It all starts tomorrow

I am a graduate student living in Chicago.
I live on modest means (I'm told that is "polite speak" for poor).

In the past I have liked to attend work-out classes.  But I have found that they can be really expensive here in the Chicago.  Of course, this has worked wonders as an excuse to not exercise.  I find that I will go to a class or two, realize how much money that cost, decide I could try a different type of exercise and then not try that other exercise after all.  Normally, within a few weeks I am back on the couch with my grey cat Kitten.  He does not help motivate me to exercise.  He does encourage me to nap.

Anyway.  Once upon a time I danced ballet.  I started ballet when I was 18, so when I dreamed of dancing in New York, I was aware that the dream was delusional.  Never the less, I loved dancing ballet.  I was strong and flexible and leaner that I had been before.  It was a glorious 3 years of ballet classes and then I moved to Chicago. Here ballet cost money.  I don't like spending money on non-tangible things and ballet classes were not tangible. I also had to take the L to get there, so that was a hassle.  That was that. I stopped. I was being frugal and being frugal is good. Yay for me!

Fast forward a few years and all residual muscle from Ballet has long since gone.  Lifting things is hard. Walking up stairs- meh. Running, well running is not fun.  I have made a few half-hearted attempts at working out at home and I have discovered that I am very influenced by peer pressure. I need other people working hard around me for me to also work hard at my exercises.  So, I really do want to take classes.

Solution: Find free classes in Chicago.

Done. I found a ton.  All sorts of free classes.  Being a good student, I have created a spreadsheet and I have organized it.
I have also purchased some yoga pants.  The pants make my butt look great, so I feel like I have taken a valuable step.  Also I walked to the store to buy the pants.  I feel like the whole pants buying experience was progress enough for one day.
Tomorrow I begin testing random classes around the city.  Everything I try is going to be cheap. My goal is for every class to be free (but if I do spend money I will say so).

I have not been physically active in any kind of substantial way in 2.5 years, so when I rate these experiences, take that into account.  I will describe how things go at these classes and I will say whether I would be willing to pay for classes in the future at the location.  Since my goal is to try the free stuff, I am going to be trying a ton of things that I would not have tried otherwise (like indoor rowing, cross fit, jui jitsu...).

Here goes nothing. It all starts tomorrow at 11am.  I'll tell you how it goes.