Thursday 30th July - 3:10pm
When I put in my annual leave for this lot of filmings, I initally only put it in for Monday the 3rd of August and Wednesday the 5th of August, given that those were the days that the Jam and Jam+ filmings were scheduled to be. The timetable had been forgiving to me thus far, and I'd been able to attend the Pump filmings since they fell in a Post-End-Of-Work time of the day.
When the timetable for this quarter was finally released, I started headdesking when I saw that Pump this time around was starting at 3:10pm!
I was gutted that I wasn't going to be able to make it, and I hadn't been able to make it to many of the rehearsal classes for the release so it was looking like I was going to miss out on the Pump filming altogether.
Then when I saw that Combat was starting at 7:40pm, I thought, "Hmmm....*maybe*, I can do the Pump filming, then go back to work, and come back again for Combat." It meant missing out on Vive and Attack - though really, I wasn't planning on doing Attack anyway (too hard on the ankles), but missing out on Vive was going to be a bit disappointing.
Pump was THE program that brought me into Les Mills, and Jam and RPM are the two programs that keep me coming back, so Pump will always have a special place in my heart. I wouldn't have found Jam and RPM if it weren't for Pump.
In that regard, no way could I miss out on the filming.
As it turned out, I ended up working late the day before the filming so I ended up being able to do Pump and Vive and watch Attack anyway. What luck!
I had only the chance to attend one rehearsal of BP72 before the filming, unlike BP71 and BP70 where I attended many many many rehearsals and had the choreography down to a fine art. The other thing was my strength was way way down on what it had been in the past, due to the lack of practice.
Normally setting up for Pump is incredibly stressful. It's a mad rush for spaces on the floor in any filming, but for Pump, it's especially crazy since the rush for the space on the floor is not the end of it. You then have to go and grab your steps, your risers, your bar, your collars, and then whatever plates you need. I deliberately grabbed less plates than what I needed just so I could get out of the swarm of people around the weights racks.
That being said... there was something a bit different about this Pump filming. GFX was exceptionally crazy last time around, with the line of people going out the door and down onto the street trying to get into the studio; yet the BP71 filming itself was laid back, relaxed, like a bunch of mates chilling out together like they were having a barbeque and a beer in the back yard.
Though this time, I was actually concerned about the mood.
More to that in a minute. The team that were presenting Pump this time around were fantastic. One of the best Pump teams that they could ever put together. (Although I continue to hold out hope that one day I will see Amy Styles presenting Body Pump)
As per always, Les Mills were pretty strict about photos during the filmings.
To the point where I didn't take any this time around. PJ has a few up on his blog (of which I have sought permission to post a couple here), so I highly recommend you go over and check it out. Last time at GFX, we were told that our camera would be confiscated if we even brought it out, and I assumed it would be the same this time, so I didn't bother bringing my camera with me.
The Pump crew presenting this time around were Matt Thraxton, the Oh So Awesome GFM at New Lynn (whoop whoop!), Emma Barry, Susan Renata and of course, Glen Ostergaard.
The men were wearing rather ordinary outfits - Glen wearing a longsleeved black top and shorts, Matt with a sleeveless black top and shorts... the women, however, looked HOT. Skintight black catsuits with yellow panels down the sides of their bodies, RAWR! I was especially smitted by Emma Barry, I couldn't take my eyes off her, and I don't even swing to that side of the tree ;-)
The class started with a great warm up track - I admit, there was a period in Body Pump where I thought "Now, which love song is going to be the warm up THIS time?" Though for all of the 70s thus far, the warm ups have been great, and this release is no exception. Susan presented this track, and she was her usual bubbly self.
Emma presented the second track, being the squat track, and it is a hard track. Which is why when she made a mistake partway through, I thought to myself, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" It's hard enough having to do it once, but having to stop and redo it? Oy vey. At least us on the floor can be grumpy about redoing Pump choreography; the presenters up onstage are sore as anything from all of the rehearsing, and then have to try and reinvigorate the AND themselves to redo the track with energy and enthusiasm. Emma and the rest of the team were real troopers in this regard.
Even though the squat track brought out a few 'woohoo!'s from me and people around me, I was quite concerned that the buzz wasn't there. I looked around thinking, "What is going on?" It was very bizarre, I couldn't understand why the energy wasn't there in the room. There was a fantastic team onstage, and a good turnout, even for early afternoon when most of the Auckland members were still at work. The chest track came and went (hard, but it came and went), though the energy still didn't pick up. I started to get really worried.
I really shouldn't have.
Matt Thraxton delivered the whopper of a back track, and the energy and buzz soared through the roof. It was like a beast had been unleashed, someone had ripped the top open and it went ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGHHHHHH and spread throughout the room. Everyone noticed it, so much that the class broke out into applause as soon as the track was finished. Way to go, Matty T, who to quote PJ, "The guy who made Sunday no longer my rest day. Always a pleasure to see him around."!
(well I lie, Matty T didn't make MY Sunday a rest day, though if he taught Pump at New Lynn instead of faffing around in town on Sunday I might be in there :-P)
The triceps was my favourite track in the whole release, though there is a super sizzling treat for you in the biceps track. SUPER sizzling. I don't know if the team had been practising it leading up to the filming, but I was absolutely slackjawed when they rocked it up for the biceps track. I thought, "Good grief, how long did it take them to do THAT?!"
And no, I ain't telling you what it is! You'll need to wait for the DVDs to see it :-D
Going back to the triceps track. I had set my step up in front of the sound booth (my normal spot, since it's near the stairs to get out of the room.), and there's no chance of me getting onto the DVD from there; how I like it for Pump. Because it is in front of the sound booth, it is on the side of the room where the camera men roam around getting shots of the presenting crew and of the class participants.
More often than not, I freaked out as the cameramen stepped OVER ME OMFG, and definitely more than once, as cables dragged around, I would either get whipped in the face or end up with cable in my mouth. From time to time I was more than tempted to yank the cable out of the power point, but man, I probably would've been banned from attending filmings forever-ever if I did something like that. (And goodness knows how many tracks we would've needed to re-film, ack.)
I'm glad that I was able to arrange my day to attend the Pump filming. BP72 is a great release and you can tell that the team worked hard on it to ensure that it was a tough training experience for all of its participants.
I'm excited. I'm definitely excited about this one.
Next up...
Body Vive 13
0 comments:
Post a Comment