She was a bantam-weight three footer that someone had placed tidily in the corner of the room atop a shoulder-high stack of exercise mats.
When the music cued and her dad lead us into our weekly kick boxing routine, at first her eyes were huge with fascination. She kept her mouth open too, as though that would somehow help her to see better. Her mouth was one of those gap-toothed jobs that only three footers can wear and still look smart.
By the time we’d been working out for 10 minutes, her interest had begun to wane. She started looking into the mirror at herself and making a variety of quizzical faces. By the 20 minute mark, as we headed into our squats, she was passed out on the mats, legs sprawled. Somewhere around minute 35 she woke up, looking slightly grumpy and out of sorts. Her braid was a bit messy and she spent some time feeling her head, as though making sure it was still on.
Apparently needing a break, she clambered off her perch, working her way down the stack of wrestling mats, careful as a rock climber. She left the room and was back within a minute. She worked her way back onto the top of the pile of mats without asking for help. Oh, there was a minute there, when it looked like a fall was inevitable, that things got tense. Every eye was on her, but she quite obliviously inched her way to the summit and sat down as though it was all in a day’s work to scale such heights.
By minute 40 we’d headed into our cooldown and were working abs. She began to join us from on high. She would peer over the edge to see what her dad was doing and then rush to catch up. One crunch! Two crunches! Three!
She did all the stretches with considerable ease and then waited, with her legs over her head at an improbable angle for her dad to finally finish.
How I wish the three footer would come to every exercise class.