My pilates class takes place on a Monday evening straight after work. Usually, it’s the most I can handle on the first weekday back at work: gentle breathing, relaxing, stretching. I always leave the class feeling refreshed and ready to face the week ahead. Also, the muscles do ache a bit in the following days so it’s got be working something right?

This week however, our instructor decided to do something different. No sooner had we warmed up, then he put on some very odd floaty, flutey music and got us to start prancing around like birds – he called this his Avatar workout and kept on referring to various scenes in the film that apparently had inspired the routine.

Now, it’s a well-attended class, and while there’s enough room for stretches and poses there’s not quite enough space to go flinging your arms around and not connect with someone’s head.  Also, I suspect that many of us attend this class precisely because *usually* it requires little in the way of coordination. For once, I couldn’t wait for the class to end – and now I live in dread as to what he has in store for us next week – best check what’s on at the box office…

Lara Crisp, Managing Editor