ass.

A not-so-serious injury occured. 

LiliLaLarge