The Gymnase Club

It's amazing how deeply an international move disrupts your most basic life patterns. Back in the States, I was an ultra-disciplined gym regular, clocking in for a hard hour and a half workout at least five days a week, or running on off days. But so much changed when I moved to Paris that it took me a year and a half to re-establish a regular exercise pattern.

First of all, I don't have a car to myself in Paris, so I walk everywhere, or take the Metro. I haven't minded too much, because driving and parking are such enormous headaches here. However, somehow all that pounding of the sidewalks took its toll very quickly on my body. Within a month of my arrival, several chronic inflammations flared up in my hips and legs which have plagued me ever since, and which have pretty effectively put an end to my until-now lifelong career as a slow but determined runner. After much give and take with several sports docs, it was decided that I could do some gym activities instead.

So a few months ago I got a membership to the local gym. Luckily for me, it's really local--literally a two-minute walk from our apartment. A branch of the largest and supposedly most serieux gym chain in France, my local Gymnase Club is in an old Hausmannian building almost across the street from where the Statue of Liberty was built.

Here I'm going to jump out of the chronology of my story to tell you that this summer my Gymnase Club got a "relooking." That's Franglais for remodeling. But, no, it really was just a relooking. What do I mean? Well, for better or worse, Gymnase Club has been bought by Club Med, that giant French corporation of organized vacations. And as a result, the Gymnase Clubs needed to be "relooked" to bring them into line with the look of Club Med. The front desk advised me that the gym would be closed for two weeks for des travaux--remodeling work. My first thought was, why couldn't they close for this during August, when everyone leaves on vacation anyway? That is the classic time for travaux on business locations, most of which close for August as all their employees have departed en vacances.

Two weeks later I popped in to see what the travaux had wrought. Quelle horreur! My stately, funky Gymnase Club was transformed into some sort of lurid aquarium or discothèque. The walls and ancient plaster moldings were painted in at least a dozen different nauseating shades of lime green, neon orange, lavender, grape, rust, and red. Going into the locker room, down a corridor painted dark grape and illuminated with ghastly neon orange lights, I had the impression of descending into a seedy underground nightclub. Hardly an atmosphere of healthy, clean living. But I'm sure that by Club Med standards, these are supposed to be "fun" colors that create a "holiday" atmosphere. The regulars looked around with dazed eyes, shrugged their shoulders, and commented, Qu'est-ce que c'est moche!" How ugly it is! And went on with their workouts.

But back to my story. Before joining, I had walked by the club's entrance (see photo above) hundreds of times. (Notice that in the photo, the front door is open. That's because the Gymnase Club is not air-conditioned! Why couldn't they have installed air conditioning instead of relooking?) I was curious what a gym in an old building like that would be like, being accustomed to the flashy modern gyms of the US. Before joining, I dropped in one day and asked to be shown about. I came away with an impression of levels--lots and lots of them. Today, I tried to count just how many different levels there are, counting balconies and galleries. I think it's something like eight different levels, with as many stairways. My guide, used to navigating this labyrinth, marched me briskly up, down, and around. Back out on the sidewalk, I blinked in confusion, feeling more disoriented than oriented by my tour.

But I signed up. At enrollment, I was required to make an appointment with a staff trainer, who would meet with me and devise a program tailored to my needs. The next day, I chatted with Karim about the numerous frailties which have besieged me since I've come to Paris, and about the dictates of my doctors. He advised me on a program consisting of 10 or 15 minutes of Stairmaster (my old friend!) or bike--no running or cross-trainer, as that might stir up my hips. Then a circuit of various machines (ugh) which I've always detested, and a session of situps to finish off.

Well, I adhered to this for a couple of days, before branching off on my own variations, which consisted mostly of a lot more cardio workout and less time on those blasted weight machines. Meanwhile, I was trying to get up the courage to do what I'd always done in the States: aerobics. But I was intimidated. What would a French aerobics class be like? Would I be able to understand the commands? Would the basic steps be similar?

One day, feeling uncharacteristically sure of myself, I wandered into an aerobics class. As I was a veteran of 20 years of this in the US, I figured I'd have no trouble with the advanced level.

In the minutes before the class started, I gazed about the room at my classmates. To my surprise, most of them were ladies of a certain age--that is to say, 5 or 10 years ahead of me. I'm sure that no matter what age I attain, it will always be the women a bit older than I who are of that "certain age," while I, in my own head, remain forever immune from that category.

In contrast to the other levels of the gym, which are dedicated to the sorts of workouts I'd been doing, or to classes of undancified calisthenics, the familiar 'body-sculpting,' and so forth, the aerobics room was a regular fashion show. I'd been surprised by the modesty and sobriety of the gym attire so far. I'd expected that French women in the gym--as on the street--would be decked out in fantastic original gym "looks," with perfect breasts and buttocks molded to advantage by sexy, artfully coordinated gym outfits. Not so! Hardly anyone wears shorts, and in general the dress style is very sober and down-to-business. For instance, I haven't seen a single thong--so popular among suggestive gymwear in the States.

But the ladies of the advanced aerobics class--now they were decked out like real Parisians! I saw fishnet tights, sexy leotards in flashy colors, lots of jewelry and makeup (!), and many examples of color-coordinated shoes, many of them not even real workout shoes. One woman wore hot-pink espadrilles to match her leotard. I couldn't help thinking that these women were of an age where it is more tasteful not to draw attention to one's body with such flashy garb. But obviously they were of an other opinion entirely. I, in the one black shorts and bra-top I'd brought with me to Paris, didn't draw a second glance, which was just as well, especially once the class started.

The instructor, a young woman with muscular thighs and distinctly unflashy garb, strode in and immediately put a disc of salsa music in the sound system at a deafening volume. Without any introduction, preamble, or even a warmup, she launched full-tilt into the fastest, danciest, most complicated routines I'd ever seen in my long life on the aerobics floor. After for the first ten minutes, I was reduced to the absolute ignominy of just standing by my bench, feebly stepping up and down while all those ladies of a certain age whirled around me so fast that their bright colors blurred together. Their espadrilled feet jumped and tapped on top of and around their benches in complex salsa rhythms. Not a word of explication of any of the moves was ever uttered. I was, for the first time in my gym life, completely lost.

As I slunk out of the room in defeat at the end of the class, I reflected that now I understood why most of the class members were rather aged. It had taken them that long to become competent enough to take that class, which, I might add, is labelled on the schedule as the "confirmed" class, rather than "advanced." As I thought about it, I concluded that "confirmed" meant you had passed some sort of a trial or hazing process, at the end of which you were deemed "confirmed". I, obviously, was not confirmed. Or conformed, to the French aerobic style.

I would like to write now that I returned to the class undaunted, persisting among the whirling peacocks until I, too, became a confirmed member of their number. But the truth is that my aerobics ego was so bruised that I slunk into the oblivion of the Stairmaster and my hated machines, in a dreary pattern of solitary, musicless workouts, for several weeks thereafter. But finally, I emerged enough from my depression to venture into some other classes instead. I tried culture physique, 45 minutes of hard, targeted exercises set to music and led by instructors who spend lots of time correcting your form and explaining the exercises. Also, the abdo-fessiers class, 30 minutes targeted pointedly at the abdominals and the muscles of what is never coyly referred to as the derrièrre here, but bluntly the fesses (buttocks). The form of these, it turns out, seems to be extremely important in French culture, judging from the number and population of classes devoted to them.

Okay, okay, so I'm avoiding the issue of when I'm going to try another, lower-level aerobics class. I'll tell you when: at the rentrée, the mass return in September from the mass vacation exodus of July and August. Then, after several blissful weeks on end of time purely off, free, and preferably far away from home, I, like the French people around me, will return to workaday life happy and refreshed, full of purpose, initiative, and positive intent. And I intend to ride this wave of can-do attitude right into the beginner's aerobics class.

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