Workout #41
Tonight’s class was a jump roping, boxing, and cardio extravaganza!
I don’t normally make it to the gym in the evening due to my schedule, but tonight was different and so I finally got to try out the curiously-titled Flyte Time workout.
Description of the class from the course catalog: “This is a high intensity jump rope and core conditioning class. Boxer-style jump roping techniques and martial art core conditioning exercises make this a killer workout! If you want a class to push the envelope of your cardio conditioning, this is it.”
And so it was…
When the class first started I was surprised that there were only 3 of us in attendance. This is an unusually low number for this particular gym, and it forced me to stay longer than I had thought I would. I had taken the hour-long class directly before this one, and that class had been a weight-lifting session that completely burned out all of my muscles. My thought process was this: “Oh, cool, I’ve got the muscle work done for the day, so now I’ll just stay for about twenty minutes in order to get in some cardio, and then I’m out the door.” This logic would only have worked if there had been a ton of people to blend in with. As it was, my sneaking out would have been glaringly obvious here, and this is the genius of working out in a small group: accountability.
There we were, the three of us and the instructor, and the instructor was the only one who had actually taken the class before. She was also the only one with any jump rope skills whatsoever. In earlier posts you might have noticed that I’m not necessarily a natural with gym equipment, or balance, or moving my own two feet. My streak continues. Is there a limit to the amount of jump rope welts a person can have on her legs? If there is I have not yet reached it, and it isn’t from lack of trying. Basic jumping skills turned out to be much more difficult to master than you’d think. We started simply bobbing side to side without using the rope. Once we got that down, we held the rope in front of us and did some sort of whipping motion right to left while we continued jumping side to side. If you have seen the numerous still photos from the famous workouts featured in the Rocky movies then you’ll know what move we were doing, or check out this link for a brief, but incredible video. Then, in one swift motion, the instructor did something with her rope and ta-da! She was jumping through it like a normal person while I was untangling mine from around my ankles. Ok, I decided to skip the fanciness and just go right for the old-school jumping that I remember from my younger years. This was only marginally more easy to manage. Now it was time to do the regular jumping while bobbing back and forth from side to side. Impossible. I went back to the basic skipping moves. Now we were trying to move our feet as one would while doing jumping jacks. Wasn’t going to happen. At one point I balled up the rope and held it in one hand while just jumping like a jumping jack in order to try to get my timing down. Once I attempted to do this with the rope again I was tangled up in less than two moves. Eventually, after some exhaustive effort, I was able to manage the bobbing and the jack jumping for about a dozen skips of the rope, so it wasn’t a complete loss. Apparently there is a learning curve here, and this makes me hopeful.
We put the ropes down completely, and in my mind it’s because the teacher was completely disgusted with our near total lack of game, but it might have been a calculated part of the class too. Right? We did some stretching, and general instructions were given, and then some slow ground work was being laid for our next jumping segment. Half way through this second chance at hurting myself, one more person came to class and evened out the number of students. A light bulb literally exploded in the instructor’s head, and that’s when she had us pair up for some boxing manuevers. Good bye, rope!
We practiced jabs, cross punches, hooks, and several sequences of simply-choreographed moves before donning some boxing gloves to try it out with our partner. Because the other two girls had come to class together, I was paired up with the late comer. This ended up being a very funny class for me. I put the boxing gloves on first and practiced striking the young man opposite me. He turned out to be a good coach, and offered some really helpful tips such as, “put your hands up by your face to protect yourself, ” or “watch my shoulder so that you know when and where I’m going to move.” Cool, eh? Just when I was getting into it, and sweat was literally falling off my face, it was time for him to put on the gloves and practice punching the pads that I was wearing, and that’s when it got to be ridiculous. The guy could hit, and I’ve got these ridiculously weak girly arms. The pads I was wearing kept coming loose on my hands, which meant that half the time he was hitting me directly where my fingers were, and not my palms. I tried to hold my hands up higher to fix the problem, but the instructor said it was too high for him to hit. Fine lady, but he’s packing quite the wallop and I’m afraid he’s going to break my fingers. All of them.
Sweet justice! An inaudible bell rung and it was time to hang up the boxing gloves for an equally hilarious round of “Chase Your Partner and Yank the Towel out of the Back of Their Pants.” For real? Yes, for real! First, my partner had to stuff a towel in the back of his pants, and then we had to face each other and move in a frenzied circle while I tried to grab the towel from his waistband. I’m not even making this stuff up. When it came time for him to grab the towel out of the back of my pants I had this vision of him really going for the towel, but instead accidentally yanking on my pants until they were at my ankles. I told him that if he pants’d me he was a dead man, but as it turns out he was a gentleman and repeatedly missed opportunities to grab the towel when he didn’t have a clean shot. Thank you, kind sir!
Then we quit doing the punching and grabbing and started on the intense cardio portion of the class. We were running from one wall in the studio to the other one, then stopping to do burpees (or squat thrusts with push-ups, if you prefer), then a bunch of push ups, then some high-energy abdominal work. Here I had thought that I always needed someone to hold down my feet in order for me to do a full sit up, but nope…the human body is perfectly equipped to do a full sit up whether your feet are stuck under a piece of furniture, or someone’s hands, or nothing at all. Just knowing this has increased my confidence level by at least a half point.
The class wrapped up with a segment of stretches, and some words of encouragement from the teacher. This class was long and hard, but equally enjoyable on all fronts.
What you should know before taking this class:
- This was a long class, and I would suggest that you take it, but don’t take a really hard class directly before this one like I did. I was watching the clock the whole time because I was tired, and that only makes it go slower.
- This is a fun class, and I laughed out loud several times, so I really did enjoy it and I think you will too.
- You don’t need any skills to take this class. If you can’t jump rope then don’t worry about it because neither can a lot of the other people in the class. You’ll fit right in.
- You don’t need to bring boxing gloves or pads, but if you have them then bring them because otherwise you’ll have to use the ones that everyone else used before you. I try not to think about that.
- bring water and a towel. You’ll be glad I mentioned it.
Class size: 4
Duration of class: One hour
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