Cross Training Karma

Well I struck out with my gym attempt yesterday so I thought I would get up early and go to a yoga class. It would be a nice relaxing way to get back into working out. However, Monday morning came and I thought that the nicer and more relaxing thing to do would be to sleep and so I did just that. Before you snuff and say "of course, typical" and roll your eyes, know that I more than made up for my slacking this morning, this afternoon. I forced myself to leave work on time and head over to the 13th street gym for a much needed weight training class called Chisel.

I ran on the treadmill for about 10 minutes to warm up and then headed up the stairs to the class. When I got there, the instructor was still teaching bangra (I think that's how it's spelled). It's an Indian dance involving lots of shoulder movement and such. She seemed in good spirits and everyone looks like they were having fun. I stretched out while I waited for the class to end so that I and the 50 other people waiting to stampede in could get set up.

We finally get in and set up and there is almost no room to move, so what does the instructor do...she has us jack and lunge and kick and move about in a space that's already extremely crowded. I can't really concentrate on my form because I'm so nervous I will kick or be kicked by someone as eager and uncoordinated as myself. The class moves alone and so far so good, I'm even impressed that I can breathe and keep up on us because she's pretty tough on us. There is no stopping from jumping jacks to squats to lunges, to jump squats and back and back again. She starts yelling at us to hear her out and I'm thinking "I am hearing you but can't really answer as it's getting harder to breathe". All of a sudden there is a lot of heavy breathing and maybe it's my imagination but I think I hear her yell "Take It" in an angry and strange sort of way.

Now maybe it's just me but that's a phrase you typically don't hear a woman shouting at the top of her lungs while people grunt and breathe heavy. I ignore it and push on but she says it again. I soon realize that she must be a dominitrix on the weekends. She increases the repetitions and the weights and continues to instruct us to "Take It". I keep wondering if she's waiting for us to yell something back...several phrases come to mind (use your imagination because I don't feel I'm at liberty to share that here) but instead I simply remember to breathe through it and "take it" At the end of the hour I feel sufficiently worked out and I'm quite sure I'll be walking funny for the next week. What I'm not sure of is whether I was in a gym class or an adult film...gotta love Crunch.