I've always had a lame, and somewhat illogical, anxiety/fear of gyms. I always seem to think that everyone, yes EVERYONE, is watching me and judging what I'm doing. I know, I know..... illogical, right?! Sometimes, in the past, this anxiety has prevented me from even going into a gym, let alone take a class. So this accomplishment wasn't just about taking a kickboxing class, it was about facing my fear and "punching" it right in the face. If my fear had a face, it got punched - and kicked and jabbed.
I was under the impression that kickboxing was going to be hitting and kicking punching bags (as I said in the video), so I thought the bag was going to beat ME up, instead of me beating it up. I knew that my coordination and technique were going to be way off, and the video proves it!
I did pretty well keeping up with the choreography: punch, punch, jab; up, up, punch, jab,and so on. Then the instructor starting throwing in combinnations of 6 or 7: punch, punch, shift, shift, punch, jab; punch, punch, jab, knee, side kick, punch. Ummm, what?! Yeah, had a hard time with those. So when those popped in there I just bounced in place, maybe throwing in a punch or a kick here and there for good measure.
At the end we did things that I'm used to: lunges, tricep dips and abs. The real fun came at the end when we were finally punching the bags. I put that good ol' Liz angry face on and concentrated on who's face I was punching and went to town. I hope that those people who's faces were on that bag felt a little sting in their face! haha!
The face of exhaustion and determination
Overall, I really liked the class, more than I thought I would. I wish it was a little closer to where I live because I would take it more often. It was around 60 minutes, I burned around 700ish calories. The only real uncomfortable part was when I was bouncing around and realizing that my wobbly bits were bouncing around as well; uncomfortable. But didn't take much to change my focus from that back to what I was doing, "oh yeah - punch, punch, jab, kick." I wish I had a heart rate monitor on, but I still need to pick one up. Needless to say, I was excited to get home and grub on a healthy din din. The instructor, Andrea , was awesome, very helpful and very motivating. She even said I have pretty knees. haha! Jen was right next to me, kicking ass and throwing me motivating smiles when I looked at her in confusion.
This is after the class, but that's pretty much how my looks were to her and that lovely motivating smile she sent back. haha!!
"I survived kickboxing 2011"
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