Day 99

Today, I went to the gym to try the latest Les Mill's release (4th Quarter) for Body Attack and Body Jam. Quite satisfied with the new tracks, and more than satisfied with how the group X coordinators planned the event. :) Got free candy some more. *happy* And silly string!

I'm actually in a rush at the moment (still need to pack 1 more bag for my trip), so here's some quick thoughts on the new stuff:

Body Attack (Barney, Prudent & Jenny) :
+ 70 plus push ups?!?!
+ Where is the Love is a fun track!
+ Prudent took over for wind it up, it is one song that I thought would never end!!
+ Put Your Hands Up For Detroit - super slack by this track already
+ great cool down. ;P

Body Jam (Jason & the S Sisters! Gosh, I didn't realise that most of our female Body Jammer's names started with S! Anyway they were all damn sexy today! Haha, it was a great class! - Su Lin, Shirlyn, Simone and Sharon took over!)
+ from the warm up and isolations, I wasn't really feelin' it. Movements too complicated just for warm-up! Isolations were better.
+ LOVED Impacto. Great choreo. Easy to follow, nice to dance to.
+ Disco track was quite nice. Super funky if you do it properly. Some parts a bit complicated, but can be ironed out as you do it throughout the month. I danced next to another instructor, so easy to catch up since I could just "spy out of my little eye" and follow him instead of the instructors on stage cos I was standing right at the side! Totally couldn't see the stage properly also!
+ b u d d y is quite hard to dance to considering it's a recovery track. *sad*
+ the latest performance is quite tough la! And I nearly got whack in the face with all that jumping and twirling around. @_@ Seems like Body Jam getting more and more and more and more aerobic like. Can sweat buckets next time!
+ again, cool down quite complicated la. Why all the slow songs so complex?

Sigh, won't be in the gym for the next 3 weeks or so. I'll be so n00bish when I get back! :(

Day 98

Haven't been updating religiously, been going to the gym less & less because I need time to settle my own affairs at home! I'm leaving for San Fran in less than 24 hours! The thought seriously intimidates and scares me! :O *buat drama*

Anyway.

I went for the "Santa's Sleigh Board" theme class on Monday at Taipan, TF. Before that, went for my usual 7:30pm Body Combat class. It was replaced by Loraine that day. I like the way she gives her cues (she's one of those instructors who take the initiative to cue you one step beforehand so that YOUR cue will come in EXACTLY when the music comes in. Makes you feel like an expert when you do the class). Also, she made me fall in love with MCR's The Black Parade choreo again. Damn cool.

Don't remember that much already. *paiseh paiseh*

The Body Step Christmas theme class was from 9pm-10pm. Were you there? Class participants were encouraged to dress in "christmas colors of red and white", which incidentally is the same as the launch this Fri & Sat. Can I re-wear what I wore today? The class was frikkin packed, I came 15 minutes early and had to stand at the back. Anyway, damn paiseh at first la ok! I came in my xmas-sy gear and everyone else not only didn't theme (except for one other lady) but couldn't even wear anything red and white together. Haiyoh. Wear according to theme la people! Why so shy!? O___o

Despite the initial discomfort (and let me tell you I didn't even put my full gear on. I had a Santa hat, some red and white hair grips, a CAPE wtf), got really into the class and just enjoyed myself fully in Barney & Anita's class. I haven't done Body Step in agesssss (because my trainer said it would make my calves grow bigger!), so when they did the tracks from Body Step #69, it felt like truly new tracks for me. =p =p Here's me with Barney and Anita (new instructor --- I think) hehehe.

In the words of Ben : I look damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn bad here. Like a geek who somehow wandered into the gym studio by accident. Ehehe, I won a prize for theme dressing, I think solely on the strength of my shorts. HOW I GOT THE SHORTS ARE A SECRET. @_@ I didn't spend money purposely on it to wear it for class ok. I already had them on hand! ;p ;p ;p

Anyway, this is what I won:

I really like the mini organizer thingy!! I saw my colleague get one from HSBC and I was always jealous of it, haha! The other thingy is an alarm clock + calculator hybrid. Another lady in the gym saw it and thought it was a handphone!

If they gave out handphones for theme classes that would be REAL REAL interesting! I think everyone would dress up, rent costumes and all some more!

The candycane - everyone in the class also get. :P Thanks to the instructorsssss!

Well, in conclusion : hope other people will participate in the theme classes next time. The GX co-ordinators & instructors susah payah decorate and announce and prepare for it, so we as students must layan also la. Correct?!

You can see Su-Yee's entry on the class here. Cheers!

Have a Merry X Mas and Happy New Year from me. See you next year! :)

Day 97

Hey hey, I haven't been blogging for quite a while due to a few reasons:
~ still recovering from flu & fever
~ trying to pack for my 3 week **blissful** trip to the States.

Regardless, I didn't want my boyfriend to meet a suddenly-gained-10kg me, so I dragged myself to Jaya 33 for my weekend must haves - Body Attack with Jason and Dance Mania with Danny.

I must be out of my mind because I ate a HEAVY breakfast (heavy = a Subway meal!) for breakfast, THEN took my "will make you drowsy" flu medication AND cough syrup AND panadol and THEN went for Body Attack. Really asking for trouble right?

After the warm up track (the track was almost the same as the week before, he did a different final track though - Listen to you Heart), I was already warning myself to go easy. By the second track, felt like fainting or puking or BOTH! So I went to the side to sit down, since I knew that the next track was going to be the lunges. Crazy Jason told me to get up and not laze. -__-" So pushed pushed pushed myself lor. At times really felt like my head is swimming and I don't know what is going on... I know I was doing nonsense at the final track already. HAhaha. Was so out of it. Don't know how I survived that class also. :P

For Dance Mania, Danny taught hip hop... quite difficult la. Was struggling to remember the moves. Seriously, by the 2nd 8 counts I was already lost. Usually I am ok til the 4th - 5th la. Struggling to remember steps like having to remember how to breathe. Anyway, Danny said the original dance (we danced to a bit of Kelly Rowlands Like This, but most of the time was to a Malay song which I don't know the name).

Haih, I'm never doing this again!! (taking medicine before classes)

But you know what? My "sickness" is almost fully cured now.. just some lingering sore throat and headache.. (but this is prolly cos I walked around in the sun so much today) and I am sure I can go for the theme class on Monday AND Terence's "crazy combat class". :)

*happy, healthy, hedonistic*

Day 96

I was feeling slightly feverish and already had a sore throat yesterday, but I decided to see if I could "sweat out" the fever by going for Body Combat class. Now I'm downright sick and I can't go to the doctor because my boss said I have to solve an urgent production issue tomorrow. Have to go in early some more. -___-"

Anyway, biggggg regret going la... made me even sicker, and I couldn't even go nuts in BC as I usually do. :P The only thing I remember about the class is that Terence did Power of Love. Muwahahha. And Take a Break. I think I take back what I said. I don't like Take a Break that much anymore. The beginning is nice, but the jump kick + guard is damn fast and I just can't keep up. Maybe no stamina because I'm sick kua.

Oh, and I just realised that I really really like U R My Phantasy from BC33! REALLY REALLY like it as a final cardio track. Right up there with MCR. :P *can't think of any others at the mo*

Day 95

Saturday --- couldn't get up early for Boot Camp Workout again. *paiseh*paiseh* Anyway, wanted to sleep in so that I had energy to party on Sat night. =-) Still, managed to make it to Jaya33 for my "Saturday Staples" -Body Attack and Dance Mania. My "presence" in class for DM is so known by Danny that he double checks with me what we did the previous week. *actions*

Body Attack had the same tracks as the previous week (I think Jason is going to stick with the track list until the new release comes out), except he didn't do Layla for the final cardio track. *sad* I really like Layla! Class was not as intense as usual because approximately 95% of the participants that day were newcomers. Myself was feeling tired from Friday, so didn't really start pushing myself until AFTER the lunges track. =p

Talking about Jason, I was teasing Cindy about how the cleaner went into Jason's class and then asked Cindy to teach her how to do Body Jam some more. Cindy got damn 9 riled up and said, "YALAH! IT'S ALL JASON'S FAULT OK!" Apparently the previous week, the cleaner was standing outside the studio and just observing the dancing and Jason himself was the one that said, "Kakak... kakak kalau mau join, masuk saja lah! Kekeke!!" (Kakak, if you want to join us, feel free to coome in). So of course the next week she took Jason up on the offer and went into the studio. Lol lol lol.

After the class, one of the participants came up to talk to me... turned out it was Lay Choo! A friend I knew back from college days! She recently switched from FF to TF because it's nearer to her workplace and cheaper (in the long run). She's stepping out of her comfort zone of being a hardcore RPM-er to trying other stuff. So far she has done BC and BA only... trying to encourage her to take up all the dance classes! "Very the fun!!" Hopefully she will become a Saturday-Jaya33 gym kaki. Hehehe.

Dance Mania up next. Dunno why whenever I bump into Danny outside the class he is sniggering away AT me. >=\ Don't be mean! :P He didn't do Latin this time, he did... erm... "puppet pop" that's what I'd call it. Kinda stiff dancing, yet loose limbed in a way --- it's very difficult ok! Think N*Sync in their Bye Bye Bye video. This was one chorey that until the end of the class, I still hadn't executed a full performance with NO errors. We danced to 2 songs - one was Madonna's Die Another Day, the other (the "faster" version) was a chinese song about love... hehe. Tak tahu la. For the "final performance" of the day, he asked whether we wanted to dance to the slow or fast one. Since there were a lot of newbies, we did the slow one, which is a mistake ok! Cos Madonna's Die Another Day has a lot of sudden pauses and all that, so we could only dance TWO full rounds to that song. I'm sure with the chinese song we can dance at least 4 times. =\ So that's why lor, end up not enough practice + difficult chorey = no perfect performance from the students. =] But it's still loadsa fun, and no doubt it's a different style of dancing pop!

Support Dance Mania!!!!

Day 94

Argghhh.. so darn tired right now. After 3 days of working late at the office, I decided to work-out-without-stopping all the way today. =) Darn tired to the point that I'm thinking of not going to the gym tomorrow. Guess I was a bit shocked after weighing in today and seeing within the 3 days I have ~gained~ weight again.. boohoohoo.

Started the day with Body Jam with Jason. He's so happy, tappy, flappy and clappy today! The happiness is super infectious. He told us that Rihanna's Please Don't Stop the Music is one of the tracks in the new release. I really can't wait! Love that song! Anyway, today he did so many cardio tracks.. totally the opposite of last week ok! It's like punishing me for the statement I made about how no-feel it was doing latin track after latin track. This time it was :

~ Boogie 2Nite + Tambourine warm-up + isolations
~ Escapade (long time didn't do this track... so awesome!)
~ Safri Duo's Played Alive (is that the name? Forgot liow)... omg I loved it whenever KH You did this track... missed it so much. Although I've forgotten the cross step & chest pumps to the front bits. Kinda tou kai here. Hehehe.
~ Geri Halliwell's Looooooook At Me! another KH You favorite. I remember him and his, "This track is very ~~~~*DRAMA*~~~~". Was fun doing it today!
~ Ugh. The My Love recovery track. Ok la... improvement of 5% la. Despite Jason laughing madly when I got it wrong. -___-
~ Performance track...!! He said, "We will be doing a very very old track" which had me praying that it was going to be the J.Lo performance track. Mana tahu it ended up being the latest release's performance track. -____- Ok la, it's true though, it's been very long since we last did it. And so ngam! Today only I was listening to Groove Armada's Get Down in Raymond's car and I said, "Don't play play man, the dance step for this song is damn difficult." Yalah, damn tiring to keep doing those skippy-steps what. =) I love the performance track anyway.

So I really had a bloody satisfying Body Jam class today. =) After that was weight training. 20 minutes on the strider while listening to my ipod. Only kept at level 5 since higher levels make my legs *gasp* more muscular. Followed by :
a) lunges. Did 20,25,30 per leg. Body weight.
b) Chest press. Topped it up a notch. Started at 15kg, then 12.5kg, 10kg. Feel quite proud of myself la! 15kg is also quite alright for me. I forsee I can go up to 20kg even. What a long way from my time of not even being able to do 5 chest press at 10kg!!
c) Back extensions - 40kg, 25kg, 15kg. I MADE A MISTAKE STARTING AT 40KG! CAN DIE LA! I thought it was 40lb, that's why!
d) Tricep extensions. Started at 15kg also. Struggled but made it through!

Ugh, then this trainer and his student fcuking took up the space at the bicep machine and like chat 80% of the time and did sets 20% of the time. Damn fcuking selfish ok!! Even last time when I had a trainer, my trainer was always on the lookout for other people waiting to use the machine. He didn't fcuking act like a dog in the manger by just chatting there with me when there's OBVIOUSLY other people waiting for a turn. I tell you ah, damn pissing off! So I went to do push-ups instead since that is the bane of my existence. Did 16, 18 and 20 push ups. Of course I was doing "upper half" only by the 3rd set! When I finished, the trainer and his student were still there! WTF betul! Anger!!

There should be a sign obviously saying "DO NOT HOG THE MACHINES!"
But I guess people assume that others HAVE BRAINS and HAVE COMMON COURTESY. Wtf.

Went for Body Combat after that. :P They had another theme class which was erm.. "Snow White Boys". @_@ The Snow White Boys were none other than Adrian, Alex C and Jack. As usual, Adrian took the first 3 tracks, followed by Jack and Alex "taking it home" with the remaining 4. Let me try to remember what we did today. :P
Adrian
~ Apache Rocks The Bottom
~ Somebody Told Me
** warm up tracks from recent release*
~ dunno the name of this song, but it's got a nice tune.

Seriously, by the third track I was dying already ok!!!!! Dunno what track that is, got damn a lot of travelling back and forth the room and round house kick and cross and dunno what. @_@ Arrgggh.... was regretting doing so many lunges earlier. T_T Seriously dying, and started to simply do without following the rhythm. =p

Jack
~ French Affair's Sexy
Haha, it's been a while since I last did this track. I didn't know that it was a "protect" and then "kick". I thought it was a low kick and then a high kick. Then it matches with the song where they sing, "No no no ... higher baby higher". Cos low kick then high kick mar! Anyway the protect and kick chorey was introduced during Tribal Dance whut. Am I right or is my memory failing? Never mind la, maybe he mixing and matching.

~ POWER OF LOVE
FOOYOH!! MY FAVORITE-ST OF MY FAVORITES!!! So long since I last did this track you have no idea ok!!! But somehow once the music starts, my body remembers all the choreography! Seriously!!! If you ask me to write now, I have to think for a bit, and I can't tell you when the moves change. But just press play and I can start doing all the jab & cross and what not straightaway without cues also ok!! :D Not boasting la, but I even remembered it was a punch & hook ok, not a upper jab & hook *hint*hint*hint* to someone.

Anyway, super thanks for doing this track !!! XD XD XD

~ recovery track --- dunno the name, don't think I did before. @_@

ALEX C
My mind is a blank now... hahaha! I know he did some pretty old tracks here. Both had a lot of jumping. I'm gonna guess that one is "Jump", forgot what is the other one. :P Then he did conditioning - Sound of the Underground (crazy push ups!) and omgomgomg When Love and Hate Collide for cool down. Did I mention this is my favorite cool down? Well one of it anyway, the other one is Bohemian Rhapsody which for me, only Swee does it. =)

Today's class was darn darn fun lor. You have no idea, I saw so many of the class participants praising the instructors after today's class, hehe. But Adrian said that this might be the last theme class cos Jack has to go to Pavilion. ;( ERm... why can't Alex & Adrian continue team teaching? @_@ But must do old tracks la which I'm sure they can.

Ok la, that's all from me for today. Dying ady as I'm writing this. Energy levels soared during Power of Love and slowly died from then onwards. Maybe I shouldn't do weight training anymore before Combat...

Day 93

I am soooooooooooo happy today. =) =) Body Combat with Terence was mucho excellent as usual. That dangerous guy that I blogged about from the last class moved super far from me, maybe he reads my blog? @_@ Anyway if he does --- sorry about the 'graphic' description on your movements but I still think you're super dangerous lor. But keep up your fighting spirit... just do it when I'm 10m radius away from you. :P :P

Had 10 minutes on the strider before the class started. Nowadays got a lot of restless energy la. Cannot sit still, 10 minutes also must do some form of exercise. Went into class, and the class was packed as usual. There was a new lady (Joey) who shadowed Terence today. Anyway, she didn't present any tracks, and I couldn't really see her movement since she stood nearer to the other side of the class... but she looks very friendly and approachable. =) Who knows maybe will be a permanent instructor in TF one day...

Quite lazy to write out all the songs that we did today (actually it's been 3 hours since class ended at time of writing and I'm really sleepy, can't remember anything now) so I'll just quickly outline my top reasons why the class was awesome today :

1. We had Shake Ya Body for Muay Thai. !!!!!!!!!!! Cannot express how awesome this muay thai track is. Yes, definitely my favorite MT track of ALL. And gosh, it's been ages and ages and ages since I last did this track okay! But once the music starts, the choreo seems so familiar. My favorite part is of course the knee & guard part. That's when you really ah shake ya body! XD
   
   
   
   
2. I will do anything for love, but I won't do THAT for recovery. Hahaha, this Meatloaf song is quite famous for making people ask, "What is THAT?" Haven't done this track in ages upon ages also so it was a happy reunion. :P
   
   
   
   
3. Come With Me for the upper body workout. Again, long time haven't done this track! Eh, not boasting ok but I used to be SUPER good at this track. So good until XXX from CF told me that I was good at combat considering I only had been at it for 1 year (at that time). And he called me "the machine" wtf. That time very ber-stamina la. Again, it was a happy reunion to do this track again. =)
   
   
   
   
4. Jack (another BC instructor, upon many other GX classes that he is an instructor for) joined Terence's class... as a participant! So that means he was on the floor with the rest of us... and he was just next to me!! Eh, please before you misunderstand let me further explain! I just absolutely love it when an instructor or a super awesome regular is standing near me because then I get to spy on their movements and correct myself or use them as a gauge on how high I should kick, etc. And if you forget any steps, you can be guaranteed that if you look at them, you can catch up on the steps you missed. AND you push yourself to go harder, stronger, faster (erm... yeah kinda stealing from Kanye's song here) because they are motivating you. So yeah, I loved it wey!!
   
   
   
   This is not to say that if he wasn't in the class, you can't use the instructor as a gauge, but it's different ya know? For one thing the mirror thing can get confusing some of the times, and the super active instructor could be running all over the class and then who are you going to refer to la? The person next to you! So isn't it awesome if the person next to you is also a BC instructor? Hehehe.
   
   

Mmm yay... happy combatting day. =) Only problem is my specs of course. I really hope they can give me my new lens by this Saturday... I'm really tired of dealing with my unstable spectacles that keep slipping down my face / bouncing on my nose. Sigh sigh.

And Terence!! Thanks for nearly kicking off my head!! I'm quite attached to it y'know? Maybe some warning before you do that next time? :P
And thanks (genuinely) for doing the awesome-est Muay Thai track ever today. Muwahhaha... =)