Sunday 14 June 2009

Tracy Update Stardate Sunday 14th June 2009

There are many, many times when waving one's legs in the air is a jolly good idea. But none of these situations are when you are standing up. Until Tracy learns this - or I unlearn it - I fear our relationship will not be one of Mutual Respect.

Monday 1 June 2009

Teeny Weeny Tracy and the Pins of Pain

Since Ben Ben's birthday (nearly 4 weeks ago), the Good Auntie of Windmill Hill has been in the thrall of Madonna-and -Gwynnie's personal trainer. She is an American who is obsessed with the idea that anybody can have a "teeny weeny New York City Ball-ay type body", which is obviously what Tracy herself has. Tracy is five foot nothing and works out several hours a day, it should be noted, and probably has no idea what a normal run-of-the-mill chubster like me looks like - partly because I think people who look like me and venture into Kensington are probably Removed by the Police. The other feature of Tracy is that if you freeze the DVD at any point she is in mid air, making me suspect that she can fly; an unfair advantage any way you look at it.

I have had many DVDs before - some featuring skinny people acting, and some featuring Rosemary Conley and her incredible Real People Chorus. Rosemary Conley's Chorus consists of women all slightly taller and chubbier than her sylph-likeness, each one GUARANTEED to have lost TWO AND A HALF STONE. I don't know why this is the amount, but it invariably is , apart from Shimay on the "Ultimate Workout" "who has lost four and a half stone and can't believe how much energy she has". Shimay is like Tracy, in that she always seems to be in danger of taking off and floating away, whereas the dominant ethos of Rosemary's DVDs is always that of sturdy determination, like plugging up the Brecon Beacons with a map in a plastic filing wallet on a neck-string. Shimay is too enthusiastic to exactly fit in. She might do better with Tracy - whose DVD is not at all like the Brecon Beacons.

Tracy's DVD is like being on Bootcamp with Tinkerbell. She has a dulcet American accent - crooning her "ow"s into "oh"s like a proper porn princess - and looks like - well, you know how men look at women they want to shag, as if the woman at issue is a Belgian bun? She looks like a Belgian bun. But when it comes to the Workout, she is professional in every inch of her teeny weeny body right the way down to her tippy toes (yes, both those phrases are True Tracy.) She hurls proper ballet moves at you until you feel like the target in a beanbag throw. I can do none of them, and fall over my feet shrieking with hysterical laughter (for after 20 mins with Tracy, the endorphins kick in and I giggle until I stop.) Tracy skips and springs through them like a teeny tiny elf with wings full of caffeine.

Even the warm-up is brutal. It takes four and a half minutes and at the end of it your thighs hum with pain - well, okay, what really happened was I did it twice by accident, and then couldn't walk properly for 3 days. Seriously - I was Too Hurt to Tracy for Three Days following the re-moulding of my thighs. I looked it up on the internet, and found out that the pain was because I was improving my muscle tone. Hm. When shown my knees and asked what she thought of them, my sister said "Same as usual," - a bit of a let-down considering I'd been hoping for the Gwynnie encomium about "the results you never believed possible". Still better than Ben-Ben's contribution, shrieked from round the playroom corner - "Rubbish!" Little toad.