Cardio Kickboxing

I have a new addiction. Unlike my addiction to baking and cooking and baking and cooking, this one actually helps me burn calories. It's cardio kickboxing.


This new addiction hasn't replaced my love for yoga, but it is adding a nice new component to my fitness regimen.

Aside from yoga classes (which I adore), I've never been really big on fitness classes. I took one aerobics class as an undergrad and entertained the notion of teaching aerobics myself to make extra money for about five minutes, until I realized I am not peppy enough to be an aerobics instructor. Seriously, can you see me doing that? I don't think so. I'm more of an introvert when it comes to working out. It's my thinking time, my decompression time.

But I had talked about trying out some of the classes at the L-Town rec center a few times. Then Kid Sister and Conservative Mom started going to cardio kickboxing. And they loved it (even though it made them so sore they could hardly move for days after).

So I decided to tag along and give it a try a few weeks ago.

Lest you males in the crowd roll your eyes and think that's sissy work (ahem ... Conservative Hubby), I would like to tell you that there are a number of men who attend each class—some of whom are rather burly and probably could bench press two of me at one time if they so desired. And certain men have come to one class and never made it back again because it was too intense. Just so you know.

Each class is totally different, so it's hard to give you an exact description of what each one entails.

Basically, we start out by getting our heart rates up and our muscles loose. This may involve running around the room holding weights or running suicides or any other form of intense cardio for short bursts of time. There are plenty of different types of squats and lunges and jumps and kicks. Lots of push ups. Plenty of core work. Most of the class, we carry around weights and use them for myriad forms of personal torture. Then there's always a boxing portion, where we're kicking and punching at boxing bags with an intensity that undoubtedly makes people cower.

(Until now, my boxing has been rather weak as I've been doing it bare-handed. But today, I found a lovely pair of (pink!) boxing gloves on eBay. They're on their way, so boxing bags, you better watch out.)

I'm pretty dedicated about working out on my own—between yoga, cardio, and lifting weights, I stay relatively fit. But one of the things I like most about the cardio kickboxing class is there's someone there to push me. The instructor yells at us to get going, that we only have to do three more. And then she says just kidding, five more. And five more. And somehow, we groan and grunt and power through it.

The voice yelling at me in my own head to do one more set when I'm lifting or to run one more mile when I'm on the treadmill isn't nearly as loud and persuasive. Although I've noticed, since I started attending a cardio kickboxing class once or twice a week, that I've kicked up my own workouts a notch. Even when I'm not in the class, I'm motivated to work harder, to push my body to the limits.

That makes it worth it.

Photo: KWDesigns via Flickr

B-I-N-G-O

Sorry, folks. I didn't really try BINGO tonight. Although that would have been fun. Rather, I went to a yoga class. And, sadly, it reminded me of playing BINGO.

Strange? Maybe a little. It took me about half of the 45-minute class to figure out how I'd describe it to others. Not as vinyasa yoga, mind you (which is what it was supposed to be). But BINGO.

In case you don't practice yoga, let me tell you this: you don't want want your yoga class to remind you of BINGO.

Seal 1. Silence, as all the BINGO fans scan their cards. Warrior 2. Still no BINGOs. Bent wrist pose. Silence.

Bent wrist pose? What the heck is that?

OK. So not only was I distracted by the fact that the class was reminiscent of BINGO, with the instructor calling out the names of the poses then saying nothing else in between, but I also spent a good portion of the time trying to figure out where the pose names came from. I had never heard of some of them before, and some poses that were pretty darn familiar had the strangest monikers. Not their Sanskrit names, mind you, but very American names unlike anything I've ever heard them called before. Which isn't to say they aren't reasonable names. Just a bit strange to this yogi.

I tried another yoga class at this same local gym about a year ago, but accidentally went to some sort of yoga fusion class that involved very little yoga and some strange weight-lifting exercises. So I hadn't been back since. But the new class schedule I got in the mail the other day listed a Yoga II class, and it said specifically it was for those experienced with yoga, so I decided to give it a try.

There were three other women and the instructor in the class with me tonight. The other three women regularly practiced at the gym. Good for them. The instructor informed me she called the class "slow flow." OK. Great. As long as there's "flow" in there, I'll be set.

Only, as I believe I mentioned, it wasn't flow, it was BINGO. There wasn't any flow at all. Get into a pose. Pause. Get out of a pose. Pause. Get into a new pose, after the instructor calls it out. It certainly wasn't like any level two class I've ever experienced before—no arm balances, no inversions except for plow, no flow. Sad.

Still, I'm glad to see that the other women in the class with me enjoyed it and keep coming back. It certainly wasn't for me, but any yoga is better than no yoga, right? And I did feel a bit looser, a bit more relaxed afterward, despite the fact that less-than-stellar yoga classes sometimes make me more tense than before I went to class.

Yet one more reason why I should just hurry up and become a yoga instructor myself, right? BINGO!

Practicing Yoga Again

I used to be able to do this.

And this.

And a ton of other poses—tricky arm balances and advanced variations—as if they were nothing.

And then I moved.

I knew before I even started packing boxes that leaving Des Moines was going to change my yoga practice. I'd looked and looked at what options were available in L-Town, in Bloomington, in Springfield, anywhere within an hour's drive. And right after I moved, I explored some of these options. I even made repeat visits to a few.

But none of them compared to the yoga practice I got at H(om) in Des Moines (sadly, since closed). Nothing compared to practicing with a teacher who pushed me further than I'd ever been pushed before (and who was probably even more enthusiastic about the strides I made than I was), next to yogis who were some of my best friends and inspirations on and off the mat. Walking the couple of blocks to practice a couple of times a week became one of the highlights of my time in Des Moines—I'd never felt more limber, healthier, happier. My back hadn't felt so good in years.

After the move, I tried to continue practicing on my own. And at the places I ventured to in Springfield and Bloomington. It worked for a while—enough that, when I visited my yogi sister in D.C. and made it to a few classes, I still felt good in my skin. I could keep up. I had it yet.

But then there was winter weather. And basketball games to go to instead. And an unhappy Space Turtle. And so going to yoga fell by the wayside. And somehow I managed to go months—months!—without practicing.

I made it back to my mat (in the middle of our not-so-big kitchen, mind you) a few times recently, and I'm amazed at how much my body has changed in the relatively short time it's been since I practiced regularly. Everything I worked so hard to build up—the strength to stay up in complicated arm balances, the stamina to hold deep poses just one more breath longer than I thought I could've—is all gone. Tonight when I practiced, I felt like I was inhabiting someone else's body. My limbs were stiff even in poses I'd done a hundred times. Bending forward was much more laborious than I remembered. So was backward. And even more so sideways. My ribs felt compacted, as if they were stacked one on top of the other with nothing in between. My spine was crunched together, and I could feel it from the base of my skull all the way to my sacrum. Where I would normally move smoothly from one pose to the next, would flow effortlessly, would immediately go into binds, I found myself wobbling, sticking with the basics, pulling out of poses early. Who is this person? I wondered. When is she going to bring my body back?

At the same time though, I noticed something happening. An awareness of my body returning, even if it was just to point out the cracks and creaks and knots. An awareness of the poses and how my body felt in them. An awareness that wow, just holding Warrior 2, just standing in Mountain Pose, can be intense.

I regret that my yoga practice fell to the wayside in the first place, and I regret that it took this long for me to come back to it. But at the same time, this is good for me. Now, I can spend a couple of times a week in my kitchen, building up the strength I used to have. I can go to yoga classes that, when I first moved, seemed so boring and uninspiring I didn't even want to return. So what if there aren't many arm balances or inversions? I don't need them yet. Not until I figure out what form this new yogi in me might take.