Member-only story
I Used to Think Gym Women Were Vain
How I unlearned shame, redefined strength, and started dancing again
That very first night, something unexpected happened. I walked into a room full of women — some laughing, some shyly smiling, all buzzing with anticipation. The music began, and we moved together. We laughed, sweated, forgot the steps, and somehow still belonged.
I used to think I wasn’t a ‘gym person’, just like I wasn’t a sports person at school. My internal narrative dripped with scorn. I wasn’t like them — those people I could see from the windows, running on the spot like a hamster in a wheel.
I wasn’t obsessed with appearances. I believed I was above all that. Focused on higher things. Immune to the patriarchy’s demands to be slim, toned, desirable.
Even hearing me say that now leaves me cringing in shame, wondering at the sanity of revealing these thoughts. But I wonder if I’m not the only one.
A part of me was standing on the side-line of a dance floor wanting to take part but not knowing how to begin, but on another deeper level was a belief that somehow, ‘gym people’ were bad.
That’s simplistic, but at a core level, it felt like vanity and self-indulgence to care so much about your physical appearance. Bad to waste so much time…
