I'm Trying to Get in Shape...

I haven't exactly waited until the start of the new year to resolve to be more physically active. I heard someone say once that he never makes New Year's resolutions because why wait until then to make a change? He believes in starting a new thing right away. No time like the present! The reality for fitness changes, though, is that January is just a good time to get new equipment or videos because there are so many on sale right now. WalMart just had a sale last week on yoga mats, exercise balls (I should probably get me a smaller one) and a limited selection of exercise videos. Well, I've been looking for something new to exercise with. After figuring out that my treadmill really wasn't broken, I decided that having a different kind of video to exercise with would be refreshing. So I bought one of the Dancing With the Stars exercise videos: Dance Body Tone. I liked the idea of dancing for aerobic exercise instead of a lot of what used to be out there (Jane Fonda, anyone?), especially if it incorporates ballroom since I did that for several years intensively at BYU. I tried it out for the first time this morning and I was pleasantly surprised. There are parts of it that are really quite a work-out (I didn't last through Lacey Schwimmer's section at the end). I thought it was easy to tell who the natural teachers are, too. The first section is an abs workout with Kym Johnson. Her English accent is fun and she's quite the dancer. But she went through every move so fast that it was frustrating to try to keep up with her. And I have a dance background. I think it would be exasperating for someone who had never done cha cha or mambo to try to figure out the steps or when to change weight from one foot to the other or exactly how to create that hip circle thing. The tango stuff in the middle section was much easier to follow because Dmitry (don't know his last name because I never follow the show) demonstrated slowly, repeated his demonstration several times, and then danced it up to tempo. I just wish that he had tied all of his combinations together for more sustained effort. Lacey's section at the end is the best as far as demonstration and teaching go. It is a style I'm the least comfortable with, but she is a good teacher so I could follow along pretty easily.

There is another video I want to try out because I'm familiar with both the dancers. I don't know what they're doing competitively right now, but they're both amazing and they've both come to BYU for dance camps. It's called "Core Rhythms" with Jaana Kunitz and Julia Gorchakova Powers. It sounds fun. And there are a couple of cardio dance workouts also by the Dancing with the Stars people that sound more up my alley. So here's hoping the new motivation will keep me going!