Boot Camp and Awaken Yoga

Well, I'm writing this more than a week after I took the classes because I just haven't found (made?) the time to sit down and type up my thoughts.  A Friday ago I went in early enough to fit in two classes before work.  The first was "Boot Camp" and the second was "Awaken Yoga," which seemed a nice way to cool down after Boot Camp.

Boot Camp is held in the gym, so it's easy to watch and I've seen it (mainly just walking past it on the way to/from the locker room) enough to know that there's a warmup which the whole class does together and then the class breaks up into multiple stations through which the groups rotate.  I arrived about ten minutes early (well, 5 minutes early, the class started 5 minutes after the appointed time) and observed a couple of clusters of people who obviously were familiar with each other.  One group was some younger women (late teens-early 20s) and the other group was a pack of men and women of a broader range, though tending toward late 30s-40s).  I walked around a little and determined I didn't fit in with either group; the first for obvious reasons, the second for a vibe of cliquey-ness and general meatheadedness (don't worry, I'll explain).

[Side trip, in which I share my thoughts on workout partners]

Historically, I haven't had many workout partners, at least any that I stuck with for long.  I enjoy working out, enjoy working out alone [exception: swimming] and have a hard time finding the right dynamic with a partner in the gym.  I've only had two that I really enjoyed, and they couldn't be much more different.  Donavon was a guy I lifted with back in high school and we were in quite similar places fitness-wise and had fairly similar goals. Cory was a young lady (8-10 years my junior) in a very different physical place and with very different goals.  What they both had in common was that they were both supportive and encouraging, but not too much so.  They both had a great feel for when I needed a spot, when I needed an extra motivational "You can do this!" or whatever and when it was just a great time to take a break and chat a bit.  [I hope like hell they look back and feel the same way about me.  I'm happy working out alone, but I've never been happier than when working out with Donavon and Cory.]    

The two things I've really never enjoyed was the partner who gave too much encouragement, or even worse, the negative motivators, the people with horrible trash talk skills that is mostly reduced to "you suck!" in an effort to tap into that extra motivation that some people get from anger.  I'll confess that I succumb to that motivation, I can do quite well angry, but I don't enjoy it and prefer the more positive encouragement.  These negative motivators, are the ones I tend to associate with the term "meathead" though there's more to my connotation for that term that isn't particularly relevant here, maybe another time I'll expand on that thought.

[End Side Trip]

Okay, back to the gym for Boot Camp

So, as I walked past the second group, or when hovering nearby, I caught a lot of snippets of their conversation which were mostly variants on the themes of "You suck," "I'm way better than you," and the ilk.  Obviously that works for them, and more power to them for that, but it's not the vibe I like.  The class started and I was a fair distance away from that group during the warmup, which was fine...nice variety of drills to get loose and start the heart pumping.  When we broke into groups, I headed for one of the stations only to realize right after I got there that the meatheads had bee-lined for the same station.  

I won't go into detail on all the stations and each of the exercises we did at each station.  I can sum up the experience in three points:

1. I worked my butt off, I haven't worked that hard in a long time.  
2. I got some great new drills/exercises that I'm incorporating into my workouts.  
3. I didn't enjoy the class.  

I suspect part of point 3 may have been that the people in my group rubbed me the wrong way with their repartee, but it may have been the class.  I'm giving the class the benefit of the doubt and will probably give it another shot and be a bit more aware of the people in the group I choose.  (I almost added "or just tune them out," but if I'm tuning people out, I might as well just work out alone.)

Off to Awaken Yoga

[Full disclosure: I've taken this class a few times before, but wanted to take it in the process of this silly little quest of mine to make it official.]

Since the yoga class started at the same time that Boot Camp was finishing up, I had gone to the yoga room early to lay out my mat so I could just go right upstairs from the gym and start yoga-ing.  Normally this class is run by Kelly, but she's been training a gal named Jenny.  Jenny lead us through the workout while Kelly walked around the room giving pointers and helping with form.  It's a pretty low-impact (even for yoga) workout.  That said, after Boot Camp, my thighs were dying so I was a bit shaky doing a few poses, primarily Warrior I and Warrior II, as both put a lot of weight onto one leg.  I really like that class for loosening up if I'm particularly stiff or if I'm stiff and sore from other, previous days' workouts and want some recovery while still getting into the gym and doing something.  Kelly generally has some nice music (nothing too new age-y, normally Harry Connick, Jr., Norah Jones or Enya) and the sun generally comes up partway through the class so it's a really nice easy way to start the day.  

A week of bad attendance

This has not been a good week for taking classes at the Y.  I intentionally skipped a couple of days earlier this week because I had some really bad stiffness in my neck and upper back.  Then, this morn, I was all prepared to get up at 4:00 and head to the 5:00 CrossTrain class.  I was laying in bed this morn, having, I thought, awoken before my alarm and thinking that I couldn't be that much earlier than my alarm, so I tried to maximize my sleep.  Problem was, there was a bird chirping loudly and frenetically.  Eventually it hit me that the birds don't tend to make much noise in the 3:00 hour.  I grabbed the clock and found it was 6:58.  I'd set the alarm for 4, but hadn't turned it on.  Oops.