Monday 3rd August - 5:30pm
Three filmings were scheduled for the Monday filming, Body Step, Body Jam and Body Balance. I had taken the day off from work especially to participate in them, though spent most of the day with Rose and Patrick after having a nice long sleep in at home (ahhhh, the best sort of Monday morning ever).
The presenting team this time around was the sensational Mark Nu'u, Sarah Robinson, Susan Renata, Lisa Osborne, and guest presenter Vanessa Labort from the UK. The team were decked out in brightly coloured tops - Susan and Lisa in pink tops withy itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny blue shorts, and Sarah, Vanessa and Mark were in blue tops with black shorts (not so itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny... I'm not sure how flattering that would've been on Mr. Nu'u; he's an attractive man, but good grief!)
Rose, myself, and The Netherlands People were nestled in a corner down the back, and we were surprised when none other than Dan Cohen wandered on over and said, "Could you set up a step over there, please?", pointing to a empty spot on the floor near the side of the room, next to us. He promptly followed this up with, "Don't you DARE tell anyone I'm doing Step!!!"
We couldn't believe it, not only was Dan Cohen going to be actually doing Body Step, he was going to be doing it next to us!
Our excitement was shortlived, however. Someone else swooped on the empty step, and Dan was resigned to another spot on the floor, ah goddammit. We were quite keen to be there in support of Mr Cohen and to catch him when he fell ;-)
...
Anyways!
After the sound checks, the entire crew were ready to go, and everyone on the floor was pumped for the filming to start.
I tried to do the Step filming low impact, though I unfortunately didn't make it through the class. Attack is a very good program to modify to be low impact, but with Step, it's not always possible. I say this because with some of the moves, you rely on a burst of high impact-ness to propel you over the Step, and if you're doing it low impact - like I was - then your feet don't always make it over the Step and you end up tripping over the edge of it, or partially on the floor and partially on the Step, and in my case, I rolled my ankle a couple of times. It was my right ankle, which is the non-injured one, so after twice it had been rolled, I abandoned ship.
For the short time I was there though, I had a great time, and the filming was loads of fun. Body Step 77 was quite a moving and emotional release - being the Breast Cancer Awareness release. Body Step 78 is a fun, energetic release, and it looks as though Mark had a lot of fun coming up with the choreography for this one.
He was presenting one track and he said, "How's my girls?" looking around at the four women he was surrounded by, and then said, "Every man's wet dream!"
The stuff that man can get away with! People think that Gandalf comes up with some weird, random, dodgy lines, but quite honestly, Gandalf only pushes the line. Mark blatantly crosses it with some of the stuff he says; he is one cheeky cheeky man. (I will never forget the "Save it for the bedroom!" remark I heard once through the carpark at New Lynn while his class was going on, good grief!) I have NO idea how on earth Mark manages to get that stuff through - Gandalf heavily moderates his cues when he's filming, but Mark seems to either maintain his dodgy quota or even exceed it. Hmmm... I think because he had to behave himself for the Breast Cancer release, he maybe thought he had to double up the dodginess for this release to make up for it? Who knows, huh?
The guest presenter this time was Vanessa Labort from the UK - and it's a shame you won't be able to see it very well on the DVD, though she has a MEAN tattoo on her leg.
She presented three consecutive tracks, and blew everyone out of the water. I was pretty much relieved to be sitting out and watching at this point!
Lisa, as usual, was a fireball of energy and simply too adorable for words. The Les Mills Whanau took up the majority of the first row, and my goodness, Sarah Robinson was giving them shoutouts a plenty. If you're a Step instructor, listen out for this! Mah Boi Patrick gets a shoutout from Miss Robinson, and many many times over, you will hear 'The Les Mills Whanau'. For those of you who aren't in the know, 'Whanau' is the Maori word for 'Family', and it's a group that Fred started after the January/February filmings this year. It started off small, with myself, Fred, and Nelly, though since then has exploded and gone absolutely hog wild with passionate Les Millsers. It's incredible that even though the group is amazingly large, EVERYONE gets along. You would think there would be at least a couple of personality clashes, but seriously, it's amazing. And don't you ever think the group is too big to get in on the action, there's room for everyone, and you don't even have to be a Jammer or Stepper! Just passionate about Les Mills :-D
Body Step 78 is a great, fun, energetic release and it's going to go off across the world. After the sobering - while not sombre, but definitely moving - release that was BS77, BS78 is sure to bring out the fun times!
Next up...
Body Jam 51
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