Gold Barre. This is not the Olympics.

I have built myself a weekly flogging schedule with carefully mapped out personal training sessions and exercise classes to fit within a very OCD timetable. If I put forth half this much effort into other areas of my life I could actually achieve something.  Every Saturday at 10 AM I roll into my favorite barre class taught by a Juilliard trained Jedi butt master who ensures that I shan't walk normally again til Monday.  Sweet sweet torture. That is until two weeks ago when Equinox ushered in something called Gold Barre. 

A party of 28 pain loving regulars was not amused.
 

Our new teach droned on about Equinox, Tara Lipinski (Olympics?  Nagano?  Ring any bells?), a possible pyramid scheme, and something about figure skating.  Ok, awesome.  Wait, what?! Tara Lipinski’s new business venture has come in the form of a fake ice skating class at my gym.  I get it, you gotta get a gimmick.  I once went to a Pole Dancing class where they taught you to work a stripper pole.  For fitness, not career.  I suppose I can fake ice skate for health, but you guys gotta kill the Olympic commentary. If you say anything about landing my triple axle again, I’m gonna hurt you with my imaginary toe pick.

“Get deeper into your sit spin.” 

I am hanging onto a barre for dear life in the basement of a Manhattan health club trying not to fall down or fart.  Nobody is in a sit spin.  This is just a room full of women trying to keep their butts from falling down into their legs.

“Let’s move on to camel spins.”

Nope, these are called leg lifts.  My goal here is not score points with the Russian judge but to eliminate a significant portion of the Pinot Noir I drank straight from the bottle last night.

“Feel your skirt float in the breeze as you glide over the ice.”

All I feel are my LuluLemon pants wedged up in my lady biz by a bucket of sweat glue. The breeze of which you speak is actually just a series of ceiling fans churning up the stank in here.

“Push against the ice as you build speed”

I would rather push your mouth closed and seal it with duct tape.

“This is your chance to go for the gold!”

Is 'gold’ a metaphor for burgers and fries?  Oh, it’s not?  Then you need to shut up.

Look, I ate cake out of my garbage can last night…cake that had been in the garbage a full two days prior to the moment I fished it out and began shoving it into my face.  God knows I need to burn all the calories I can.  But I am not Oksana Baul.  I’m not.  I’m just a gal trying to stay ahead of the tacos.
 

Gold Barre.
 

Stop pretending this is the Olympics. It’s NOT.