Funktionslust!

It's a German word meaning “pleasure taken in what one can do best.” I like to think of it as pleasure taken in physical movement ---just the joy of being alive and being able to move, to feel my heart beat fast, to sweat, use my muscles. I felt it tonight running. I feel like I have to do a follow-up post to the last one where I struggled so hard with that last run. They're not all like that. After that run, I tell myself I never have to run again after this race. SCREW IT!

I felt back on top tonight, and had the thought cross my mind that I've got to talk my kids into coming on runs with me long enough to feel this. What a high. I've felt it in Tae Bo often enough, where the music hits just right, and you push through that last set, beyond what you thought you were capable of, but being outside... it brings one more dimension to the pleasure.

I ran to books on MP3 a for a long time. Nothing like it to keep from getting bored, and getting lost in a story instead, but I'm glad i finally figured out how to do the music thing on my Zen. My taste is eclectic to say the least. Right now I've got:

Eminem
Judy Garland
Big&Rich
The Cult
XTC
Ke$ha
B.O.B.
Black Eyed Peas
Muse
Cake
Celine Dion
Green Day
Jackson 5
Cage the Elephant
and some others. My only requirement is that the song has to get my blood pumping when I hear it. So yeah, Judy Garland singing "C'mon get Happy" does it, "Firewoman" from the Cult does it, and "American Idiot" from Green Day does it all equally as well. It feels like cheating to borrow energy from these performers, but that's what we pay them for right?

My time is back down too! Last week was pretty bad because I had my hyperthyroidism acting up, and lost some muscle. I'm fast again compared to that "herd of turtles" I was last week anyway. I'm so grateful my body is working right again.

Gina from "Choosing Raw" did a post a few days ago on body image (there's also a part two you can get to from there if you're interested) that was fantastic. This girl thinks before she writes (unlike my blabbering). I thought it was so interesting the changes noticed in womens' journals after the 1930's. There was a big shift in focus towards body image. Before then, it was more common to express personal goals which were more spiritual in nature. It's easy for me to fall into this trap myself, and pick this most trivial of focal points.

Athleticism helps me maintain that balance. Although I'm no elite athlete, making sure my legs stay strong helps me let go (some of the time!) of the desire for thin thin thighs. Those thighs do a lot for me! Let 'em live! Pushing a little further each time lifting weights helps me appreciate my arms even though they will never be the willowy, graceful appendages of a supermodel. I'm short and stubby all over, and I can't change that much. But I'm grateful for functionality.

No big conclusion, thanks for listening to my rambles. --Amara

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Play that funky music

What do you do when you're down? I've had a rough few days. I've got drama with Ari's school, and I'm AGONIZING over a decision I don't want to make. I don't want to face it. I want to take a nap and never wake up sometimes. I know that sounds suicidal, I just mean I want to escape, and it would be nice if it was for good.

OK, here's what pulled me through the last few days. First, thank heaven (literally) for that Tae Bo class I teach. I didn't even think I could get through it, but the music started and those great students were all there with their energy, and suddenly I was in heaven: moving so quickly, punching out my aggression, hitting right on the beat, like an extra reinforcement from the universe (--yes I know this sounds cheesy). Five minutes into that class and I was rocking a huge smile on my face. I love that cardio kickboxing. Love it. Yay for my students too. Yay yay. ..and spin class this morning was great. Something about that endorphin high I guess.

Second, I needed a little more than my "book on mp3" lately. I love the escapism of the stories I listen to, --I always pick YA fiction --cause that's the point for me --I don't need extra seriousness in my life, but lately I just scanned around the FM radio, and found this funky little station, that doesn't even work inside buildings sometimes, the signal is so small (90.90 for those of you in Utah). It has all of these hippie type songs, that take me back to all those times Kay or Fred and I went to the coffee shops with Norman, or that other guy? What was his name again? The big guy with the dark hair? I can never remember his name; and I got a huge bowl-like mug of hot chocolate, Mexican hot Chocolate if we went to the gay coffee shop,--cause it was the best (you know with that little cinnamon hit you get with that kind of hot chocolate?), and I would ask Kay which waitress was the cutest (and secretly wonder if she was cuter than me, but that's just my perennial insecurity that always crops up). We'd listen to that kind of music in those shops, and it makes me happy now to sing out loud to those songs when I hear them again.

Third, Jeff and I sometimes do a little cardio at night, while we're watching a show, and then late at night, when I'm taking a bath, it's so beautiful with the lights on the sparkly window (yeah, of COURSE it's privacy glass), and the big tub, and all my little decorations that I picked out as an expression of me (me and Jeff I guess, OK, and let's confess, I bought a lot because they were on sale), and the big big heavy cotton towels, and Jeff to snuggle with at the end of the day. Yum.

I know my problems are doinky compared to most people, and it makes it all the worse that they can plow me under like this, but, I'm going to be OK. I've got a lot to be thankful for.

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Cardio Party

I taught my first class last night at BYU. SOOOO fun! Decent sized crowd for a first class, and they were all whooping and counting with me and everything. I couldn't stop smiling. Then I had to get up early to sub-teach at UVU for a friend of mine, which was her first class of the semester, and -what the? The students all came in street clothes. I felt kind of bad for them and asked if they wanted to run and grab some PE issue before we started, but they all said they were fine --we're talking sweaters, and hats and earrings --I'm not kidding. OOOKAYYY. So I went through basics with them and then did like 20 minutes of real cardio. They signed up for it right? They were pretty good sports though. Nice people.

Today I run downstairs to check on Kai and his friend because I heard some clunking noises that sounded ominous. Kai is on the unplugged treadmill with weight lifting gloves on his feet, pushing the belt around , and his friend is on the stairclimber clunking down on one side and then another. Cardio's for everyone I guess.

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Kickin' it!

I just got the call that I'm picked up to teach Tae Bo at BYU next semester! Yay me! Break is OVER.

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Everything is hurty.

Can I be honest? I'm dying right now. OK, not really dying, don't freak out. But the holidays really did a number on me. I ate crap food all day many many days. We had a whole neighborhood of treats brought right to our front door. I also missed almost three weeks of workouts, and now everything seems SO HARD!

After every class it seems like I just want to lay down on the floor and cry I'm so tired and hurty. Why is it that you can take care of yourself for months, and undo all your progress in a couple of weeks? All my weightlifting levels that I worked so hard to build up to are back down to what I was at almost a year ago (It takes me a long time to move up in weights --I'm basically a chicken wimp).

Jeff tells me there's "muscle memory", that it's easier to rebuild muscle than build it for the first time, and he'd better be right, because I'm pretty discouraged. But then, it makes me think of my new favorite Winston Churchill quote: "If you're going through hell, keep going." I guess that's how I got through Billy Blanks Camp. I never thought I could do all of that in one day, but I did right? It's going to be OK right? Maybe I'm sick? OK, thanks for listening to me whine. It's going to be OK right?

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Yelling out the counts! Tae Bo: it's a family thing.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were free open classes for everyone at Omega. I easily talked Tia and Ari into going with me. In fact, Saturday I was going to sleep in and Ari woke me up wanting to go again. My girls are tough! I was so proud of them. Lots of people brought their husbands and their kids. It made for a fun atmosphere.


Here's Tia doing some ab's stuff with me near the end. Don't look close, we were all sweaty.

My sister-in-law even came. She did the whole class (it was an extra long hour and a half class even) -amazing for a first timer!

Analisa brought her whole family. I'm sorry, I'm not sure if that's the right spelling of her name. At the end we did some walking around the room, and those kids were running, jumping, and zooming past everyone. Where does that energy go when you grow up? I miss it.

We did some balance stuff near the end, and it was really good for me. That's not my specialty.

Here's my cute Ari. She loved the "exercising". Hopefully I can get them back there soon for the next school holiday.

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Dragging and the Trees

Man I'm dragging today. Jeff and I stayed up kind of late trying to figure out what to do with some investing stuff, and then I woke up three or four times during the night panicked about said investing stuff (we bought some property just before the big housing market crash --I wish I'd spent that money at the mall now), and going to one of Wendy's workouts with that type of a night sleep behind you is not a good idea. Here wait I'm going to look for my Wendy picture:

see-- that type of energy on someone's face is scary when you think of the things they're going to make you do for an hour! So I got the kids off to school, and went to sleep. I can't seem to make myself do anything. When I did drive Kai to preschool I was cheered up a little to see my flowering pear trees are finally changing color.
We've got them all down our street actually, and they look like a row of torches all lit up. Sorry, I know that's a cliche, but they really look like someone lit the trees on fire. I remember when I first came up to Utah to go to school, and the leaves all started changing color, I was so excited, I sent leaf samples in letters home to my San Diego boyfriend. I'm sure he was thrilled. I can just picture his face now opening up envelope after envelope of dried out crushed leaves. I just hadn't seen things like that before in So. California. If I remember right, I was also excited when it started snowing, but that excitement wore off pretty quick, and hasn't come back.

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Omega-mania! We win!

Guess what? We won --kind of --I think. Utah Valley Magazine has a "best of Utah county" competition every year, and in the category "best place to work out" we came in at least within the top three. We'll find out in January. But that's pretty amazing considering we're up against the Gold's gym chain which has -I don't know how many-- gyms in Utah county. You can see from the picture though, ours is an amazing gym. We've got a full cardio floor (think cartilage and joint care) that's huge --there's probably 45 people in here at this class, and they all have room to spread out; great sound system, fans and coolers, mirrors (OK, most of us hate the mirrors), and the energy! In our early morning classes we get people that are really into working out (you have to to get up at around 5:00am every day) and everyone is counting down sets, singing, and groaning together. We ARE the best place to work out. I really believe it. We'd better have won.

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Fablehaven and Kicking a Big Bag

Finished Fablehaven today. (Can you guys tell I'm taking it kind of easy after the catering things recently? It's a mental thing. I still bathed today, maybe not until 3:30, but I'm clean.) OK, that's a fun book; lot's of fairies and stuff, but not stupid. Some good character development, and the whole choices/consequences thing was a well-developed theme. It's funny, there was an endorsement on the front cover from the author of the Leven Thumps books which almost turned me off. That was a poor poor writer, but this one was pretty good! Lest Deja read this, I mean a good story-teller. I'm not sure I can recognize good writing yet, but I can usually spot the awful.
In non-related news, 7 people in my Tae Bo class today, 8 last Thursday (I've GOT to get some pictures of kicking legs or something for Tae Bo posts). If you remember, we just started the class in September, so I'm up from 1 person. Really. I was teaching 1 girl for a few classes. Pretty pathetic. But yeah, 7-8 people is pretty dang good for still being a shlub on the flier distribution thing. I'm looking into a banner for the building that just says "Best Cardio classes in Utah" or "Utah's best cardio classes" something like that. Noone needs to know it's just the best in OUR opinion. I really pushed them today. We did the bags ( big punching bags) for side leg stuff today. Roundhouse kicks, roundhouse/touch the floor, sidekicks with a squat.... woohoo! Sometimes it's fun just BECAUSE it's so hard. You feel so good that you've made your body obey your will --know what I mean? Also I had a new CD. That always helps.

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Face your fears.

I did it. Taught my whole class without a coughing fit. I had subs for my Tues. and Wed. classes, because I was afraid I couldn't do it without coughing. One thing I learned from Ari's Physical therapist is that exercise relaxes you. I always cough more when I'm tense. Maybe that explained why it worked today. Maybe it was just prayer. I prayed like the dickens. What's a dickens anyway? Of course I could barely drive home with the coughing fit I had in the car, but at least I wasn't humiliated in front of my class. It went really well. I even had one person sign up, and another new person come who sounds like she'll stay. She took a contract with her. I'm so glad I didn't miss out. It was a really fun class.


It reminds me of Kauai. I was Graving out in Kauai, and snorkeling I kept getting panic attacks. I really wanted to scuba dive though, and didn't want to miss out. Either with prayer, or just facing the fear head on, I had a really great dive. Want to see pictures?

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Tae Bo or not Tae Bo THAT is the question.

Just finished teaching my class, with TWO people. That's so discouraging. I've got 5 or 6 people signed up, but most didn't show today. Kills me. I know I need to do more advertising, but haven't had the time lately. I've got it scheduled in this week though. This is a new time for the studio 9:15 --it's a "mommy class" --you know, get the kids off to school, and THEN it's time for yourself. The thing with Mommys is , it's hard to pin us down to a firm schedule. Everything is so chaotic with little ones. I think I teach a pretty good class, so I'm trying not to take it personally. I'm just hoping to get a few die-hard toughies like Kelli and Audrey (neither whom can take this class now for health reasons) to form a core class we can build off of energy-wise. I'm praying for it. Anyone that wants to pray for me too, I wouldn't mind. I've got to beat the yoga lady for numbers of people by the end of the year!

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