ジャッキーの これ、やってみよう  What if I ...

アクアサイズの教室でジャッキーが愛用している水着とタオル。これさえあれば誰でも気軽にできる。 　JACKIE HOFFART PHOTO

Last December, I hit a wall with frustration about my long work days and low energy and decided to be more proactive about it.

I needed to find some kind of exercise or sport to take up, but I wasn't sure what to do. The idea of joining a gym just bores me, running intimidates me and I find yoga too serious (I'm always afraid I'm going to fart or fall over, or that I'm not zen enough). I have no rhythm and I'm also always trying to make a joke, so aerobics or dance classes just end up with me laughing on the floor in a tangled pile of limbs.

The only physical activities I ever really enjoyed were ones where the main purpose was something other than working out — walking and cycling, for example. The point of these is to get somewhere, or to enjoy some scenery.

Then I remembered that when I was in university I had tried "aquacise" (sometimes called "aquafit" or "aquarobics") and liked it. It's basically organized dancing in water. I remember feeling a bit strange because I was the youngest person in the class by about 30 years. Even so, I remember liking it.

So I did some research and found a class that was on my way home from work. It was 45 minutes per class, twice a week and not too expensive.

On a cold Thursday in December, I went to my first class. It was just me and four other ladies, who were all my mother's age. I felt a bit out of place, but decided I would give it my best shot.

The instructor standing outside the pool started us out "jogging" in the water — a motion you continue throughout the class. He then moved on to a few rhythmic stretches for the arms and legs, but then things started to get more intense.

Around five minutes into my first class, I can remember thinking to myself, "He's not kidding around! This is hard work!" You essentially spend the entire class moving quite quickly, working your way through the shoulder, back, abdomen, butt, leg and arm muscles, but always in little sets of 20-to-30-second moves that you repeat.

When the class was finished and I came out of the pool, I felt like I weighed a million pounds; it was such a shock to be back on "normal land."

The best part comes about 15 minutes after class, when you have a refreshing high from just having done something good for your body. I'd completely forgotten about that bit of physical fitness. The endorphin rush!

Having been reminded of how much I enjoyed it, I continued to go twice a week for the next couple of months. That quickly faded to just once a week, and by March I was sometimes missing a week here and there. But in the nine months that I have been doing aquacise, I don't think I ever took more than two straight weeks off, with the exception of time away on holiday.

I feel like I've finally found a "sport" I like. Frankly, one of the biggest reasons I like it is because it's so silly! I brought a friend along to a couple of classes and she called it "aqua-clubbing" because it's a lot of dance moves, done under the water. It's just impossible to take aquacise seriously — from outside the pool it just looks like a bunch of old ladies bobbing up and down in the water, which is basically what it is, but there's a lot more work going on under the water.

But it's not about how it looks. To me, it's about having a class that welcomes everyone (seniors, pregnant women, people with sports injuries, and people who don't like the gym or don't find lap-swimming to be interesting), but also provides an opportunity to push yourself harder and have fun doing it. It's neither competitive nor serious — it's a total Jackie activity.

Next time: What if I ... cut my wardrobe in half