We Like to Move It, Move It! (Well, Sometimes)

Among the adjectives my friends use to describe me, "sporty" rarely features on top of the list, simply because I'm not. While I really love skiing and would gladly ski every day during the season if I lived in a ski resort town and had the opportunity to do so before or after work, I don't really do any other sports regularly apart from swimming, which I don't practice in a truly "sporty" way, either. This does not mean that I don't like to walk or move in general.

For this year's birthday, Frida gifted me tennis lessons because she desperately wanted to have a partner to play with and nobody in her family was eager to take on that role. I was really looking forward to it as I had actually toyed with the ideas of learning to play tennis myself. Somehow we struggled to find a time and place to put that plan into action and so she suggested a badminton course offered by the University of Vienna's Sports Institute instead, together with her hubby (known here as the Prototype). Well, last Thursday we had the first 1.5 hours session together with more than a dozen others, most of whom could technically be our children. It was SO much fun and the time was over really fast. If nothing else, our "laugh-muscles" were trained extremely well. Remembering the last time I played badminton, back when I was still as student myself, I also vividly remembered feeling like a granny with severe arthritis for days afterwards when I could hardly lower myself on the subway seats. I told Frida "Wait for those sore muscles!" "No way" she said (the Prototype was in my camp and also thought we'd feel this). Both of them run and work out regularly so I could be convinced that it would just affect me. The day afterwards was fine, but on Saturday, I struggled to climb stairs. I wrote into our WhatsApp group "And, still no sore muscles?" "OMG, the LEGS!!!" she answered. I'm relieved it's not just me who feels old and decrepit, but I am really looking forward to next Thursday.