For my 7th week, my friend Lena invited me to go to Jazzercise with her. I do not watch Scandal, but Lena is how I picture Olivia Pope. She is an attorney, and she is tough as nails at work; however, she has a heart of gold (as demonstrated by her not-so-mild obsession with Taylor Swift and love for Jazzercise). She also has an incredible wardrobe. When Lena invited me to Jazzercise, I decided to Google the workout to see what I was getting myself into. Based on the images, I immediately wondered how Lena was planning on taking us back to 1987. There were lots of leotards - I immediately sent Lena an email asking her what to wear. She said gym clothes would be fine. As evidenced by the picture, Lena was wearing an adorable workout dress (see my faux-Pope reasoning). Also, that man with the sweet stems is Kevin, the instructor.
Lena told me that I needed to go with her on a Saturday morning so that we could workout with Kevin. She said that Jazzercise with Kevin was an event, not a workout. She was right. I got up bright and early on November 1 to jazz off the uncomfortable amount of tootsie rolls and Reeses cups I had as part of my well-balanced pizza and wine Halloween dinner. I was hoping no one would still be in a Halloween costume. I could not take seeing one more slutty ninja turtle. I have no problem with the slutty Halloween costumes - have at it, but things are getting nonsensical. How about a traditional slutty witch? No, you decide nothing screams sexy like a pizza-eating, sewer-dwelling, reptile. In the words of teenage girls, I can't.
Luckily, there were no costumes, but there was a whole lot of sass. Lena has us stand in the front row, and Kevin stood on a stage in front of us. It felt a little bit like being at a concert. A well-lit concert solely composed of middle-aged women, but a concert nonetheless. Kevin was fantastic. He opened the class by discussing his Halloween. I always appreciate it when instructors share a little bit of their personal life. He watched "Sex Tape," Apparently, it was delightful (who would have guessed).
The first forty-five minutes or so of a Jazzercise class involves choreographed dancing to today's pop songs - your Britney, Taylor, Bruno, etc. In addition to providing us with a great workout, Kevin sang pretty much everything. I don't think I have ever seen an instructor get a class so involved. If he asked us to groan like Britney in Work B*tch, well, we all groaned in unison. That is power. He was very committed to the moves, which I think inspired the class. He was not one of those instructors that just told the class what to do and only intermittently participated. Nope, if we were expected to pop out our hip and grab our ass cheek (which we were), Kevin was going to pop out his hip and grab his ass cheek (and he did it well).
The last fifteen minutes of the workout involved lifting weights, which I did not expect. The cardio portion was such a good workout that I didn't really feel the need to lift weights, but it was a pleasant surprise to get a more well-rounded workout.
According to all-knowing internet, you burn roughly 422 calories in Jazzercise. http://www.livestrong.com/article/320555-how-many-calories-are-burned-in-one-hour-of-jazzercise/
I actually think I burned more, which I rarely say about a workout. I'm not sure if it was Kevin, Lena, Jazzercise, or a combination of all three, but it was a fantastic way to spend a Saturday morning. I will definitely go back. Jazzercise was the kind of experience that I hope to have many times doing this new workout every week experiment. I tried something totally different that I never would have thought of on my own, and I loved it! Thanks, Lena!
