Body Jam 50

I was interested in what was going on with the Body Jam 50 filming. For the last three filmings - 47, 48, and 49, the Les Mills schedule has indicated exactly which Jam releases were being filmed. For 47, BJ47+ was filmed on the Thursday, and BJ47 was filmed on the Monday thereafter. For 48, BJ48 and BJ48+ were both filmed in the same hit. For 49, BJ49 and BJ49+ had two separate classes. Les Mills had been clear about this, though this time I wasn't sure what exactly I was going into. The GFX filming timetable just had a time for the Body Jam 50 filming - it didn't specify whether it was base, plus, or base and plus in the same filming.

I had a hunch it would be BJ50, and not BJ50+, based on the rehearsals I had attended. Looking at the timetable, it was a bit of a concern whether or not the team would be able to fit both the BJ50 and BJ50+ filming before the rest of the days events kicked in.

Before the filming began, Annie came up onstage with a bunch of Nike drink bottles to throw out into the crowd - and the first couple were just the bottles on their own, and then the next ones had Nike Platinum Gift vouchers in them(!!!).

She had one bottle left with a $100 voucher in it, and she said, "I need two people to come up onstage and have a danceoff for this last one!"

True to Jam style, however, FIVE people ran up onstage. Two of the five were a couple of my favourite people - Patrick and Fred!

Annie introduced each of them - the first was a girl from Slovenia (sorry hon, I don't remember your name, but I remmeber you being awesome!), Patrick from Melbourne, Jericho from New York (who is an absolute hottie - I saw her team teaching Combat wih Olly before Jam one night and was absolutely smitten by her and her awesome Combat style :-D)... someone else... (oh gawd, I feel horrible that I can't remember who the other person was), and Fred introduced himself as "FRED FROM CHIIIIIIIINA!" Bahahahahaha!

The girl from Slovenia was up first, and she rocked out some incredible breakdancing. My jaw was on the floor and I was like "FARK, how come SHE had to go first?!" Never mind that my boy Patrick had to go right after her, OH to know what on earth was going through his head before he broke out his moves. Of course, HE was just as incredible up there, I don't think I've ever screamed so much in support of someone before :-D

The others did their dance routine (and again, I had to try and stop drooling when Jericho was Doing Her Thang), though Fred kinda barged in while it was someone else's turn and the two of them paired up something awesome which sent the crowd wild.

Then of course, it was Fred's turn - and Annie made sure that everyone on the floor realised that Fred was NOT an instructor, but a participant. Fred turned his back to the audience and worked his hips and butt, OH YEAH! With the way everyone around me was screaming, there was NO doubt in anyone's mind who the favourite was - his impromptu danceoff was a MASSIVE hit.

Annie re-annuonced each of those onstage, and got the crowd to show their appreciation. Of course, Freddy Boy got the loudest cheer of all, and he VERY deservedly got the drink bottle and gift voucher. Even though I'm biased because he's a good mate, I think everyone there will agree with me that he was a very deserving winner.

And man, that was just the lead up to the Jam filming, never mind the actual Jam filming itself!

I don't know how many of you read Glen Stollery's Body Combat Fanatic blog, though take a look at some of his photos from the Body Combat 40 filming.

[photo courtesy of Glen Stollery]

The black backdrop with the lights through it is not standard for the filmings, they only bring it out for certain occasions. They brought it out for the hallmark 10 year anniversary Combat filming that was BC40. So, of course they brought it out again for the big FIVE-OH for Jam.

And when the presenters emerged, OH, how gorgeous their outfits looked against the black backdrop.

Three presenters this time around - Gandalf, Rach and Fetty Fatimah from Indonesia. Some of you will recognise her, she appears on the cover of BJ48 (thanks to both Patrick and Alan for the info on this :-D) The presenters were dressed in monotone - blacks, whites, and greys. The girls were in super tight skinny black pants, layered white and black t-shirts, grey scarves, and black & white sneakers. Fetty had her hair up with white-ish... 'things' put in it (it really did look much hotter than I'm describing it, honest!), and Rach had a black and white hat on.

Gandalf was wearing his signature backwards-facing cap, but it was kinda grey-ish with sparkles throughout it. (Yes I'm being serious). And he was wearing layered tees and grey jeans as well - they all looked so great; they were the sorts of outfits that you could straight away hit the clubs with. NONE of it looked like exercise gear, the three of them looked more like fashion models, I was so freaking awesome. I managed to fall in love with the t-shirt that Rach was wearing... hmmmmm, I can has?

It was a real struggle to get in the front row this time around because of the number of overseas visitors. I can see why in past events they've prevented members from coming, the clamour for spots on the floor was pretty bad. I somehow managed to get a spot in the front row, but when I looked around me, none of my normal front row buddies were there. Hannah, Fred, Spuddy and everyone else were all behind me... it just didn't seem right. I think I must've been the only local in the front row. And it felt uncomfortable.

We began with the super sexy warmup - I don't know how to describe it, the closest warmup I can compare it to is that of BJ46, though even that's a very loose comparison. The isolation, however, is a fantastic contrast of sharp, abrupt moves contrasting with some silky ones. On the whole, the isolations track, I think, is pretty damn cool because of how sharp it is - the last few isolations tracks have been very smooth and fluid. I like it! Rach presents both the warmup and the isolations track, and then it was haned over to Fetty to present the latin block.

Ryan, are you out there? I don't know what you've made of the most recent latin blocks - BJ47's club latin block was right up your alley, so BJ48's reggaeton must've been quite a large comedown. And in a way, in terms of complexity, it definitely was - YET for some reason, BJ48's reggaeton seems to work me so damn hard, and the atmosphere is just phenomenal. But anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. BJ49's latin has two contrasting tracks that don't really string together to form a routine, but are good fun to do - BJ50's latin is not like that. Ryan, I think you'll like this one, I definitely thought of you whenever I did it!

Fetty is an absolutely BEAUTIFUL presenter - not only is she nummeriffic eye candy, but the way this girl moves, omma gawesh. You should've heard the crowd go off when she turned around, back facing everyone, and her saying "Can you see my butt?" The screams, oh man, THE SCREAMS! She just absolutely gelled with that block - she made it hers, and that's really fantastic to see. I haven't seen that since Phil gelled with the Jive block from BJ48, and I know that every time I do that block now, I'll think of her and miss her.

What I must say though, unfortunately, was by this point, I was starting to feel weak, and very faint. My legs weren't cooperating with me as much as I would've liked, and that was the final straw. I didn't belong in the front row this time around anyway. At the end of the Latin block, I turned around and said, "Patrick. Front row.", gladly surrendering my spot to him. The guy has been such an amazing friend to me, he more than deserved it.

I didn't regret it, since in the next block, Gandalf gave Patrick a shout out! I was a bit too spaced and missed it, so when you instructors out there get the DVD, have a listen in the cardio block - G gives a yell to mah boi!

The cardio block is a fresh style that hasn't been seen in Body Jam before, as far as I know. I love love love LOVE it. I know that there'll be a lot of people out there who won't like this one, though I take my hat off to G for choreographing to this particular style and putting it in there. It is a risk, though it also has some sentimental meaning.

Recovery is a very smooth, sexy track - the music is kinda depressing; though it's depressing in a good way.

...

Uh... yeah that probably didn't make sense, since when is anything 'depressing in a good way'. It's a real smooth song, okay, take my word for it!

Fred got to see BJ50 much earlier than I did, and when he told me about it he said, "It's a release that just grabs your soul." After doing it, I'd say I agree with him.

I couldn't really appreciate it at the filming, since it was during this block that the exhaustion, the weakness, the shivering and the aching began. Fred was right near me, and even he was much quieter than normal. It felt a bit wrong that we were effectively having our BJ50 filming experience robbed from us because we were both sick, though we managed to stick it out out to the end.

I hope that my personal experience at the BJ50 filming doesn't dampen down on the impact of the release, because it is an amazing release - I'm furious that I had to get the flu on that day and have it suck out any energy I had to give. It was so bad that as soon as the filming was over, some drummers came out from the side of the stage and marched into the centre of the studio - I quietly said to Fred, "I can't take it anymore, I have to go home, I'm going to pass out." And that was all I could say to anyone before taking off as quickly as I could to get home. I showered very quickly, got into bed, and slept for almost 20 hours. I spent whole week in bed, and I was pissed as hell that I missed out on Vive 12, Attack 66, and Combat 41's respective filmings. I was even gutted to miss out on all of the workshops too, argh!

I later heard that BJ50+ was filmed separately, though I don't know when, where, or how it all came together, so I can't really comment much about that. I know that it would've been bloody brilliant all the same :-D

It's an incredible, mindblowing, soulgrabbing release and I know that people will be struck by the contrasting styles and the gripping music. Again, I take my hat off to G and everyone who worked on the release.

Awesome.