I Took an Oula Workout Class at my Gym

I just recently got a membership to a gym for the first time ever. It was the beginning of the new year, and like so many others, I was wanting to reinvent myself. And since I always had gym anxiety, I preferred to go at night when there are less people. I've gone in the morning before, but it was much easier for me to concentrate at night, since there was always some sort of class in the corner of the room, near the equipment. The gym was set up much differently than I had expected a gym to look like. It was two levels, and when you walk in the front door, you go down two flights of stairs to the front desk. Downstairs, there's a tanning bed room, the locker rooms, basketball and racketball courts, and another room used for classes. Up a separate flight of stairs, past the girls' locker room, was where the equipment was.

After going to the gym for a month, I decided it was time for me to try one of the classes. My mindset was good, and I was up for a new challenge. I decided to take an Oula dance class because to me, it seemed the most like a knockoff, modern version of Richard Simmons, which I loved doing at home. I knew a lot of people normally go to all the different classes there, so I was prepared for a crowded room. There were a few people I recognized when I stepped inside the room at 11:55 that night.

Marcia Wallace, a coworker of mine that I was kind of friendly with, was standing with her husband, Gene, towards the back of the room. I knew Marcia went to the gym just to work off the extra junk food she'd sneak in the middle of the night. She wasn't toned at all. Just looking at her, you'd guess that she had never stepped foot in a gym. When I'd see her there, she would be on the treadmill or the stair master, trying to run off the carbs before Gene would notice her gut getting bigger.

Justine Taylor, from high school, was in the corner, pulling her knees to her chest and then stretching her legs behind her back. She was always a fitness freak, did every sport she could and probably still was a size two. She was always the first to finish the mile in PE, led the basketball, volleyball and softball teams to victory, and was always a flyer on the cheerleading squad at football games. Senior year, she'd given up flying, and turned into the girl that held up the others and helped them fly instead. Bet that wasn't easy.

Peter Salvador, who worked as a reverend at one of the churches, was here in sweatpants and a hoodie. Apparently, from what I'd heard, he loved doing interactive classes like this, claimed it gave him a lot of positive energy and it was the Lord's way of socializing him outside of church. But his wife was a lady who had to use the motorized carts at Wal-Mart, so he never got to do something like this with her. She lifted weights in the comfort of their home with Judge Judy and a family size bag of potato chips.

I wouldn't expect a class like this to start this late at night. I guess since it was a 24/7 gym, they decided they'd change it up for once. Finally, the instructor came into the room, carrying a guitar case and headed to the front of the crowd.

"Howdy, folks! I hope you're all as ready to get your groove on as I am!" He pulled his guitar from the case and hooked it up to the speakers. "This is going to be different from any class you've ever taken. We're not listening to the latest hip-hop/pop music and doing the dance moves that are trending right now. You just do you, and keep on moving."

I glanced around the room, looking for peoples' reactions and they all just had smiles on their faces. That must've been what an Oula class looked like: smiles and people looking to burn a few calories doing something they could do in their living room. And there I was. I was being one of those people, standing amongst them in front of a man with a guitar in a gym at midnight.

"Let's get a beat going, shall we? I need everyone to tap their feet. It gets your blood pumping immediately."

He started strumming a fast-paced song, probably something he was making up on the spot. It didn't sound familiar to me at all. But automatically, I noticed people tapping their feet, and beginning to move their bodies to the music. Some were doing modern day dance moves, others doing ones that you'd find right out of an eighties workout video, and the rest were completely off rhythm.

Within no time, I noticed myself dancing and I was dancing so hard, I could feel beads of sweat on my forehead. My feet were moving vigorously to the twangy guitar and the instructor was smiling. His smile never faded, and never once did it look like it would. Maybe he just liked that people enjoyed dancing to his music or that he loved their enthusiasm for something like this. Whatever the case was, he was smiling ear to ear.

The room very quickly began to smell of sweat as the song continued. I noticed some people grabbing partners and even breaking out into a waltz, as if to give themselves a break from the fast-paced dancing. It took me a while to realize that the guitar man was singing but not in English. It had to be some kind of broken Latin maybe. And that entire time, he kept on smiling.

I gave my head a shake as I realized my legs were getting tired and I could feel the burn. At first, I considered it was that good kind of burn, using muscles you don't use a lot. But it was different. They were tired and I was tired. I was dripping in sweat at that point but I couldn't bring myself to stop. Glancing at the clock, it had been two hours since we'd started. Two hours. How was that even possible with no breaks? Everyone in the room had a distinct look of exhaustion on their faces and none of them were stopping.

Peter had managed to dance right next to me and he grabbed ahold of me and moved us to the music. He stunk from sweat, his face was as red as a tomato, and he didn't even have his eyes open. It was like he, and the rest of us, were all in a trance, something we couldn't break. I shook him at his shoulders. "Reverend." My voice came out in a harsh whisper and he didn't look at me. He kept dancing and I shook him again as I cleared my throat. "Reverend." It was louder but not by much, but he still didn't respond. I kept shaking him, hoping to snap him out of it, but I noticed I was doing in rhythm with the guitar.

I saw Marcia and Gene, both of them had sweat pouring down their faces. Gene's glassy eyes darted around the room in horror but he continued moving, spinning Marcia around and around, her head bobbing back and forth. She had fainted; her feet were still dancing.

In the mirror, I saw Justine drop to the floor with a scream, holding her leg. She had cramped up. I was envious because she got to stop. My lower back was throbbing and my feet were aching. Her cries of agony filled the entire building but still, no one stopped dancing. That's when Justine, tears streaming down her cheeks, trying so hard to crawl towards the exit, got back up to her feet and continued to dance on her cramping leg. She moved so fast, I saw the bone snap through her leggings. I heard the crunch over the guitar. But she didn't fall that time. She kept moving, bringing her weight down on her ankle again and again until she was almost slipping in the blood. I turned away, but that didn't stop me from hearing her sobbing.

Another lady that was dancing with a man had then dropped to the floor after cramping, screaming from the pain. I watched in pure terror as her partner stomped on her legs, still trying to keep up to the music; his eyes were blank and empty. He didn't even realize what he had done. The lady passed out from the pain and even though she was unconscious, her mangled feet continued to try to move.

The music ran on.

The guitar man's smile never ceased at all for the past four hours. At some point, Peter lost his glasses as he and I swirled. I knew at some point, I could fall myself. I needed water and about ten years of sleep. My sweat turned cold. That damning guitar. Never mind, the blisters that burst, or the broken toes and broken ankles, or the old withered hearts that couldn't keep up. The guitar man just played faster.

Gene died at one point. I watched the entire thing. One second, he's twirling around with Marcia's limp body, whose feet were still dancing, and the next, he dropped her to the floor before dropping himself. He twitched once, his feet tapping to the beat before he was still. His eyes were wide open and were red from whatever had burst in his head. A drop of blood rolled down his temple and dripped off. And I swear to you, his foot still tried to tap.

The night passed on.

At some point, I'd stepped on Marcia's right hand. She was lying on her back and had been stepped on over and over; I even saw a Nike footprint in her stomach. Her head and chest had been stomped in and still, her legs were trying to dance.

Then, the music and singing stopped. I found myself and Peter finally slowing. Nobody ran though, because we couldn't. It was a miracle we could even walk. We stood there like a herd of deer in headlights, shocked at what had just happened and shocked that we couldn't get out of there like we wanted to. The whole room had just seen limbs break and strangers die. Shock was an understatement. The guitar man was smiling that wide smile as he packed his guitar in his case.

"That's it, folks! Morning has come and we have finished our workout. Please, go home and get a lot of rest and I assure you, you'll feel better within the next couple days. I thank you all for coming out tonight. It was a ton of fun!" He kept smiling as he carried his guitar to the door and left without another word.

I took Justine to the hospital where they had to amputate her leg. She was told after months of physical therapy, she'd be able to run again, and do what she did before with her fitness. We were never close in high school, but after that night at the gym, we felt like we needed each other. She fell into a deep depression after that, switching between jobs that a one legged girl could do. I cancelled both of our gym memberships. I work out from home, continuing my Richard Simmons. Justine doesn't do much at all if she's not working. She sits in front of the TV, watching eighties workout videos instead of doing them.

Peter quit the church after that night and I never saw him again anywhere in town. I ran into his wife in Wal-Mart on her motorized cart and when I asked about him, she could barely look me in the eyes as she told me he barely says a word anymore, doesn't even say grace before dinner. He uses a cane now and his brain is hemorrhaging. He won't even go to a doctor for treatments to help it, which means any day now, he'll die.

Please, don't take an Oula workout class at your gym in the middle of the night. It doesn't matter if you want to lose a few pounds just from dancing, or burning off a Big Mac you ate earlier that day. Stick to the normal part of the gym or just stay at home and look up workouts on YouTube, because you don't know if a class could just be your last.

Justine is still planted in front of the TV when I bring her dinner. I place her plate in front of her and watch her pick it apart, not eating any of it. We don't talk about what happened. Most of the time anymore, I bring her food to make sure she's hopefully eating something. But I can't stay with her too long. If I do, she starts humming the song and the hair on the back of my neck will stand up as my foot will begin to tap against her hardwood floors.