Inspiring Friend #1: Jackie

I’m certainly not alone in this whole career crisis thing.  I’m constantly inspired by my friends’ bold career moves and the creative ways in which they find fulfillment.

Today’s inspiring friend is Jackie, who I met while studying abroad in London.  We were both twenty years old and had no idea what we wanted to do with our lives beyond partying and backpacking around Europe.  Ten years later, our paths have crossed again in Austin, and it seems we’re both still working things out.

Jackie recently decided to supplement her career by becoming a part-time fitness instructor.  Personally, I would pay a large sum of money to avoid becoming a fitness instructor.  I’m pretty sure instructors are expected to show up without fail, and I value the freedom to skip my workout because I just ate or because my neck hurts or because I’m afraid of getting ringworm – at any moment, I have dozens of ready excuses.

But today I sucked it up and went to Jackie’s first class at the opening of Austin’s new Pure Barre studio.  If you’re not familiar, Pure Barre is the latest workout craze and draws its inspiration from ballet.  I was feeling pretty confident given my past experience as a ballerina.  Look at that form!

But, um, yeah, this was not the fun and easy ballet that I remember from grade school.  I almost cried during the warm-up.  I wanted to scream out, “Jackie, I thought you were my friend!  Why are you doing this to me?!”  I guess the fact that I almost threw up only attests to her prowess as an instructor.

Since I signed up for an entire month of classes, I suppose I’ll have to go back at some point, although I’m not thinking about that right now.  You’re lucky that I found the strength to walk over to my laptop to post this.  On the plus side, only 14 more classes until I have a dancers’ body.