“ONE TIME ON THE CROSS TRAINER I TURNED TO MY LEFT AND SAW BJÖRK DOING THE SAME AS ME. ‘IS SHE ENJOYING IT?’ I THOUGHT. ‘BECAUSE I’M NOT’”
MY PHOBIA OF GYMS started years ago, in 1988.
My father would pick me up on a Sunday and drive me to Redbridge Sports Centre to take part in a karate class he taught. Two hours of mind-crippling boredom would ensue, my arms flailing about like demented windmills, as I never quite knew what I was supposed to be doing. I’d then have to wait for my father while he used the gym.
The demonstrations of maleness I witnessed, the weights flung about like toys, the talk of women as ‘birds’ or ‘her indoors’, all felt like a parallel universe — a universe where no…
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Attitude (Digital) - 1 Issue, October 2017