Grace loves company

In case you've not seen one before, this ball here to the right is a girl's best friend at the gym, in a brutally masochistic sort of way. There are so many ways to torture yourself with this ball, particularly your abdominal muscles. The ball I use is about two and a half feet in diameter. I sit on it and lean all the way back, put my arms in the air and then sit up and reach for the sky, and back and up and back and... after a while I'm in so much pain and breathing so hard that I have to put my head down on my knees and think happy thoughts while sweat drips down my brow. I also lie on my back and put the ball between my feet and lift my legs, while holding the ball, up and down, to the point of muscle fatigue, then rest. Then do it again. There are a number of other grueling exercises that I do with this thing, exercises that involve contorting my body into embarrassing positions, like the one with my bottom in the air that I'd rather not write about. It all sounds easy but it's not. In addition to the work, it requires balance, something I don't have in abundant supply.

Yesterday, my friend and I were on the mats 45 minutes into our overall workout, sweating and breathing hard and ready to tackle this last element of our program. She put the ball between her legs, lifted, and promptly dropped it. On her face. The look on her face was priceless. And we laughed, laughed like school girls. And that's where it started. I fell off my own ball, twice. More laughter. Laughter that involved the same sore muscles we were working, which made them hurt more, which made me laugh more. Serious gym-goers were eyeing us sideways with disdain because laughter, that's not what you're supposed to do at the gym. But what a release it was! It took a while for me to stop and focus again, but when I finally had that focus, the rest of my self-inflicted torture-ball time was with a definite smile on my face. As a matter of fact, that smile is still with me. Because, seriously, give two klutzes a rubber ball and all sorts of unexpected antics can take place.