The Fitness Instructor Keeps Telling Me to Tuck and Shine

A dispatch from the frontlines of Pilates and Bar Method. Plus recs for The Auntie Bulletin, Mohanad Elshieky, and Alison Stewart.

First of all, if you live in the U.S. in a state that allows for early voting, vote! If you’re not sure if you’re registered or how to vote, you can find all the information you need here.

People keep saying this is the most consequential election of our lifetimes. It may very well be! For me personally, I don’t think it will be more memorable than the middle school election where I was elected to student government and then subsequently impeached on a technicality by one of my friends who wanted to see if he could orchestrate it (he could). Or the college election where I was able to vote for a man named Cash McCracken for the role of student body treasurer, a position he was surely born to fill. This election may not be more personally memorable, but it’s unquestionably much more important so please, please, please, VOTE!

I would like to offer a brief respite from election-related panicking and tell you about my experience taking two exercise classes that were certainly not geared towards me. Last week, my friend Eliza, who is training to be a pilates instructor, sent a mass email asking friends to sign up for a slot with her to do a private lesson and help her practice / get her hours in.

A chance to help a friend and get a story? I replied yes immediately.

Just a couple pals all being bridges? Sign me up.

I got to Eliza’s apartment and realized immediately that I had not brought any of the required gear, like a yoga mat, despite her email saying I should. She very generously offered that I could use hers. Eliza had music on from a Spotify playlist called “cool girl pilates.” We started the session and two things became clear immediately:

1. Eliza is a very talented and generous teacher.

2. My brain has almost no control over my body

Eliza would give a simple instruction like “raise your left leg a little higher” and I would curl my back. In case you’re unclear on this, the human back and the human leg are not the same body part. However, we soldiered on.

At one point, Eliza told me to imagine my hips were spotlights and to shine them towards the ceiling. I immediately had a flashback to a day eight years ago when Mollie had brought me to a Bar Method workout class with her. It was a special “bring your husband or boyfriend” class and there were about 3 other guys in the class. One guy was very athletic and doing great. Another guy was middle of the road. Then there was me and a forty-something husband who was clearly very unhappy to be there. At one point, he called the instructor over and then said, “yeah, I am NOT doing that.”

I, on the other hand, was trying my hardest TO do that. The issue was I had no clue what “that” was. The instructor told me to shine my sacrum towards the wall and I was like, “I had no clue I had a sacrum and I do not in any way understand what it would mean ‘to shine it’ in any direction.” The Bar instructor tried to help me by telling me to “tuck my pelvis” but that was also an incomprehensible instruction. Finally, I just kind of waggled my butt up and down and the instructor gave up and went to another person.

Eliza was much more understanding! By the end of our private session, I had both tucked and shined. I’m a changed man. I write this to you, firmly grounded on my sacrum, breathing deeply in as though the oxygen is a shower rinsing my insides.

My projects and upcoming events:

TED TALK: How to find laughter anywhere - My TED talk is online and on YouTube. Please watch and share! You can find it here

PODCAST: How to Be a Better Human (TED/PRX) - The Australian playwright David Finnigan wrote a very funny, satirical play called Kill Climate Deniers that was then turned into a right-wing talking point and spread virally online. But what happened next is really surprising. Finnigan started talking to a lot of the people sending him hate mail and those interactions led him to understand some very important distinctions between people who accept climate change and those who deny it. This is a conversation that has reframed the way I think about the climate crisis. Listen here (or wherever you get podcasts)

This week’s list

GREAT:

Even before becoming a dad, I’ve always enjoyed talking to kids and hearing the wild things that they think about. This piece, from Lisa Sibbett’s newsletter The Auntie Bulletin, is all about how to be “significantly involved in helping to raise other people’s children.” She gives excellent practical advice for people who might not have experience chatting with little kids. “Kids don't want to make polite conversation. Here's what they want to talk about instead.” On Befriending Kids (h/t Ann Friedman)

FUNNY:

Mohanad Elshieky has been one of my favorite standups since I first saw him at a live Pop-Up Magazine show many years ago. This week, he told jokes for the first time on Colbert! Mohanad Elshieky: Do You Think I’m Your Dad?

INTERESTING:

Alison Stewart is one of the most talented radio hosts in the country. I’ve had the good fortune of being on her WNYC show All of It several times and I’m always in awe of her skill and intellect. I’m even more impressed now, reading about the way she’s recovering from a very scary health crisis. Her Job Was Talking on the Radio. Then Suddenly, Words Wouldn’t Come.

BONUS FOR PAYING SUBSCRIBERS:

Paying subscribers make Bright Spots possible! Subscribers get access to special features as well as all posts in the archive. Paying subscribers also get my undying gratitude (which never dies). It’s never too late to join them!

That's it for this week. Thanks for reading! Please share Bright Spots with anyone you think might enjoy it.

Shine on,

Chris Duffy

This has been Bright Spots, a newsletter.

---

…wait, who are you?

I'm Chris Duffy, a comedian, TV writer, podcast host, and both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student. I’m currently writing a nonfiction book about humor for Doubleday.