Sarah Chekfa

Clean Girl

CONTROLOGY IS NOT A FATIGUING SYSTEM OF DULL, BORING ABHORRED EXERCISES REPEATED DAILY "AD-NAUSEAM.” 

— Joseph Pilates

Four years ago while walking past the huge guys lifting at the gym on my way to the Pilates studio, I would think about how any one of them could snap me in half like a twig and I would get a little thrill. That thought almost never crosses my mind anymore. I think that’s a sign of growth. CHANGE HAPPENS THROUGH MOVEMENT AND MOVEMENT HEALS.

Something feels different in Pilates today. The air weighs me down, like I am in the bed of a strange, sleeping man, crushed beneath his body, his stained bedsheets pressed against my cheek (he doesn’t know he’s crushing me; he doesn’t even know I’m there). I realize what’s wrong: a man has infiltrated my girls-only Pilates classroom. I see him gazing lecherously at my adorable Pilates instructor, who also happens to be the perfect candidate for the next Bachelorette. She reminds me of Hannah B. I can picture her announcing to the class: “I Have Had Sex ... And Jesus Still Loves Me.” She formerly worked as a Disney Princess at the Walt Disney World® Resort in Orlando, Florida. He taints her with his explicit thoughts. She has no idea. She is in the downward dog position in her chia seed-toned Outdoor Voices CloudKnit High Rise Wide Leg Pant, and he is staring directly at her ass. He has the perfect vantage point from what is obviously his deliberately chosen mat right behind her. Leg circles: I glide my leg into the air, up, I am trying to be accepting, around, I am trying to be calm, up, around, I am trying to breathe. BREATHING IS THE FIRST ACT OF LIFE AND THE LAST. OUR VERY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT. 

The Pilates method, originally referred to as Contrology, was developed by Joseph Pilates during World War I to rehabilitate injured soldiers. Now it helps third-year digital marketing associates at HBO strengthen their core and tone their glutes so they can look like the clean girls they see on Instagram who took up Pilates so they could strengthen their core and tone their glutes so they could look like the clean girls they see on Instagram. Joseph Pilates would find them confusing but also kind of hot, probably. The blonde wearing a Cartier LOVE bracelet to the left of me feels a Buzz on her wrist. (She has reached her target heart rate zone.) She perks up and taps her Apple Watch, sighing dejectedly upon seeing that she has burned only 56 calories in the past 14 minutes. The brunette to the right of me is wearing two Cartier LOVE bracelets. She thinks she can fool me into thinking she is a singular lover of luxury and elegance and dons no such contemptible self-surveillance device, but the crass girth of her ring betrays her. It’s obviously an Oura ring. THE PILATES METHOD TEACHES YOU TO BE IN CONTROL OF YOUR BODY AND NOT AT ITS MERCY. 

I found out that my Pilates instructor broke up with her boyfriend on Instagram and now when it’s time for planks she tells us to pretend a candle is being held to your belly button and your abs are lifting away from the flame, pretend like you are trying not to be burned; gone are the days of pretend like a strand of pearls is dangling from your belly button and you’re trying to be as still as possible so that the pearls can catch the light. She has taken to integrating the SAD (Spinal Abdominal Destabilizing) Ball™ into her routine, squeezing SAD between her legs as she thrusts her hips toward the sky. PILATES IS COMPLETE COORDINATION OF BODY, MIND AND SPIRIT.

Sometimes when I’m lifting weights I start to worry that my grip is too loose and imagine the three-pound weight in my right hand colliding with the temple of the brunette with the Cartier LOVE bracelets and Oura ring right next to me. I imagine her look of dermaplaned perma-blankness melt briefly into vague surprise before assuming the realization of pain, weight dropping from her hands, blood trickling from Botoxed eyebrows down the recesses of fat-grafted cheek, salt-tears mixing into blood, JuicePress Blue Magic Protein smoothie spilling onto the floor, blood leaking onto mat, blood and vegan plant protein kissing at her Essie-not-so-naturale-pedicured feet, girls rushing around her like worker ants around a rotting Red Delicious, someone call 9-1-1!, blood and blue spirulina mixing together make the most beautiful shade of violet, really it’s more of a wild lavender, like that vibrator that’s sitting in my shopping cart online, I should just pull the trigger already, Chappell Roan is still blasting from the stereo, You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling, but that’s not true because the world is stopping but the feeling still lingers, just like the blood, hours afterwards the custodians are trying to scrub the blood out of the mat but it’s there to stay, a reminder that THE MIND, WHEN HOUSED WITHIN A HEALTHFUL BODY, POSSESSES A GLORIOUS SENSE OF POWER.