Evil Twin, Intra Meridian, Awaking State
(Brandon from Awaking State), Nathan Down, Rise for Order
Photos would not have been made possible without the ever generous lending of lenses (10.5mm Fisheye & 30mm 1.4f Prime) by Chris! Yay Chris!
Alright, so it’s Wednesday and there’s no interesting classes that I’d want to take at the gym. I’m hitting the floor once again and trying out their Body-Fit workout routine. It’s pretty idiot proof and that’s good enough for me.
I started the night out with about 30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical again, and then tried to go through all 9 machines. It didn’t work quite as planned because I was under the impression you do one circut within 20 minutes and either leave or head in for a second set. But there were people standing/sitting around the machines doing two or three sets of one exercise which was starting to get to me. Finally I started, and if someone was in my way, I’d skip that machine and get onto the next one, which I’m sure pissed them off as then they would have to wait for me to get off that one.
I didn’t know what weights to start at, and it seems they want you to max out at 12 reps, and once 12 reps becomes too easy, to increase the weight. I was so used to doing between 15-20 reps and 3 sets before I was maxing myself out, that I picked weights around that target range. I could go much heavier for the 8-12 reps they wanted. The workout was thusly, way too easy as I had too little resistance on the machines, but I was able to gauge how to work them all which was good.
I dislike the ab machine though. I loved the one at Premier fitness, it was this super-crunch thing that would have me pull up my legs at the same time I was crunching my upper body. Left nothing in the middle to get all caught up or tangled up in. The ab machine in this body-fit circut was a pad you crunch down into, which got in the way of my hoodie, which got in the way of my bulging (not muscle bulge though unfortunately) stomach. Whatever. I’ll figure something out next week I’m sure.
So there we have it. Wednesday, at least, seems to be my weights day. I need to find at least one more day to do that, possibly a Friday/Saturday and I should be good!
Alright so it’s my second week into Body Combat and it was an interesting class. I do <3 it very much, even after my 30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical before-hand. It was interesting because we didn’t just stay in our rows facing the front of the room (and the instructor,) or even do the half the room face each other thing. No, this time, with the very packed class (I’m certain there was more than the maximum capacity in that studio today) we were sort of running sideways in a giant circle. I personally think it would have worked better in two smaller circles rather than one large one, but what can I say.
The class definitely had me pumped by the end of it, and I was feeling great.
Definitely a favourite of mine. Will be coming back again!
And next week is the “new release” and it’s not something I particularly care about. But it seems that every season (so four times a year?) there is new chorography and music set up for all the classes to mix it all up. But for the BodyCombat class at least, it seems the instructor will pick different routines all the time ANYWAYS so this isn’t that big of a deal here.
So after the drumming lesson I rushed back to the gym to hit up the Body Flow (yoga/pilates) class.
Forgot my yoga mat.
Eww.
For one thing. I brought my towel at least so the majority of the laying down I could do on the towel ontop of the gym’s well-used yoga mats, but I’m sure that next time I will be bringing my own (and I did notice that MANY other participants were bringing theirs as well.
It was fun that I ended up talking to the instructor who really didn’t look like the instructor. But that’s all well and good. The studio unfortunately was freezing cold, which doesn’t bode well for me considering I spent the better part of 18 months practicing yoga in naught but a heated sweaty sauna. I didn’t feel warm at all even with my hoodie on until the class was nearly half over (and with the faster moving pillates moves) and during the final resting phase I cooled down way quicker than I would have liked… even though my hoodie was back on at that point.
It was an okay class. I didn’t feel loose at all which sort of sucked.
After class I had to run back out to meet up with someone buying a video-game off me, so I couldn’t even spend the time to warm up in the sauna. Boo.
Here’s to a better next Monday!
Alright. So at the end of last year I had found out that our network of community centres had a winter course on drumming. Like actual drums. Well, not actual, the blurb of the drumming classes included a teacher-student ratio of 1-4. And that we would be learning on an electric drumkit. And it would be held in the community centre I called home for many many years. Not literally that I lived there, but I spent much time learning to swim, to ice-skate, to love reading and enjoyed many childhood summer-day camps there. And McDonalds. I learned to love McDonalds there too.
But I show up Monday night with 5 minutes to spare, and the meeting rooms I knew of were opposite the large glass wall where you can watch the swimming/pool. I was in meeting room D, I saw A, I saw B… and that’s it. Finally I went to the information desk and while the girl was listening and explaining refund policies to some teenage boy and his younger brother, and four guys sat behind the counter either staring at me or ignoring me (either way, they weren’t offering to help me, even though they all had work-shirts that denoted they worked for the city) I was able to find out the meeting room I was looking for was basically in the arena section of the centre. WTF.
I figure out how to get there, find the room and grab a seat. Instead of seeing electronic drum-kits like I’d seen in stores, that have at least the look and feel of a traditional drumkit (the drumpads being somewhat the correct shape and position and set up the same as a normal kit) it seems I was going to learn how to play drums out of a box on a desk. With “pedals” being smaller than my computer mouse.
Already displeased, I knew I was going to be in for a boring 8 weeks. And I’m very likely right on that.
I lied when I said I had no drumming experience, but one can hardly call singles, doubles and a paradiddle actual drum knowledge. Then again, I knew what a quarter, eighth and sixteenth note is as well, so maybe I’m way ahead of the game. I knew I was growing bored with every second and was hoping thata my 45 minutes (probably 35 minutes by the time I found the room) would be over soon. The tables our kits are set on are too low, the chairs are too high, the instructor counts WAY too slowly, and the other female (two males, two females in this class) complains too much.
And by “other female” I don’t mean me. Although obviously I’m complaining a lot as well. This class will teach me extremely little on how to drum, because it doesn’t feel like a drum-kit. And I think that’s very important and very over-looked in this case.
Either way, I was overly amused at the fact that halfway through our 4 count rock beat, I switched from playing right handed to playing left-handed. And completely screwed up the girl sitting behind me, as she became overly confused as to why our teacher said play with your right hand, while I was playing with my left. I couldn’t believe someone was cheating off me on the first day.
Anyways, I’ll keep going because I’m sure as the instructor gets more comfortable with us (even though he’s taught this before according to him) we’ll actually get to learning. If not, I’ll just do a lot of what I did during class, practicing my single/double/paradiddle patterns on my knee.
