I had a dance lesson on Saturday at 3:00. I rushed out of my house and as the door closed behind me I realized that I had locked the keys inside. I called NotHusband but he was VERY far away. I remembered that  Kel (my best friend)<!–[if gte vml 1]>

<![endif]–> had broken in once when we accidentally locked the screen door. So, I went around to my back bedroom window. I removed the screen and opened the window. As I did I heard that crash that was the huge three panel wrought iron candle holding screen that I have in front of my window. Unable to see inside due to the height of the window I climbed onto the air conditioner. It wasn’t as close or as high as I thought so I had to put one foot up on the window sill and jump with the other foot to be straddling the window sill with one leg in and one leg out. The windows in my house are long and skinny and I am not. This was one part of a larger problem. First, my landing space on the floor was now covered with the fallen wrought iron screen and glass. The screen was resting with the top part of my bed and the bottom part of the floor so jumping on it would cause it to pop up and hit me in the face. Not good. Also, small thin bars of wrought iron do not make for a comfy landing, especially not from 5 feet off the ground. Because of the height and the angle of the window if I just pulled the other leg in I would have fallen off the window because there was nothing to grab. Not Good. I tried to go to the left and lean on the wall but the wall was farther than I anticipated and I almost fell headlong off the window sill. Not good again. I finally realized that I could lay on the windowsill (to my right) snake the leg that was in the house down the wall to the left (and away from the screen). The only problem with this was that in order to get my other leg through the window I would have to almost do the splits. It was at this point that I realized the sheer stupidity of risking breaking something on my body in order to get to a dance lesson but it was too late. Because the air conditioner was so far away there was no way to get back. So I made an itsy bitsy request to the universe for help and went to it. I watched in stunned amazement as the leg on the outside straightened and stretched until it pulled through the window and I was safe on the ground. At that point the adrenaline hit me and I instantly felt like a superhero or at least cool spy chick in a movie who stealthily breaks into the house. Still, despite all the coolness, I can definitely say that I don’t want that to happen again.

There is a move in pilates where you lay on your back with your feet in straps (I know what you’re thinking girls, and it’s not nearly that BAD). You pull your legs up and over your head (behind you) so that you are resting on your shoulders and looking up and back at your feet. (Essentially, you have to get your ass over your head. (I know what you’re thinking guys, it’s not nearly that GOOD.) I have been working on this since the first day I started Pilates.

Every day that I work on pilates at home I lay on the floor to practice this. I put out what feels like a tremendous amount of effort for an almost imperceptible move in my body. I imagine that I look like a goldfish out of water and on his last breath.I just have a whole lotta ass to get over my head and I had a bit of fear that if I got it up there it would all collapse on me like a flan in a cupboard. We tried this move on Tuesday and I couldn’t do it. Yesterday, it was easy. I just floated up like I was doing it all my life. So cool!

So we moved on to a more difficult version (where you elongate the straps) more difficult and shaky form, but I did it too!. This is mostly due to the fact that I have the best pilates instructor in the world.

On Monday DancingQueen expressed some doubt about our ability to do the professional Night Club. Stupid man… Today we danced through it without a hitch and I received the rare DancingQueen high five.

I’m also starting to assimilate the new cha cha technique. He is learning the other pro routines with his pro student so I should be able to start learning those. My goal is all 8 pro routines by Nationals in November. Definitely do-able for me. I told DancingQueen today that I was frustrated that he never gave me any time to learn anything (in reference to his concern about the professional night club), but that he seems to have infinite patience with his other student. I mentioned that I was watching the lesson before me and he was telling the woman something I had heard them spend an entire hour on a few months ago. His response “It’s you, I don’t expect you to need time.” The truth is, that’s really cool. I like being treated like a professional and I can (and want to) live up to those expectations.