Body Jam 51+

There was only one full rehearsal of the BJ51+ release before the actual filming itself. Rumours were rife about who was presenting, as Dutch presenter Danny hadn't been made aware of the Jam+ filming date and had booked his ticket to go back to The Netherlands the day before. If Danny wasn't there, who was going to present on his behalf? Ever since BJ48, the presenters for both the Jam and Jam+ filmings have been the same. Conversations with Gandalf beforehand revealed that he was going to be the only presenter for Jam+. Why? Because the presenters don't get paid extra for the additional filming, so Gandalf took it on himself to present the Plus for this release solo.

The first major difference in the Jam+ filming is the bonus warmup track. Gandalf had been wearing a purple t-shirt with the text 'I'm Bad You Know It' written on it. For this track, he wore a different t-shirt. It had, 'Dance 4 Life' written on it, which of course, lead to the dawning realisation that Oh My God This Is The Dance 4 Life Release! The last release that was Dance4Life was BJ47, and the warmup for that release was the Dance4Life track. This time, it is a combination warmup and isolations track, and it's a stark contrast to the warmup for the normal release. It's a track that I would consider to be uber weird, where you can get inside your own head and connect with the music. I normally don't include my personal opinion of releases on filming posts, but the first time I tried this warmup, I didn't like it. I didn't like it because it was so dramatically different from any other Jam warmup I've done before. It took a couple of goes at it before I began to approach it the same way I would a track 6 in RPM (pace track), where you connect with the music, disconnect yourself from the world and get inside your own head.

The second major difference in the Jam filming is that Gandalf announced that it would be short, and there was a chance that it would end early. In all of the filmings that I've been to, even the ones that ran quite smoothly never finished on time. So that Gandalf would be so bold to say that this filming would end early was rather bold.

And soon, it was clear why.

There has been a LOT of discussion on the LesMills.com forums about how instructors everywhere were at their wits end with frustration over the "+" button on the Jam DVDs. The first time this was introduced was in BJ48, where the filming team attempted to refilm just the + parts of the choreography to try and trim down the amount of time spent at the filming. This was a huge flop and the filming took three times as long as it was scheduled for. Ever since then, the Jam and Jam+ filmings have been two, full separate classes, despite the fact that for the Jam+ choreography, only certain segments were used in the final DVD, behind the + button.

BJ50 went back to the original presentation of how the two different versions appeared in BJ47, one full set of filming footage for BJ47, and another for BJ47+, and with that, there was widespread relief amongst most of the BJ instructors across the world.

While I haven't spoken to anyone who works at either LMI or LMNZ, I have the gut feeling that the + button is going to be making a return, based on the way that the BJ51+ filming took place. In the latin block, the + part of it appears toward the end of the block. So, we only filmed the end of the block. This is very similar to what happened for the BJ48 filming, where only the + parts of the choreography were refilmed to appear behind the + button on the DVD. Again, I haven't had any confirmation from anyone who works in Les Mills New Zealand or Les Mills International about this. This is just my gut feeling. In my head, I just don't see how they could use the footage that they have to create two full versions of the choreography on the DVD. In short, I think in this release we're going to see the return of the + button. I've only seen a couple of snippets of Jam DVDs, and I can see how frustrating it would be when trying to learn the choreography - especially if you want to convert put it on your iPod and thus, only have access to the base version; and when practising at home where you'd need to have the remote in your hand while dancing to make sure you hit the + button in time to get to the + choreography.

If my hunch is right, I'm disappointed for the Jam instructors out there. Especially with the 'false alarm' where BJ50 provides you with two full versions and thus leads you to believe that there will be two full versions from the subsequent releases. Again, I haven't had any official word from anyone. This is just my logical deduction from what I've seen - don't take this as an announcement on behalf of Les Mills or anything like that. Just my logical conclusion.

Now, onto the filming. I've mentioned the Dance4Life bonus warmup. The second track of the release is the cardio block. I'm going to slightly spoil the choreography here because sadly, the choreography I spoil will probably never be seen again.

Say what?

Gandalf had only had one full runthrough of the BJ51+ choreography before the filming as there was one day between the 51 and 51+ filmings. Because Rose, Patrick and I are Gandalf stalkers, we followed him to his New Lynn class to check out the Plus choreography. Gandalf had been practising some of the plus choreography several weeks ago, but I hadn't seen what was new for the cardio block. The first time I saw it at his runthrough at New Lynn, I went, "NO WAAAAAAAAY!!!"

My favourite addition was the inclusion of an armline which is similar to the pop and lock in BJ47's old school hip hop, and the circle clap in BJ41's old school hip hop (ahahah, it didn't actually occur to me that the two similar moves were both in old school hip hop blocks). The base choreography has a 1-1-2-2 type of cue to introduce it, but the plus was completely different. Rose and I almost wet our pants when we saw the new plus armline, it was that awesome.

At the filming, Gandalf precued the block and started with the 1-1-2-2 move. To which, Patrick next to me said, "Wrong-Wrong-Choreography!", automatically assuming, like myself, that he'd actually just gotten the two versions in his head. Unfortunately, it was not the wrong-wrong-choreography, but the armline was completely removed from the plus version. I'm quite disappointed that the armline didn't make it into the choreography, and we will never know who made the decision that it should be removed.

We only refilmed the last couple of minutes of the latin block as the plus choreography only appears towards the end, and because I'm in the front row and there were less people around at the filming, there are probably some real STUPID images of me that'll end up on the DVD. Towards the end of the track, the cameraman came right up in my face, and instead of doing something cool-looking, I had a big-ass grin on my face and gave a double-thumbs up.

Kinda like this.

Just replace that with my ugly mug and that's what's going to go out to the world. Good gawd.

The final block of the class was filmed and we did it top to bottom as there is quite a bit of plus choreography that can be incorporated. Unlike the house block of BJ49 where the difference between plus and base was literally between a knee or a kick, there is significant difference between the BJ51 and BJ51+ choreography. In fact, one of the BJ51+ moves was left out - one that Patrick and Rose had been practising to try and get right for the class (so imagine how bummed they must've felt when it didn't make it into the filming!), but even without that move, there is still more than enough plus choreography to play with.

The class did, as predicted, finish early since there was no need to do the full latin block, recovery or cooldown.

I hope that the fact that the way that the BJ51 filming took place, leading to the possibility of the reintroduction of the + button on the DVDs doesn't drown out the impact of the release. BJ51 is an incredible, INCREDIBLE release - and in all honesty, I think I'm going to make it my goal to do my module on this one. I was kicking myself for not doing it on BJ48, one of my most favourite releases, though I think now I have another chance through BJ51.

It's a good release. SO good. I'm really really excited about this one, and am irritable that it's going to be another three months before I get to do it again. Great moves, great music, great presenters. A great all round Jam offering.