Thursday 29th October - 3:10pm
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.
Next up...
Body Pump 73
7 comments:
Oh man, this makes me so homesick... I moved to London 2 months ago and these are the first filmings I've missed in 2 years! I miss Les Mills! Hope you had a fab time at all the filmings :-)
Good read Raina. Kylie?
Btw, watched the sizzler on BJ51. Carla looked the hottest yet!
Rebecca - Ohhhhhh I would be missing the filmings too!
Alan - Yes, Kylie was program coach for all of the presenting teams this quarter :-)
Haha, yes you got 50% of my fav step instructors right! The same can be said for my fav pump instructors! :P
I love this release, however I got told off for doing 6 step classes & 3 pump classes last week!
It was great to bump into you at the gym last week! Look forward to your post on pump! :-)
Hi Raina,
Nice to see your take on the filming. Can't wait to teach 79 (or 78 for that matter). Minor point though, Kylie mentioned during our balance training that she was program coach for 5 programs - I'm assuming that is pump, attack, and balance, which she teaches, and jam and vive which I saw her discussing with the presenters. Ruthie T appeared to be one of the program coaches for step.
Anon - Hmmm, okay, it's just that I could've sworn Mark thanked Kylie at the end of filming, though that could be my faulty memory!
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