For the avoidance of doubt, no, that image directly above is not me. The main problem with doing daily pilates classes – apart from struggling with most of the poses – is that I spend most of my time panicking that I’ve forgotten to shave my armpits. It’s something I generally do do every morning, but it’s not often that I am tested on it to this extent.

The other problem is that what looks extremely easy to do, is as actually bloody tricky.

Over the course of each week (the challenge I’m currently participating in and wrote about here is six days on, one day off) what has been great is that the bulk of the classes are taught by one instructor who has really got to know us all, our strengths and our weaknesses.

The lovely Sash who we see Tuesdays through to Fridays is definitely not too interested in the female armpit (phew!) and sporting the shortest of shorts he manages to be great fun, a hard task master and also really quite kind; especially to me, who is about as flexible as a stick.  A dry one that’s been left in the sun too long:

Yup, I can’t even straighten my legs.  Come Week four I’m hoping for some serious improvements; doing this six days a week simply HAS to make a difference.

I’d like to claim to be a complete novice at pilates but the truth is I’ve been having bank-account-emptying one-on-one sessions (albeit at a different studio) for about three months.  I love my teacher but the truth is I probably needed a boot camp like this to get me on track and discernibly undo and amend all the terrible posture habits that I have spent the last 35 years honing.

So, although I may not be that good at it, I have turned in to a pilates convert. And like most converts I think that everyone should be doing it, although it’s especially perfect for rigid English bodies (there is something that makes us English, in general, hopelessly inflexible as a nation).

My pilates bootcamp runs until the middle of September and is courtesy of Breathe Pilates. One lovely Changmoh reader, AF, has joined me in my quest to touch my toes.

Pike pose picture (very top of page) courtesy of Kate Hodder