I went to water aerobics at the city pool today. Since switching gyms, I have been more than happy with the new gym’s hours. However, they only have water aerobics in the morning, which is no bueno.

I found the water aerobics class when I was searching for something fun/creative I can do while I wait for my knee to get better. The city offers craft classes, but the ones I’m interested in are early in the morning, and I have to be honest with myself that I’m not going to get up. When my tap teacher moved the Saturday class to 10 a.m., I was struggling, so, yeah, there’s no way I’m going to make an 8 a.m. ceramics class.

I look nothing like this while doing water aerobics (source)

Anyway, I stumbled across the city page then saw that they offer water aerobics. I drove past the pool a week or so ago to see where it was and what the deal is with it. The pool was closed for lifeguard training, so I talked to a guy at the front desk about how the class would work. He was nice and it seemed easy enough to sign up, so sign up I did.

I wish I had waited to see what the pool was like. First, it’s outside, which is not ideal in LA where the temperature drops off pretty sharply once the sun goes down. This turned out not to be that big a deal for the class because the pool is heated. Actually heated, too. Not “heated” and it’s still cold. No, it was nice and warm and lovely. So that was yay. The people in the class were very nice, another yay.

But. The pool does not have a locker room area. Nowhere to put your stuff, nowhere to shower (indoors–there’s an outdoor shower), and nowhere to change except the bathrooms. I’m not opposed to changing in the bathroom, but the thing is that I actually had plans for right after water aerobics that required me to shower and get dressed afterward.

The other problem with the pool is that it’s great that it’s heated, but that does nothing for when you have to get out of the water. This was the problem I had going to another place with an outdoor pool. It’s all good when it’s summer, but…you know. It’s not summer yet, and I was so cold when I got out of the pool.

Still, I made due. The outdoor shower had soap, so I was able to at least get the chlorine off my arms and legs. Yay for that. Boo for the fact that the outdoor shower water was freezing, You have to let it fun for a bit to warm up, which doesn’t sound like that big a deal except that the water only comes out in short bursts like those bathroom faucets that you press down to turn on and then they stop running water after 20 or so seconds. Again, the people in the class were super nice so a woman had already started warming up the water by pressing the buttons on a couple of showers, but still. And then, I was cold again because I had to get from the shower to my towel which was on the other side of lifeguard office.

They asked if I was going to come back, and I said I don’t know. But I should probably go tomorrow, especially since they said I could just go and make up the class I missed on Tuesday. I also have this huge hooded towel thing I bought from when I tried the outdoor class before because that facility also had some weird shower thing. I know what to expect this time, so I would just put that on after class and then go straight home.

So that will be the key. If I do the class again, I would go in knowing that I have to go home immediately after class is over. I go knowing that I’ll probably be cold when class is over.

The class itself was really good and the people were so nice and welcoming that it’s hard not to want to go back for that alone. As I said above, I appreciate that the gym pool has late hours (and is INDOORS), but it’s also nice to be in community. One thing I really like about the city class is that you pay as you go so aren’t locked into a membership or anything. So. We’ll see how I feel about it next week. Or tomorrow, I guess.