While I had known about Pilates for some time, I always mentally grouped the exercise along with Step Aerobics and TaeBo: perhaps appealing to middle-aged suburban women, but not really my thing. Worse, I kept coming across celebrity endorsements of Pilates (Madonna, Uma Thurman, Courtney Cox, etc.), which, given the track record of Scientology, gave me even more serious pause. So it was with great trepidation, and only based upon the strong recommendations of both my father (a sports medicine physician) and my kickboxing coach that I began to investigate Pilates.

Initially, I was relieved to learn that Joseph Pilates was an accomplished boxer himself, and that one of his earliest students, Max Schmeling, won the world heavyweight boxing championship while under Pilates instruction. Still, watching students going through the 34 exercise mat workout, my initial reaction was: this looks really stupid. People lying on little mats, swinging their legs and rolling around. How hard could it be, I thought. Famous last words.

I’ve been doing Pilates for about a month, and by now I can usually sit up without assistance the following morning. In that time, my kickboxing and jiu jitsu have improved noticeably. I find I’m standing taller (and at 5’6″ I need all the height I can get). My waist size has dropped (Pilates tightens the transversus abdominus, yielding a waspishly thin waist) and, combined with decreased body fat (current status: 8%), my abs are the most six-packed they’ve ever been.

Still, I feel a bit unsure of my Pilates allegiance. “What kind of pansy workout is that,” I’m certain people are thinking, and I occasionally catch myself thinking the same thing. But my kickboxing has improved too significantly to give up for such small misgivings. Besides, if anyone gives me a hard time about it, I can always kick them in the head. Which, thanks to Pilates, should really hurt.