Hi there everyone!
I am taking a real vacation this week and have asked a few friends to help me out with some Guest Blogging. Today I feature my pal Deborah Cota who is a fantastic writer and a newbie to the group fitness class world. Let’s welcome her shall we?
See you all after Labor Day!!
Brooklyn Fit Chick
(Deborah Rae Cota, author of THE DANTE CHRONICLES series featuring The Kindred, The Brotherhood and the upcoming, The Traveler, hosts a blog on various subjects and short-story collaborations on her website at www.dantechronicles.com)
“When Enough is Really Enough, or The Exercise Songs from Hell”
Recently learning that I am just another one of the sixty-eight million people in the U.S.A. with high blood pressure was nothing startling (the way I learned this was, but that’s a topic for a whole ‘nother blog!). The learning of it made me take a good hard look at myself in the mirror, and when I did, my first response was, “Yeesh! What the f*** happened to me?” In a nut shell…life.
Admittedly I have lost the battle keeping up with the weight gained over the years, but I haven’t given up the fight just yet, and I’m ready to attack it head on!
Once upon a time, I was in theater: dancing from 20-36 hours a week, rehearsing, performing in shows and concerts at a scant past 100 lbs with about 8% body fat. To look at me now, you’d never know this, but I do. I remember! It’s that dancer in me that keeps me fighting. I know I can lose it. Not that I ever want to be that excessively thin again, I just know in my heart I can and I know what I need to help me start…a good music mix for inspiration.
Going through my endless collection of CD’s…I started first to look for songs that lifted me up, but kept finding the nightmare songs that I swore I would never workout to again. Why? Because of Mr. Thompson.
After I stopped dancing from a knee injury, I needed to keep my cardio going and wanted to stay active so I joined a class at the local Community College. It was described as a ninety minute full-body workout with non-stop music and fun (little did I know, the instructor, Mr. Thompson, was formerly known as Master Chief Thompson, United States Navy. Oy!)! And it was fun…until the last 30 minutes of the class that focused on a different area of the body, and usually had the most excruciatingly painful music that still to this day carry with it some painful memories.
Top 10 Exercise Songs from Hell, aka the Final 30 of Mr. T’s class:
10. “MacArthur’s Park” (Richard Harris, and Donna Summer) – We did Abs work to the Richard Harris version, and then later we used the Donna Summer disco version for the run/water and bathroom break after 45 minutes of class. Either way, I didn’t give a hoot about that damn cake by the end of either version, and I still don’t.
9. “Y.M.C.A.” (The Village People) – The cliché of all cliché’s and what do we do to this? Jumping jacks and all variations of them. I don’t know Jack, or why he is jumping, but I’ll kick his ass if he puts that song on again!
8. “Hey, Mickey” (Toni Basil) – Arm work, with or without weights that could easily be hurled at the instructors head should the need arise. I worked without. It was safer that way…
7. “At Seventeen” (Janis Ian) – the cool down. More like ‘The Downer’. Aren’t we supposed to leave the class invigorated, peppy and up…not manic depressive in search of medication?
6. “Landslide” (Fleetwood Mac) – the substitute for “At Seventeen”…Really?
5. “Too Much Time on My Hands” (Styx) – Straying from the subject here, I know, because this was a warm up song...and a good one…if you’re an Olympic sprinter who is already in great shape. If you aren’t asthmatic already, you will be after this warm up.
4. “Macarena” (Los del Rio) – Ay-yi-yi!!! A funeral dirge has more oomph than this!
3. Anything by The Police – I love The Police, don’t get me wrong, but with their 5/4, 4+3/4, and other oddity combo time signatures, there is no way to get a good rhythm going when working out, unless you have some sort of spasm or seizure.
2. “Wannabe” (Spice Girls) – I know, I know…a lot of people like it, but I have a problem with the producer of this ditty. He seems to be under the impression that during the verse ONLY DEAF PEOPLE ARE LISTENING, because when the chorus comes on it’s a normal volume, BUT THEN THE VERSE COMES BACK IN AND IT IMMEDIATELY JUMPS TO ELEVEN! Makes it hard to enjoy the pain and burn in your butt while doing squats.
And finally….
1. “Enough is Enough” (Donna Summer & Barbara Streisand) – The name really says it all, and the opening piano work struck terror in the hearts of the class because
we all knew what was coming….the Hip and Thigh-hikes Torture Test! If you survived, you lived to enjoy song #6 or #7 (oh joy!) If you didn’t, you snuck out the back door and high tailed it over to the Jack in the Box across the street for tacos and milkshakes.
Thanks Deb! You can follow her on Twitter @DeborahRaeCota and on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DanteChronicles
Tomorrow we will learn about Intuitive Eating….
