Blogging and Pilates - Uncompetitive Sports?

Someone asked me the other day if, when writing my blog, I was 'free writing' or writing for an audience? Tricky one, this, and I have been considering it ever since.

I am in the middle of a very long writing/editing job and, as soon as this is finished, I have another one in my in-tray so I need some light relief. So, I thought, I might write my blog. But then I am back to the question my friend asked. For whom am I writing - me or you?

Yesterday, I went to my first Pilates class. Actually, this is not strictly accurate as we have, much to the entertainment of our twins, been having home visits from a Pilates teacher for the last few weeks. The lovely, young svelte Pilates teacher has been encouraging my husband and me to adopt ever more unlikely stretchy, muscle-toning positions on the conservatory floor whilst the twins watch in hysterics from the other side of the glass door in the sitting room. Friends have been kind enough to offer to come round and watch and requests that we put the entire experience on YouTube for everyone's general entertainment have been rebuffed.

Anyway, having convinced myself that I would not make a complete fool of myself in a class situation, I bit the bullet yesterday and went to a class. And yes, it was fine and I quite enjoyed it ... but non-competitive exercise/sport is something of a contradiction in terms to me. I am doing this to protect my back - a few niggles during the tennis season tell me I need to do this - but still, and I know this is ridiculous, I want to compete somehow. I was lying on the mat yesterday, rocking gently in an appropriate manner, thinking 'I want to be the best at this!' There - I am ridiculous! So I am trying to drill this out of my system, at least at Pilates, though running, tennis, monopoly, backgammon and every other game/sport we play will be continue to be fought out to the death - as usual.

So, back to the blogging question - for you or for me? Unlike lots of other stuff I write and edit, this is, I think, for me. No client, no ready-made audience, only, I suspect, an occasional passer-by. So it doesn't have to be the best blog in the world because this is not a competition and, if you read this and enjoy it, I shall regard that as a bonus (if you let me know...) and in the meantime, I feel I can get back to the major work project in hand, feeling refreshed.

Oh, and I read a truly awful blog yesterday in the course of my work (it having been written by a competitor of one of my clients) and I was forcibly reminded that blogging is not an excuse for demonstrating the symptoms of 'Me, me, me syndrome' - unless, of course, I am writing it just for me!