Stranded

I'm supposed to fly back from my ZhangJiaJie vacation on Friday morning, but I'm still stranded at Guangzhou at the moment. And the flight home has not been confirmed.

Details later!

Facebook Withdrawal Symptom

I'm currently somewhere in Hunan Province, China on a holiday. Managed to get internet connection in my hotel room via Dad's netbook, but I couldn't find a working web proxy to access Facebook! SneakMe.net which worked while I was working in Beijing, is sadly out of operation here.

Must... read... status updates.... ugh.

Thank You, Enjoy Your Meal

Last night I visited a food court and ordered Chicken Chop from the Western Food stall. After the lady served the food and collected the RM7, she said, "Thank you, enjoy your meal."

I was literally stunned for a second! It's just so rare from a hawker stall, heck, even *any* stall for that matter. Goes to show how rare pleasantries are in our culture.

(Unless you're a foreign tourist.)

Achy Breaky Legs

Phew!

So glad I completed the 5 replacement classes for BodyJam! Thankfully I had Pauline's help for most of them, so it's less of a burden. Still, it felt exhilarating to be able to dance for 6 days straight especially after the back injury episode 2 months ago.

The teaching experience culminated in me recording my BodyJam international certification video on Tuesday morning. A rite of passage for every Les Mills instructor, I think I did good enough to clear even with the following mishaps:

• I forgot to ask some of their names, so I could not call out names during class for CRC. I did give general feedback like, "You gals look hot!" though. (I did consider calling out a fake name, but decided against the dishonesty)
• The microphone went kaput doing the 2nd half! I bought a new battery just to prevent this from happening. As I found out after the class, the battery was working but I had disrupted the wire connections. Therefore, I had to reduce music volume and shout louder so that the video assessor will be able to hear me.
• I was supposed to wear a jacket for the warmup to look "cool", but forgot all about it as I was running late after setting up the videocam myself.
• Small little mistake in the final breakout but managed to correct myself quickly.

And now... the wait for results!

It's A Good Start

Sure, it's just a replacement class, but hey, it's a good start.

I'm replacing BodyJam classes while resident Jamsters Chris, Alan, and Terence are on a vacation.

Join me and Pauline at Fitness First Island Plaza for the following classes:

• Thursday, 22 Oct 2009, 6.25pm
• Friday, 23 Oct 2009, 9.30pm
• Sunday, 25 Oct 2009, 10.55am
• Tuesday, 27 Oct 2009, 10.30am

And also Fitness Studio Gurney Tower for BodyJam on Saturday 11.30am!

BodyJam 51 Sizzler

BODYJAM® 51 is here to drop a funk bomb on the floor in your club! We’ve got hits from T-Pain and The Ting Tings, the best Gloria Estefan track ever and the hottest House anthems of the year! Track 1, Scared Of Me from Fedde le Grand, is so funky it should be illegal. The first combo comes back strong in the second half of the class, so feel the correct flava from beat one. T-Pain’s track, Freeze, will take you through the Isolation block. This is about feeling your hips from the beginning. Sing along while you get your class to “dance like me”.

Get your Swag Swag on to The Ting Tings’ Shut Up And Let Me Go – one of the hottest tracks from 2008. So what is Swag? Swag is your flava. The style is purely you, and you know you are all over it! Make it oversized and Swagalicious, baby! The new Tribal Salsa routine is a cosmic concoction of Latin styles. It’s going to fire up your floor and push your heart rate through the roof. Are you ready for the hottest, nastiest Recovery Track ever? Missy Elliott’s anthem One Minute Man is Hip Hop 101. Get yo’ Bounce Bounce on with the Kick Back Step. Surrender yourself to the rhythm and Leave The World Behind! This standout anthem of 2009 is so phenomenal that we’ve included two versions for a full 11½ minutes!

Want more jammers on the floor? Use the two complexity levels to grow your BODYJAM® class. Teach the low-complexity version for at least three weeks before adding in the advanced options. Get your class comfortable with the release as a whole, then start throwing in the advanced options over the next couple of weeks. Save some of the trickier options for later to keep your advanced class participants on their toes.

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Well I don't have the full track list yet, but I've checked out some of the songs referenced there and I'm expecting great things! First of all, Scared of Me is truly funky - I hope it reverses the trend of overly-laidback warmups (think Saturday (50) and Closer (48)). And obviously I'm a big fan of any long Latin block - especially since Cha Cha Heels (34) was the last release to mix Tribal and Latin together (correct me if I'm wrong). Leave the World Behind is a stomping, trance-like track. I can definitely imagine breaking out to this! But I'm witholding judgment as to whether it's wise to put 11.5 minutes of it! I hated 43's second half because there's only so much "Please don't stop the music..." that a sane man can take. I'm ready to be proven wrong though.

Perhaps the best part of this release is that I'll get to see Rachael Cohen herself presenting it. First in Bangkok's Asia Fitness Convention, and again the following week (if I decide to go LM Quarterly in KL).

Lucky

I might have mentioned it more than once that I'm never lucky in Lucky Draws. Especially at dinner functions, it's either the table I'm in gets neglected, or many people at my table wins something except me.

Well, I guess this makes up for all those disappointed times!

Recently, top Malaysian fitness blogger DailyMuscle ran a lucky draw for passes to the Asia Fitness Convention in Bangkok, held from 27-29 November 2009 and valued at USD399 each. It was so simple - just complete a slogan! I was kinda half-hearted due to my previous experience with draws but I figured it wouldn't hurt so I entered my half-assed attempt at a slogan.

Long story short: I won one of the 3 passes available! I was shocked watching the drawing process as I was more interested in seeing how he would conduct the draw, rather than praying for my name to be on it. So when he revealed my slogan as the second winner I sat there in stunned silence.

I'm currently awaiting e-mail confirmation but I've already started planning my trip there. This will be my fourth time to Bangkok so I've seen most of it all. My focus is on the exciting group fitness sessions where I'll get to see international presenters rip it up on stage! Hopefully get to learn some new moves to incorporate in Cardio Fit. Oh, and "wardrobe upgrading" with help from Chatuchak Market.