Make Me Taller, Anne

Soon I'll have legs like this

Before I started my first ever Pilates session with Anne, the wise and wonderful friend training to become a certified Pilates maven, I had a few key questions.  I was a virgin, Pilates-wise, about to climb onto something foreign.  I wanted to know what I was getting into.  "What the hell is that?" I asked, in my generally demure way.  "It's called the Reformer," Anne said, unaware of how many questions I was going to hit her with during the next hour.  She went on to tell me about Joseph Pilates, adored by dancers for his stretching and strengthening exercises, conducted on machines with funny/disturbing names:  The Cadillac.  The Electric Chair.  "So Pilates is all about torture," I said.  "Not at all," Anne said.  Whereupon I challenged her to convince me, otherwise, and she did a splendid job, positioning my feet and my legs and telling me to use my powerhouse!  She taught me how to breathe -- apparently, I've been doing it wrong all these years -- and how to twist this way and that, how to squeeze my massive glutes and engage my scalpula.  "So I'm going to have long legs after we're done today?"  I asked her.  "Maybe not today," she said, "but I've grown half an inch since I started doing Pilates."  "I'll take it.  Make me 5'2"."  "Okay," she said.  "Can I get that in writing?"  "No," said Anne.  Smart girl.  I hit her with another question.  "Why do I have so much tension in my neck, Anne?"  "You're Jewish.  It's genetic.  That's where our tension goes.  Straight to the neck.  We can't help it."  "I never knew that.  What else have you been keeping from me?"  She smiled and told me to straighten my legs and spread my toes and do other things my body objected to, but I did them anyway.  "I can't divulge all my secrets in the first session," she said.  Nice way to get me to keep coming back.  If I'm going to get taller, it might take awhile.