Quarterlies time again and this time around (cuz of the megaquartaal) the workshops were only at Vleuten and Veldhoven, which are locations both WAY too far for me to drive on my own. Thankfully, I was able to get a lift with John and so I went to the Vleuten workshop yesterday.
This is by far the best workshop I’ve had yet. Last workshops I was sick, and the one’s before that I didn’t know ANYBODY, and the few people I did know weren’t interested in talking to me at all. But this time around I got to socialise a little bit, met some people, Robert (Sigma) turned up to chat to us and I talked John’s ear off aswell of course. I didn’t know if I’d be able to handle doing all three programs in one day, but I decided to give it a go.
BODYPUMP 72 was first up. I remember a few really nice tracks, but it was all a blur. I cringed at the dips, remembered reading about them on the forum, but while they were hard they were DOABLE. So it proves I’m definately getting stronger and fitter. One of the presenters I started noticing his Dutch sounded like he had a different accent, and I threw in just a few more English phrases than the average Dutchie. I asked him after the class and it turned out he is Spanish/English, raised bi-lingual in Amercia. I always like meeting other non-Dutchies and hearing about them learning the language etc.
BODYCOMBAT 42 was straight after pump. Very tired from pump I pushed myself threw it, however, it was very difficult to do any move properly as the floor became very slippery. I don’t have a problem with the heat in the room, but it was totally crazy that they shut all the doors, had no ventilation, no fans, room full of people on a basketball court. The drips of sweat from people you could move around on the floor to avoid those slippery bits, but what you couldn’t avoid was the air became so moist that it was like it was raining, and the entire floor was slippery. I saw several instructors slipping when just doing a normal shuffle, so I reduced my moves because one wrong slip could still put my back out and prevent me from doing combat for another 6 months. I don’t want that again! What I can’t believe, is it took them 4 classes in that hall to realise you need some sort of air flow in fitness classes, duh. Anyway, despite combat being marred by the terrible conditions, this is an AMAZING RELEASE. I think this will be the best release ever since BC33 for me. Track 2 is just awesome. Track 6 is getting complicated (is combat getting too difficult for newbies?) but I LOVE it. The Muay Thai is Excaliber, which when I saw the tracklist I thought I’d hate it, but Dan & Rach have definately scored with this one! It’s also the first time I feel that the Street Brawl Downward Punch actually works, ever since it was first used in BC27. It’s just never felt right again since that first time, till now.
Following combat I had a bit of a break, and enjoyed the afternoon chatting with Robert and John. BODYBALANCE 47 was eventually up, and cuz I was so tired I don’t remember much of it, but the tai chi really stood out to me. The music was beautiful. I’m not sure I’m happy about the resuse of “Halo” from the last combat cooldown, but that’s only cuz we cannot mix releases here till the last 2-3 weeks, so the music kinda gets overdone.
During the education session of BODYBALANCE, I was really pleased that I could follow a lot of the Dutch, enough that I mainly could tell what the session was about. Overall it was about using directional cues and telling people HOW to get into poses instead of just naming the pose ie. Instead of saying “warrior 2”, say “step your feet wide and turn your feet right….” etc. Then there was an interactive part, where various instructors were asked to say the next directional cue. Trainer was on stage, other trainer was walking the room and we were setting up Warrior 1. The trainer on the floor walks to an instructor and asks for the first set up, “bend your front knee”. Good, he’s happy, next person. In an entire room of instructors, who would have thought that he would have picked the poor aussie girl with a minimal grasp of Dutch. I saw him coming to me and it was just like “oh no”.
What are the odds huh?