14. Attend a Barre3 class

Has anyone ever told you that sharks have to continually swim or else they die? The first time I heard this, I imagined that it had to do something with blood pressure, or maybe they get tired and fall asleep and never wake up because their heart rate drops too much. I have a good imagination. Neither of these things are true.

Most sharks can use one of two methods of breathing. Water comes in through their mouth, flows over the gills where oxygen is absorbed, and flows out through little gill slits. This happens in one of two ways: they either actively suck the water in through their mouths or they swim fast and water flows in naturally. When they aren't swimming, they have to use active breathing. Most do this just fine, but some can't and they die. They die from lack of movement.

I'm not mad at you; I'm just trying to breathe, brah!

People who know me know that I can't stop moving around all the time. I have three jobs that keep me on my feet, I commute by bicycle, and I have a dog that I walk four times a day. You might think that I live this way because I have tons of energy, but you'd be wrong. In reality, it's pretty much exactly the opposite. I have problems with sitting, so I don't do it. I'm the human version of our shark buddy up there. When I sit for too long, my brain stops working. I have to fight to stay awake. I have a hard time connecting my thoughts and firing up my creativity. The more I sit, the closer I am to dead. I don't have enough energy to sit, so I make my own through activity.

Here's me five minutes after I sit down. Looks like Mr. Shark and I are both mouth-breathers.

For this reason, many of my challenges for Project 100 are movement-based. But even though movement is comfortable for me, I've chosen to try things that are a little bit scary to me. I'm not the kind of woman who surfs, or rock climbs, or rides her bike any further than she has to, but I'm going to be by the end of the Project.

This week, I started easy, with a Barre3 class. Sometimes just going somewhere new and breaking your routine can be a little scary, and that was really the point with this challenge. I've been in a rut. I needed to break the monotony of my normal routine, and going to this class did that. Happily, it was also a great class! I was so impressed with the pacing and workout that I fantasized about becoming an instructor. It was a delicious, no-impact, barefoot, internal fire-building workout. I will be back, and maybe I'll try to do a little less mouth-breathing next time.