I’m not sure if it’s meant to be ironic but reading the name of the class for the first time it dawns on me that Barbie can’t actually stretch.
A by-product of her being made from several pieces of unmalleable plastic is that she is one of the least flexible toys you can buy.
Bend it Like a Slinky maybe, but Bend it Like Barbie? Even I can probably already manage that.
Frame’s website tells me that the class focuses on improving your flexibility and “stretching out your whole body”.
In the reception area at the Shoreditch gym, as I wait for the class to begin, exposed brickwork, clean eating and pastel gym-wear collide. There are rails of gym clothes for sale on one wall and a café selling superfood smoothies. In between all of this are bags of vegan protein and women in gym leggings, of whom I am one.
How to ‘Bend it Like Barbie’
If the class goes particularly badly I hope someone will console me with a Basic B*tch smoothie, which lists brown rice as one of its ingredients.
However, I am forced to admit to myself that the pancakes look and smell amazing.
Our instructor Diana takes us through to the studio to begin the class. There are 10 of us, all women, and we start on mats laid out across the floor.
I spend the 10-minute warm-up trying to get my lack of coordination under control.
Diana talks us through the next section: partner work. It’s at this point that my previous smugness comes back to haunt me as I realise that — for all her inflexibility — the one thing Barbie could do pretty well was the splits.
I’m sent into a slight panic when, in describing the partner work, Diana mentions the splits several times and then pairs me with Wendy, the most flexible person in the class. This must be karma.
Thankfully it turns out there’s no compulsion to do the splits and, unlike other gym classes I’ve been to, I don’t feel the pressure to match everyone else. Each person seems focused on their own limits and I don’t feel like anyone is judging me for my lack of grace and inflexibility.
Our first stretch involves laying on our backs with one leg in the air while our partner pushes it towards our heads. I can feel the stretch immediately and know that I’m still going to be feeling this one tomorrow morning.
We work through a number of different moves aimed at stretching out our arms, legs and torso.
Struggling to match the flexibility of a plastic doll
The exercise I struggle with the most is the pelvic stretch exercise, but I console myself with the knowledge that there’s no way Barbie could do this either.
This stretch involves getting down on all fours on my mat while Wendy pushes my lower back until I can feel the stretch down my leg.
She walks round to face me and pushes on my back in the opposite direction, we hold this pose for one minute — during which time I feel more like I’m in an antenatal class than Bend it Like Barbie.
As the 45 minutes draw to an end and we start to pack away, I ask Wendy whether she comes to the classes often. She’s still on the floor, and as I’m standing to the side of her, I slightly mishear her say “I practically live here”.
“You live here?” I ask, confused and momentarily losing my ability to make reasoned judgments.
No she doesn’t live in the gym, unsurprisingly, despite the fact that it does feel more like someone’s in-home workout space than a corporate gym.
She explains that she works nearby so comes most days.
I’m interested to know whether she puts her flexibility down to the fact that she comes to the classes regularly? “I’m just naturally flexible, I’m one of those people,” she explains. Perhaps there isn’t much hope of me doing the splits after all then.
Regardless of whether the class would ever help me achieve the splits I’ve enjoyed the pace of the class and it’s been good to do something less intense than yoga or a cardio workout. On my way out a poster for the Craig David dance workshop catches my eye. That sounds much more my flavour.
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