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Thursday, December 9, 2010

I Heart Fitness Dance

Last Saturday I volunteered for Spa Lady's Aerobathon, which is a 3-hour charity event supporting Santas Anonymous. I taught the yoga segment at the end. Anyway, the event was absolutely wonderful - three full hours of Step, Kickboxing, and (mostly) Zumba. I'm happy to say that I participated from start to finish, although I had to sit out a bit of the last dance because I was starting to get really dizzy. Afterward I was a nasty combination of ravenously hungry and exhausted. I literally fell asleep on my bed with my bowl of lunch next to me upon returning home.

Now the other instructors that volunteered their time were what really made the event. First of all the Step instructors - wow, I have never seen such fancy routines! And such great energy. I truly wish I could have videotaped the event because there was so much awesome material that I would have loved to recycle. As for Zumba - which I love, love, love - aside from the fabulous choreo, one thing I definitely learned was how much an instructor's energy contributes to the class. There was one instructor in particular who was literally radiating with energy and joy. Her movements were sharp and hard-hitting of course, but she had this beautiful smile on her face and you got the feeling that she might be the kind of person who never tired. I remember being halfway through the Zumba segment and feeling my body start to fatigue, and then it was her turn: the energy in the room lifted, and for the 5 minutes that she taught I didn't feel tired at all and my body felt lifted with renewed energy. It was almost like magic.

However! They were all wonderful. They wouldn't be successful if they weren't energetic in their own way. I would certainly volunteer my time for the event next year (and in years to come), but I am happy that they only host these events annually. Because literally - it was three straight hours, no planned interludes at all.

As for myself, I taught my very first full Cardio Dance class today :) I had a few weeks to plan for it, and of course I procrastinated so the majority of my choreo was thought up over the past couple of days (in fact, most of it was planned last night). So although I was familiar with my dances, I still had the odd moment during practice where I was like, "Is this the song with the mambos...? What's the chorus...?" So I was kind of nervous. But the class went off without a hitch! It was awesome. It's amazing what adrenaline will do for you. I hope I can teach again next Thursday to get in some more practice, and who knows, I may have my own class on the schedule pretty soon.

Next Monday I'm going to try my hand (foot?) at teaching a Step combo in addition to a Step warm-up (which I've already done). Step is an entirely different story of course, and my apprenticeship at the Y has taken a totally unexpected turn in that I'm shadowing more Step classes than Cardio Dance classes. That being said however, I do actually need more practice with Step than with Cardio Dance (which IMHO, and according to my feedback, I am more than ready to teach). So I have a combo made up that I'm really happy with, I just have to practice building up to it and cueing it of course. I also (finally!) found some good Step videos on YouTube. They say that Step is no longer trendy and that it's going out the window, but I disagree. Seriously, if that's true, why is it still one of the more popular classes at any fitness facility?

Closing tangent: during the Aerobathon, they had an Aerobics Care Bear stuffed toy on stage. She stood up, had on a stretch headband and even had her own headset and mic! It was so cute. I need to get me one of those. Wishlist!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Digging Deep

There is never an ideal time for things. Life gets in the way. Accomplish what you can and always strive to push just a little harder each time you train. That way you will become accustomed to digging in and it will feel like a good habit! - Tosca Reno
From Tosca Reno's latest article. From the same article:
Now if you're going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. - George S. Patton
I heart Tosca. So gorgeous, so inspirational, so amaahhhzing. I think I need to print these two quotes out and post them somewhere prominent in my house.
 

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Welcome back to my work

Dear Blogger, I think you and I are going to have a long and wonderful relationship together. I know we've done this dance many times before only for me to leave you for another, proving that I have the committed adhesiveness of a Post-It note, but I believe this time is for real. You've changed immensely, and although you're still not perfect (and never will be; and neither will I), I think I'm ready to finally settle down. Also, I am very tired of experimenting with all of these new blogging softwares when at the end of the day, I know you the best (having been a Blogger user for - seriously - over a decade).

Anyway. I've decided to unclog my creative channels by blogging and webdesigning again for the sole purpose of I LOVE IT AND I DON'T CARE ABOUT WHAT ANYONE THINKS ANYMORE. I've tried doing a purely mommy-and-baby blog, and that didn't work because I am so much more than just a mommy. I've tried doing the nursing blog thing, but I'm just not very comfortable with sharing other peoples' business, even though I change all of the names and don't tell anyone where I work. Which wouldn't work anyway, because anybody who cares enough to find out the details will find out the details. And finally, I tried doing the "I'm a yoga teacher, this is my website where I blog about yoga stuff and by the way, here's my class schedule". The latter actually appearing to be quite successful, but was very tedious behind the scenes because after all - I am so much more than a yoga teacher, and the stuff I really want to blog about is usually not "yoga-related" at all, and by that I mean it doesn't always involve asanas, organic products, Ayurveda, and my personal take on the yoga sutras. Although I do want to blog about those things once in a while.

I think what's really tainted, er, ruined my blogging experience over the past few years was my perception of my ideal target audience. I designed and wrote much more happily when my target audience was "no one" and my expected audience was "everyone". And by everyone, I mean people in other countries who I may never meet but will get to know on a deeper level than anyone else I can share room air with, and people whom I regularly share room air with but don't want me to know that they read my stuff. So like I said - everyone.

So this is my target audience: nobody. This is my expected audience: everybody. I am going to re-enter my familiar blogosphere, and hopefully re-make some old friends as well as make some new ones. Yes, for the most part, we've all had babies over the past few years, so the vast majority of blogs in my circle have mommy content in them, which is awesome because there will always be mommy content in mine. And while I will always continue to enjoy the many eloquently and hilariously written nursing blogs out there, I will not be making any references to my work whatsoever that may compromise another's confidentiality. Unless of course, I'm being really, really, vague about it. I love yoga, so there's gonna be a bit of yoga stuff here and there. I also love fitness too - this involves everything from weight training to Zumba to step classes to wussy attempts at taking up running; so there will be a bit of that here and there as well.

This blog is going to be a big ol' mess, and be about everything and nothing. And mostly all of those everythings and nothings will have something to do with me. Timmie, Timmie, Timmie. This is Timmie's Blog and she does not freaking care anymore. I just need an outlet. So read it, soak it up, or not. Leave a comment, or not; but I really like it when you do, so long as it is nice (take or leave).

I don't take a lot of pictures. Or maybe I do; that doesn't matter - the point is, I rarely find the time to upload and post them as often as I would like. For now.

Sometimes I'll blog every hour of the day, and sometimes you won't see me for weeks at a time. Isn't that how it goes? Right here and now I'm going to make it very clear that I am not going to apologize for my erratic posting because that would mean I'm apologizing for having a life. Which is actually a big pile of baloney because I do feel sorry when I don't post often, but not for you. Mostly for me, because not posting means not writing. And not writing means I've been skimping out on one of my most favorite creative outlets.

On that note, I'm also not going to apologize for boring you. And that is all for now, congratulations of having read this far. I believe we all deserve a safe place to rant and rave and showcase absolutely anything want to. This is my place (for now! Sorry Blogger, but that's just about as committed as a webdesigner can get) and I'm going to nestle myself in, nice and warm.