The Entertainment of Getting Fit

I’m going to broach the subject of fitness. As in physical fitness, rather than,
“Phoar - get a load of the buns on that!”. I’m not actually sure if anyone says ‘buns’ anymore.

Recently, I’ve been lucky enough to have acquired a few free or practically free ways of getting fit. In March, when the sun started to show it’s face before I went to work, I started to go for little bike rides along the beach.(I’d spent the winter sleeping in and eating and loving it)
Seaside cycling is lovely, but a bit repetitious after a while. Then I discovered Groupon, and with this discovery came the impulsive purchase of Boxercise classes. Boxercise is like boxing, kickboxing and circuit training in an hour long class. I recieved 6 of these classes for a mere £4!! I was chuffed, and by the end of them I felt pretty fit and, honestly, quite addicted to the pure physical exhaustion that comes from running around punching and doing burpees and such, before cycling home from Hove where the classes are.
So then, a friend gave me a month long ‘buddy pass’ to her gym. Now, gyms are places I have bad relationships with. A few years ago I was forced into signing a two year contract that was NON CANCELLABLE. Wtf. A building full of sweaty people doesn’t sound like a place I need to visit, but this was before I discovered Boxercise, the joy of group classes and therefore the joys of feeling good about yourself. I’m not a particularly big girl and have never really been interested in losing weight but I enjoy the feeling that I’ve done something to preserve my body as well as clearing my mind. That’s my story anyway.

So anyway, this gym. This gym (no names but the beginning two letters match a place in America) has classes all week that you can book yourself into, and my work friends being the health-conscious people that they are, have been dragging me to these classes. Well, last week was brilliant. I went along to Combat.
“If you like Boxercise, you’ll love combat,” says Work Friend. So along I went.
It wasn’t like Boxericse. You’re given gloves and pads at Boxercise and although its ‘non contact’ you do still punch the pads and do kicking and stuff, it’s a good way to get your anger out.
Combat was more like ‘you’re beating someone up in a dark alley and you don’t want them to get up again,’ but not even with gloves/pads - you air punch, which still works all those muscles but what was really disturbing for me was the woman taking the class. And the crazy next to me, but I’ll come to her in a second. The instructor was tiny, wearing board shorts and a little t-shirt. She wore a head microphone and shouted into it stuff like,
“Push your opponent and then kick him!” So everyone has to make violent pushing movements then kick out at the ‘opponent’. The woman next to me was brilliant. She was totally into this, and was even taking several steps forward before pushing this imaginary bloke away from her - but that’s not the best bit. She was wearing glasses (this is strange as you get so sweaty you have to be very careful with clothing decisions, glasses slip off and steam up) lyrca leggings (not unusual) but, the piéce de résistance - A THONG LEOTARD OVER HER LEGGINGS. I could see every inch of her 50 year old wobbly bum punching her way towards me. What the hell was she thinking?! Apparently she also takes the temperature of every class ‘cos the air con isn’t so great and reports it to the front desk. CRAZY.

So my next move is to join said gym. There’s a deal on at the moment for only six months and frankly - the classes are so funny it’s probably worth it. Meanwhile I’m going to start yoga on the side.

I don’t know what’s happening to me, but as I live and work so close together and spend my day sitting at a computer I have to do something or I’ll go mad. Or get fat. Either doesn’t sound great and this way it wastes some time after work before M gets home from London.
So that’s that. If you’re really lucky you might get a post about my ukulele playing, I’ve come a long way since Christmas and have now moved on to jamming with M and his guitar - JAMMING! Exciting. Oh! I didn’t tell you about my Spin class at Gym! Brilliant - just like that scene out of Run Fat Boy Run except I didn’t fall down the stairs. Awesome.