Fight Do!

Move aside, hot yoga, I’ve fallen head over heels for a new kind of workout.

Okay, okay, perhaps that is a bit rash. I’m not ready to thrust aside my beloved yoga, which has served me so well for over two years now. But, it will certainly be sharing time in my workout schedule with a newcomer: kickboxing.

I would have never ended up participating in a kickboxing class in Japan if it hadn’t been for one of my students inviting me to his gym after my Sunday morning class. I somewhat reluctantly agreed.

My reluctance stemmed from a rather disastrous experience at a dance class I attempted last week. I say attempted, because by no dictionary’s definition did I complete a single dance step correctly. I was a horrible whirlwind of spastic motions flailing about the studio, posing a massive hazard to those around me like a renegade tornado.

I felt crushed after and vowed not to attend a dance class in Japan ever again. Sticking with yoga seemed a safe option: despite my lack of comprehension of the instructor’s directions, my previous knowledge of the postures enables me to succeed to some degree.

So, back to the story at hand: kickboxing class. The class is actually called Fight Do, or フアイト゛ウ, because it is a brand name like “Bikram yoga” or “P-90X.”I should prefix this by saying we attended a yoga class beforehand. So, I was already a bit tired physically, thus augmenting my anxiety about my ability to do “Fight Do” class. Yet, my anxieties were, as usual, completely unnecessary.

I plan to.

Jabbing, punching, elbowing, and kicking the air is one of the most cathartic and stress relieving workouts I’ve ever done. Also, focusing on the instructor meant I had no extra mental capacity to think about my daily woes.

I hope I look this cool...

Not only did I enjoy the experience, but it also turns out that I am shockingly apt at doing the moves properly. That has never happened before, as I am completely uncoordinated. In middle school, I had to stay late after the rehearsal for musicals because I needed extra lessons to learn the dance moves. The only dance class at which I have ever slightly succeeded is Zumba, because it requires no grace whatsoever. Or, perhaps it does, but it also doesn't matter if you flail around like an uncoordinated baboon, like I do. On that note, are there graceful baboons? I always think of primates as flailing creatures. Especially when I think of myself.

Thankfully, my gym has its own Fight Do classes. And I plan to attend every weekend. 

Yoga Torture Chamber- The Saga Continues

Just call me Patty Hearst. First I was tortured in the way-too-hot yoga chamber, then I was taken prisoner. I figured, you know what, after that first hellish experience at the Bikram studio for which I bought a Groupon, there is no way things can deteriorate any further. I certainly can't say that last night's class was worse than Tuesday's. The good thing about that scarring experience was that I had rockbottom expectations for last night. After I changed and stepped through the studio doors, my body did not automatically turn into a fountain of sweat- good sign number one. The teacher walked in and seemed substantially less like an evil dictator than the the one on Tuesday- good sign number two.

As class kicked off, I got through the first postures absolutely fine, and the instructor made a significant amount of small suggestions that really benefited the way I think about my alignment in postures. When she told us to hang our heads during our first backward bend, she said "pretend your head is a tomato on a vine." Nice visual. During triangle, she explained that when the instructors tell us to have our "thigh bicep" parallel to the floor, they mean the "bicep of our thigh," and I always thought they meant "thigh and bicep." Yes, lots of truly life-changing tips there.

So, around an hour and 20 minutes into the practice, I admit I just got bored. I wanted to go home and get ready for bed. So, I waited for a posture where everyone has their heads down so they would be less likely to notice me sneak out, grabbed my mat and towel and rushed towards the door. Of course, the teacher noticed and asked if I was okay, and I just said "yeah, fine," and stepped out. Well, just when I thought I was in the clear, the two people at the front desk, the evil instructor from Tuesday and some little twat who helped sign people in, called out and asked if I was okay. Not wanting to admit that I just got sick of being in a 90 minute yoga class that was clearly going to run overtime, I just mumbled "yeah, just a little light headed…" and rushed into the locker room. WELL, twat girl followed me in as I was grabbing my stuff to make a run for it and told me I needed to come out and sit down. I wanted to slap her in the face and run away.

I hesitantly complied and sat awkwardly on a bench in the lobby area while she brought me a cold towel for my forehead. I placed the towel on my forehead like a damsel in distress simply to humor them, but got increasingly annoyed as she began to make conversation with me.

"You know, we can't just have you wandering about feeling light-headed. Have you ever done hot yoga before?"

"Um…yeah for about two years. I guess the humidity just seemed high."

"Yeah, it has been for a few days. Well, are you ready to go in to finish class?"

I gave her my best "you've gotta be f***ing kidding me" face and said "um, no, I think I'm just going to head out."

"Actually, you need to sit for awhile."

So, feeling like a captive or a child in timeout, I sat and stared at the clock, watching the seconds tick by slower than molasses moves in winter. Finally, after about 5 minutes, I decided it was time for a prison break. I stood up and tried to sneak past my captors. I grabbed my stuff, and on the way out was stopped once again by evil dictator instructor from Tuesday.

"Um, can I make a suggestion?" Boy, I love questions that aren't questions.

"Sure."

"You were in my class Tuesday and left, right? Well, you need to try to go to an earlier class. And you need more electrolytes."

I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I'll try that."

"I'd highly suggest it." He said, in a monotone.

I made my rush for the for the door and finally escaped, just as class came to an end anyhow. At least I didn't succumb to Stockholm Syndrome. I did learn from this experience, however, that I would not do well as a captive. If I went that stir crazy being forced to stay somewhere against my will for 10 minutes, imagine what days or weeks would do to me…

I'd say "I'm never going back there" but I still have 13 classes left on my Groupon. We will see what horrors I experience the next class on Tuesday….

Just Do It!

I hope Nike doesn't send their legal minions to sue me for using their motto, but it has become a personal motivation for me to initiate my daily workouts. Something that I read in an issue of the Parade magazine long ago also helps make me roll out of bed in the morning to go for a run no matter how much I don't want to at the time. It was an interview with an elderly but super fit lady whom Parade asked about her fitness routine. The line in the interview that stuck with me was so simple: "There's no excuse to be lazy." Every time the morning light blares in through my window and I just want to pull my covers over my face and hibernate like a comatose bear, that little line nags at my mind incessantly until I finally get up and hesitantly don my running clothes.

One thing I fail to understand is how my mind can never seem to wrap its head around the fact that post-workout, I feel amazing in every way. You'd think that the sheer amount of endorphin highs I have experienced at the end of workouts would train my mind to realize that, although it's tough to get going, the end result is extremely worth it. That's where the Nike motto comes in: when my mind protests incessantly to a run like a child throwing a tantrum and saying over and over "no, I don't wanna!" I tell my whiny inner-child to "just do it." Wow, that definitely sounded like I have multiple personality disorder...

Such inspiring words...

Challenging myself to run 30 days in a row has motivated me an unbelievable amount. I mean, if I don't complete the challenge, the only person I will have to report to is myself, and that wouldn't be nearly as humiliating as admitting it to a friend who imposed a similar challenge. Yet though it is self-imposed, it is working like a charm. If under any other circumstance I happened to wake up and notice the extreme gusts that seem like they could easily lift me up and fling me across the street, I would have thought "hell no am I going out in that" and plopped back in bed. Yet, today, despite the wind gusts of death, I knew how disappointed I would be in me if I didn't go out for a bit anyways. Yes, it sucked. Am I happy I forced myself to do it? Absolutely.

So here we are, about 10 days into a running streak and 20 days in a row of working out. Let's see how long I can keep it up!

I wish I looked this awesome during my runs...

A bit more accurate...

Modified 30 Day Challenge!

For any of you familiar with the clandestine community of Bikram yoga, you are already well-acquianted with the 30-day challenge. For those of you who are not (which I assume is the vast majority if not all of my readers), you will probably correctly infer that it is a challenge to do 30 Bikram sessions in 30 days. Very self explanatory. The goal of this is that you will feel so phenomenal and get so utterly addicted during the 30 days (which, not surprisingly, is usually the lengh of time that Bikram studios have introductory special rates) that you will never be able to stop, and will most likely cave in to the ridiculously high membership rates (around $150-200 a month, generally with no student/senior rates. Seriously...). I had always wanted to participate in aforementioned challenge and assume that I unofficially did while working at the studio in L.A. since I attended class so much.

After moving to Boulder, I found that there were two Bikram studios aside from the one at which I already used my intro rate- one in Longmont and one in Westminister, which offered a $49 membership for your first month. I thought, wow, how perfect! Now I can do my 30-day challenge. Yet going about 30 minutes out of my way in either direction did not appeal to me or my gas tank too much. So I decided to do a little cheating and make a personalized 30-day challenge. All it really means is that I won't get a commemorative T-shirt. Maybe someone will make me one.

As previously mentioned in other posts, other yoga studios have been essentially stealing Bikram yoga and simply calling it "hot yoga" to avoid paying for the rights to the name. This is much to the dismay of Bikram and his studios, naturally. However, the classes are literally the same exact thing. How this is legal, I'm not sure- you'd have to ask a lawyer or really intelligent law school student. Since Yoga Pod happens to be in the most convinient location for me, I plan to attend their hot yoga sessions for 30 days. Boom, problem solved. Don't worry, I will document everything on this page including before and after photos! Don't get too excited!

I fully plan to master all 26 postures below, even though I know I will be feeling like the thought bubbles in the image below the image below.

 

Photo from chocolateismylife-us.blogspot.com

Photo from theironyou.com