Body Balance 48

Thursday 29th October - 8:00pm

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Final filming of the day, and with Gandalf winding up Body Jam by being 'At Peace', it set the tone for Balance quite nicely. Once the flowers were placed on the stage, and the candles were lit...

...

...I buggered off downstairs to take a shower.

(Sorry!)

I missed the beginning of the filming, and I'm not a regular Balance participant so I can't really give any unique feedback on this release - and when I asked every Balance participant What They Thought, all they said was, "It was AMAZING". So all I can tell you is that Body Balance 48, according to people who actually do Balance, is amazing!

The presenting team for this release are Corey, Dr Dave, Jackie and Christelle - when Missy and I were talking to Dr Dave after class, we commented on the clothing that the team were wearing and how they all looked great and Dr Dave spluttered and said, "Oh yes, we all look fantastic in our puke green SACKS". Ahahahaha, someone was clearly a... 'fan', of the clothing :-D I thought they all looked great, though Dr Dave did tell us that he had been sick and had lost a lot of muscle weight leading up to the filming and the clothes were too big for him (hence the 'sack'). There was a lot of illness in the filming teams this year - Mark Nu'u said at one point that the Step presenting team were 75% flu ridden, poor things.

I always find that the filming bloopers in Balance a bit more unusual than any of the other filmings. The rest of the filmings, as soon as a mistake as made and the music cuts, everyone groans, or cracks up laughing. In Balance, everyone is so At Peace, that they kinda just look at each other questioningly if they even notice that a mistake was made.

There was one blooper that did make the Balance participants giggle though, since it was transitioning between tracks, and the sound wasn't right and the trap ended up sk-sk-sk-sk-sk-sk-sk-skipping at the beginning of it as the sound crew rushed to get it into the right place. The Balance instructors all had a rather irritated expression when they came out of their pose and were preparing to transition, which made everyone on the floor laugh. It was a nice little moment; refreshing for a Balance filming.

Again, I'm really sorry that I can't offer more - even if I were able to tell you about which tracks were in the release, I honestly can't remember any tracks that were in there.

But again, *every* Balance participant I spoke to said it was an amazing release.

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Next up...

Body Vive 14

Body Jam 52

Thursday 29th October - 6:40pm

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Jammers, behind Combatters, are the second most aggressive filming participants. For that reason, I absolutely love October-November filmings, since this was by far the least populated quarter for filming participants. I thought it was a fluke last year that when BJ48 was filmed that there were less people around which made filming incredibly awesome on the floor. October-November is like the 'Anti-GFX', which I don't consider to be a bad thing, since everyone is so much more relaxed and friendly!

I took my space in the front row, and I was feeling a bit uncomfortable since a Pump participant hadn't finished putting away her stuff (*gulp*) and she looked down at me a bit strangely. I was like "Uh...", not really knowing what to do. I was worried that she might get aggressive with me being in the front row near where she had been for Pump... though I had rightfully claimed my spot for Jam.

Then, she said to me with a smile, "You getting ready for Jam? Do you mind if I leave my stuff here so I can get changed and come back and Jam with you?"

Oh MAN! People, people, people! LEARN from this! THIS is how you make friends and have a good time with everyone! There is NO NEED to be so aggressive on the floor - we are all smooshed up against each other anyway, so there's no point in being rude and possessive. I was *more* than happy to babysit her bottle and towel while she went and got changed out of her Pump clothes and into her Jam gear. This is someone that I'd had no interaction with before, and I was saving her a spot in the front row after exchanging only one sentence with her.

There was deliberately a longer space of time between the end of Pump and the beginning of Jam - Dan Cohen told everyone that we could take our time with getting changed, though heck, even though one person had been lovely with regards to space on the floor, I knew if I left, someone else would take my place.

We were sitting around, talking, chilling, filling up the time before the class started. One of the participants started doing some break dancing and he was freaking AWESOME! All of the Jammers burst out into applause, and we even saw Ginny Crocker's head stick out from behind the stage to see what all of the commotion was. Dan Cohen muttered, "He's *all right*....", bahahahha can anyone spell J-E-A-L-O-U-S? ;-)

Here's where the contrast between the friendly Pump girl and your regular aggressive filming participant kicks in.

Missy was next to me, and she was intrigued by the break dancing, and temporarily left her spot (but was right next to her spot) to give herself a bit of room to try out some of the break dancing moves she'd just seen, and within seconds, a Jammer swooped from the second row into her spot. I didn't even have time to blink before her spot had been stolen.

Oh MAN! People, people, people! LEARN from this! This is NOT how you make friends and have a good time with everyone! There is NO NEED to be this aggressive on the floor. I really was not impressed. I said, "Missy, heads up", and Missy looked at where her spot had been not 2 seconds ago and was speechless. Jace was behind me, and Missy went in next to him, but heck, I didn't exactly go into the filming feeling particularly happy after that!

In fact, I made my point to try and 'push' this girl out of her stolen spot. I wasn't particularly physical or anything like that, it's not like I shoved her or said anything to her. I just stood with my legs much further apart than they needed to be, giving her less room. Then when Hector slotted in next to me, there was even less room for her, and she got squeezed back into the second row. Not without a fight though, there were moments when she stood her ground and her foot and my foot were grinding up against eachother as we were both like There Ain't No Way In Hell I'm Moving From This Spot. For the rest of the filming, she continued to try and get into the front row, and honestly? There was *way* more room in the front row than there had been for other filmings. If she had been friendly like the Pump girl had been, we would've welcomed her to Jam alongside us.

But enough of this jabbering.

The presenting team this time around was Gandalf (of course), Rach, Vanessa - the Aussie who is a trainer in Hong Kong - and we welcome the beautiful Ginny Crocker back onto the presenting team.

When Dan announced for them to come onto the stage (since unlike other programmes, the Jam presenting team don't come out for team photos before the start of filming to have a greater impact), it wasn't the entire team that came out, but just Gandalf.

He walked over to the corner of the stage, where there was a small electronic box on the floor which he picked up and started doing the 'It's Body Jam Time' rap into. But! It wasn't the standard It's Body Jam Time rap which you saw in BJ44 and BJ45. It was a slow-jam style rap, and the electronic box that he was rapping into, was a modulator, like the ones made famous by T-Pain, Akon, and Lil Wayne; the ones that electronically modify your voice. In fact, G introduced himself in the rap as 'G-Pain', which I absolutely CRACKED up laughing at - absolute genius!

For those of you who have been crying out for something different in Body Jam compared to the Warmup-Latin-House format that has been prevalent for releases from BJ41 onwards, your wait is over in BJ52.

And that's about as much info as you're going to get out of me about BJ52! :-P

The team were wearing these awesome sleeveless white & blue hoodies - so the whole 'look' of the filming was very similar to what you saw in BJ47, only a bit more 'gangsta', if that makes sense. Although for the second half of the class, Rach 'loses her shirt' and does the remainder of her class in her crop top, flaunting her freaking awesome body in front of us, goddammit. *mutter, mutter, snarl, growl...*

As I've written about Step, Pump and Jam, I have to say that the filmings for all three went pretty smoothly. There wasn't much that went wrong in the Jam filming - the only glitch was at the end in getting Gandalf to do his LesMills.com spiel.

At the end of the groovedown, we were all sitting on the floor, and he babbled about it, and then thought it was all done and dusted. He shifted himself around so he was sitting cross legged, and that moment one of the filming crew rushed up to him to ask him to do it again.

Instead of doing it the way he had just done it, he placed his hands in a mudra type position, exactly like the girl below.

In a soft spoken, calm, and gentle voice, he said, "Thank you for your time with us tonight, just chill, relax, and you will be at peace like me."

Everyone on the floor burst out laughing, it was like the Anti-Gandalf was onstage in front of us - we had never seen him so calm before!

When the filming crew informed him that he didn't mention anything about LesMills.com in that segment, he had to refilm it again.

"Thank you for your time with us tonight, please leave your feedback on lesmills.com/blah, and you will be at peace with...!?!?!?!?"

We cracked up again, since 'at peace with me' is not the same as 'at peace like me'.

Third time, “Thank you for your time with us tonight, please leave your feedback on lesmills.com/blah, and you will be at peace like me. *slow inhale, slow exhale, and the class cracks up laughing*.”

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahhahahahaah! That Gandalf, he's an awesome genius-slash-maniac.

Funnily enough, it was a suitable way to end BJ52, since BB48 was about to be filmed. Nice way to integrate two completely disparate filmings to flow nice and seamlessly. I like, I like a lot.

As I made my way to the back of the room, again, all I had in my head was one question. "What on EARTH is BJ52+ going to be like?!"

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Next up...

Body Balance 48

Body Pump 73

Thursday 29th October - 4:40pm

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I've really liked how Les Mills has started scheduling the equipment-based classes first for the last few quarters. At GFX it was absolute genius having Pump be the first filming of the quarter, with everyone's weights pre-set up, since it would have been absolute chaos having all of the internationals clamouring for weights.

Again, the filming wasn't as packed as previous quarters - simply because it is typically quieter at this time of the year, and also because it was still before 5pm, when most members were still at work.

The presenting crew this time around was a 5-strong team with flair and flavour from different parts of the world. Susan Renata (from Kumeu), Glen Ostergaard (from Motueka) - which are enough of a distance from Auckland Central in their own right - Yannick from France, Sara from Spain - who is partner to Oscar, who presented in BS79 - and my favourite international presenter on the Pump team this time, Cesar from Argentina.

In fact, in the only Pump rehearsal that I saw, I found myself staring at Cesar, thinking constantly... "Far out... I KNOW this guy!" I couldn't think of where, though!

It came to me later. Check out this photo I took of Gandalf after the BJ49+ filming.

Does anyone know what he was doing in Auckland at the January/February filmings? I don't remember seeing him in any of the other programmes, but that could just be my faulty memory at work.

There was something strange about this Pump filming... there was a lack of energy, lack of buzz. Yannick was struggling with the gloves that the men were wearing - he dropped the bar at the end of the back track, and during the bicep track (which was one of the tracks that he presented); he really did struggle. It was only during the triceps track that the energy in the room temporarily rose - though this was testament to how awesome the triceps track was. Even knowing this, when the team practised the release during the week, there was more energy. I felt like something was not quite right... the speakers weren't turned up quite so loud, or *something*... there was just a lack of energy which I couldn't explain. Even Glen didn't seem like his normal self up on stage this time.

That all changed when Cesar came to the front to teach the shoulder track. Right from the beginning of the track, he owned that stage, and he owned that track. He definitely impressed, and it was only a shame that he presented tracks towards the end of the release. I'm not just saying that because my friend Isi is Argentinian, I honestly believe that Cesar was the standout international presenter on the filming team this time around.

How is Body Pump 73? It's a good release, though as an RPMmer, I found a *lot* of overlap of tracks used between Pump and RPM. Though let's be clear, that's not an overlap with 'RPM46', but 'RPM'. Several tracks had me going, "Oo! Oo! This is an RPM track!", some of them from really old releases, but all the same, RPM tracks. Unless your RPM instructor regularly uses old releases, you may not be affected so much by this release - though Jaci at New Lynn does regularly use a lot of old releases, which is probably why I'm a bit sensitive to this release. I will say it is a miracle that there has been so many Pump releases where Glen has been program director for both Pump and RPM where there hasn't been such a stark overlap - if anything, I find that Combat and RPM share tracks (though never in the same quarter), so hey, it's a surprising thing. (and again, I'm probably being sensitive since through Jaci I'm exposed to RPM tracks going back right from RPM 1 through to the current release.)

My favourite track by far is the triceps track. Chest track is difficult, I actually cut my weight down for the filming since the first time I tried the track with my regular chest weight, I couldn't finish it. A great track for developing your strength. The other track that would probably be a favourite of mine is the shoulder track as well.

This is going to be a popular release when it hits the globe, though due to the nature of the song selection, I do have some concern that it might get 'old' faster than other releases. If I were a Pump instructor, I *might* be tempted to mix this one out faster because the tracks currently in there are getting a lot of radio airplay at the moment. I'm not saying that any of the tracks are bad, since that's not the case at all! I'm just aware of when these releases will go out to gyms, and the songs in there will no longer be current and will have a shorter lifespan as far as member acceptance goes.

Ack, I'm sounding very negative!

I don't mean to, since it's a good, solid release. The first time I did it, I was definitely sore! Expect a lot more sore bodies in the months to come with this release :-)
when it hits the world.

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Next up...

Body Jam 52

Body Step 79

Thursday 29th October - 3:10pm

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While Body Step 79 was the first filming of the day, it wasn't the first class that I attended that day. My beautiful friend Missy (she's the one in black with the BV11 team in this photo) had arrived in the country the night before - we were a couple of screaming goons at the airport when we caught sight of each other! - and I was hella keen to get her into a Jam class as soon as possible. The BJ52 filming was later on in the day, so Gandalf's lunchtime class was being covered by my favourite instructor in the world Carla. We did the bulk of BJ51, which Missy and the other international visitors hadn't seen before.

But this isn't a post about Body Jam, it's about Body Step.

The presenting team this time around was Mark Nu'u (of course), Sarah Robinson, Lisa Osborne, Georgina Clark, and Oscar Fernandez from Spain. Oscar is definitely a favourite here in A-town and across the world, he's the fourth highest contributor in the LesMills.com community.

Higher than Susan Renata, even! The only one in the top 5 outside of New Zealand, even!

The girls were wearing these awesome red and white singlet tops, and Mark and Oscar were wearing rather hot looking sleeveless grey tops. Check out the photos of the crew on PJ's post of the filming.

As a side fact, all of the stuff that all of the presenting teams - only one of which was Body Step - were wearing were from the new Les Mills clothing range. It's not open at the moment, but soon you'll be able to go to a clothing section on the LesMills.com website and be able to purchase the gear that the team are wearing. I've already got my eye on a few pieces that I would like, but it'll be open in early 2010, so don't go rushing to the site to try and buy stuff yet!

While it's unfortunate that I missed out on the beginning of the Body Step 79 filming (Missy and I wandered down the road to Nike Platinum in Victoria Park Market to see if we could get some nice gear for the Body Jam 52 filming), we did see the majority of it.

The last Step filming that I saw which I liked the look of so much that I wanted to join in was BS76 (funnily enough... Georgina Clark and Sarah Robinson were also presenting that release, two of my favourite Step instructors...! I know that Judes will agree with me (for at least 50% of the favourite instructors maybe :-D)), and while BS77 was beautiful (the breast cancer release) and BS78 was a great release... BS79? Freaking awesome. It was the first Step release since BS76 that I've wanted to get onto the floor and join in.

Why didn't I? Well, I rolled my ankle twice at the last filming and left early, and I didn't want to damage it knowing that I had still had Pump and Jam to attend.

One thing that we noticed about this quarter - and yes, this same quarter last year - is that there were less internationals. The floor for Body Step wasn't full, and it meant that everyone appeared much more comfortable and had more room to move. The participants on the floor seemed to move in an incredible unison, it was sensational to watch not just the presenters, but the crowd also. Like I said, I was very much tempted to join in.

There are some great tracks in there, I found myself throughout the release going, "Oh I LOVE this song! Oh I LOVE this song!!! Oh MAN, is this for real!?!!?"

In fact, at one point, Grant Goes was standing in front of me watching the filming, and a song I liked came on. I, rather loudly, said "NO WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!", and Grant turned around and gave me a bit of a stern look. Whoops! I was caught up in the excitement, I tellz you!

Funny moments? The BS79 filming went quite smoothly from what I saw, though I did miss the beginning of it. Sarah Robinson did tell us afterwards - and worse still is that they didn't give her an opportunity to re-film it - that she apparently said "Move your corners to the toes of your Step." Bahahahahahah, oh dear!

From the feedback I've gotten from people who regularly do Step (as I am as Non-Stepper as you can get), this release flows nicely from track to track and doesn't feel fragmented or disjointed. And hey, if I, as a Non-Stepper was drawn in to give it a go, imagine the impact it's going to have across the globe.

In fact, I'd go as far to say that clubs looking to entice members into taking up Body Step to use this release - maybe make a launch class for BS79 free to all non-members to get them into it and having a go at it. Have giveaways, or maybe try an outdoors BS79 class (if it's practical or possible).

To Mark, Kylie, and everyone else who worked so hard on this release - good job. The effort certainly shows, and this release is going to be WILD when it hits the world.

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Next up...

Body Pump 73

Oct-Nov 2009 Filming Schedule

It's less than a week till filmings and so far, the only new choreography I've seen is one runthrough of BJ52, four tracks of BC43 - though I've seen RPM 46 several times now, and it is the program I'm the most excited about even though it's the filming I'm least likely to attend!

If you're interested to know, here are the times for this quarter's filming classes, in colour coded prettiness.

THURSDAY 29TH OCTOBER
3:10pm	Body Step 79
4:40pm	Body Pump 73
6:40pm	Body Jam 52
8:00pm	Body Balance 48
MONDAY 2ND NOVEMBER
2:30pm	RPM 46
5:20pm	Body Vive 14
6:40pm	Body Attack 68
8:00pm	Body Combat 43
THURSDAY 5TH NOVEMBER
1:30pm	Body Jam 52+

Ahahah that table is the opposite of pretty. Oh well, it was fun to write the code for, and now you have the times for all of the classes, woohoo!

A Vive by any other name

I am not a regular Body Viver by any means.

Though this is a post that has needed to be written for a while.

I've done two full Vive classes before today, both being filming classes - the filming for Body Vive 11, and Body Vive 13. I thoroughly enjoyed both; and the atmosphere of the BV11 filming in particular was absolutely electric. In some ways, it exceeded some of the passion and energy I've felt at a Jam filming. Oh yes, I did just say that.

Body Vive is stereotyped as a easy, gentle class that is for the older generation and those who can't handle a 'true' fitness like Body Attack or RPM. Quite often, I hear scoffing around the gym at someone admitting that they've done or are going to do a Body Vive class.

Even though I am not a regular Viver by any means, this upsets me.

I did my third Vive class today - and I was totally keen to when I saw the name of my lovely friend Amy (also known as 'Legz') covering for Mark Nu'u on the timetable. She's also covered Carla Fitzsimons and Susan Trainor's classes while all of the program directors and international presenters have been over in Brisbane for a trainer's meet that they're having. I bumped into Amy earlier in the week and told her that I was going to go to her class, and she was INCREDIBLY excited. She surprised me by saying, "Noone EVER comes to my Vive class!"

After doing her class today, I really cannot understand why. She's a fantastic instructor, and Vive is a fantastic program that totally kicked my butt. My heart rate was elevated, I worked up a sweat, and my muscles burned during the strengthening tracks. I really was wobbling once the class was done, and as I sit here, I'm thinking, "I'm in for a sore day tomorrow..!"

Though how many people turned up for Amy's Vive class?

5. And one of them apologised during the class and left early, so for the majority of it, it was 4 participants. The one who left looked like a regular Viver since she had invested in an official Les Mills Body Vive top, so something must've happened to pull her away from the class.

Amy was a fun, engaging instructor, and she even gave specific attention to something I'd mentioned casually about how when I'd done Vive in the past, I'd felt that the Vive tubing was going to slide out from underneath my foot and whack me in the chin. The instruction that she gave me made a MASSIVE difference to the way that I performed in the resistance tracks, I didn't feel like the band was ever going to slip out from underneath my feet, and as a result, I had a wicked awesome workout.

I had a great Vive workout, and given that I'm recovering from an injury, the nature of the moves in the choreography were perfect for me. Worked me hard, whilst not being hard on my ankles. It couldn't be a more suited workout.

Yet again, I've said, I'm not a regular Viver.

What are the factors contributing to why I am not?

1. Not enough classes to attend at not enough times. Most classes are during the day, or late at night. During the day, I would have to have a flexible workplace. At night, I am more likely to do other classes and go home earlier. It's hard because if you swap out a popular evening class with Vive, there is a HUGE fear that that class won't attract the same numbers as previous evening class did. At the same time, I don't think a class is ever going to be popular if you don't put it at a popular time.
   
   
2. Poor mix of instructors. At New Lynn, only one instructor teaches Vive. I don't know her personally, and a lot of people have told me that her other classes are fantastic, but I've done Balance with her and quite frankly, I'm freaked out enough to ask, "Is there anyone else...?".
   
   
3. The music. This is the same reason why I don't really attend much of Step or Attack. I prefer the music selections used in RPM, Body Pump, Body Combat and Body Jam. That's just my preference. I love the odd track here and there, but more often than not, I will probably not rush back to a Vive class to listen to the music like I do for the four that I've listed above. I've gotten some great music ideas for my own personal music library from those classes, and so far, Vive has inspired me to get 1 track - Billy Idol's 'Mony Mony' from BV11. Now, it is impossible to please everyone and I am but one person. So someone else might think that the music is absolutely not a problem - or even, it is a refreshing change from the head-banging doof doof music that you get from the other classes.

Now. None of the reasons why I can't get to Vive are because 'it's too easy'. In fact, as a complete workout system, Vive is probably the only program that combines all of cardio, strengthening, lengthening, and balance. Before Vive was introduced, you would have to combine multiple programs to experience all of these components. Cardio from either Attack, Step, Jam, Combat or RPM. Strength from Pump. Lengthening and Balance from Balance/Flow. Vive gives you all in the one workout. I really do think it is an incredibly well rounded program.

RPM and Jam are still very much my two favourite classes, without a doubt. I'm not being paid by Les Mills to write this, and in fact, I'm not even being asked by a Vive instructor to write this. I'm writing this on my own steam and own beliefs.

I just think that 4 participants in a great fitness program with a great fitness instructor is a bit of a crime. And if saying my say about it makes at least one person have a more open mind about the program?

Then the objective of this post has been fulfilled.

Jul-Aug 2009 Filming Posts

It's taken quite a long time for me to get this together, though I've finally gotten all of my posts for this filming written out. The only releases not included in this lot of posts are the posts for Body Attack 67 and RPM 45. I have, however, had the opportunity to see RPM 45 twice since it has been filmed by doing the wonderful Sarah Ostergaard's RPM classes, and I can say that it is AWESOME.

I'm going to take this opportunity to again thank my wonderful friend Patrick and his contribution to this blog via the Body Balance 47 filming post. It was great to be able to offer the readers of C&E something for that filming class even though I wasn't able to attend myself.

• Body Pump 72
• Body Vive 13
• Body Combat 42
• Body Step 78
• Body Jam 51
• Body Balance 47 - Guest post by Patrick
  
• Body Jam 51+

I'm so sorry that it has taken so long for me to get these posts written - and it's quite shocking that this last post has gone up well over a month over the actual filming took place.

I'm having a hard time fitting in blogging with the way that my lifestyle has changed over the last few months, and it's not because I'm fed up with blogging that I've had a hard time fitting it in. I'm not going to abandon this blog, no way.

But if I'm quite for a while, leave me a comment. Ask me how I'm doing. I'll do my best to write at least a short post every now and then with the goings on at Les Mills.

Hope you enjoy this lot of filming posts from the July-August 2009 quarter. I'm very much looking forward to writing about the next lot of filmings. Very much. And I'll do my best to ensure that it won't take over a month to write THOSE posts, yeesh!