But this is L.A. - home of muscle beach, inspiration for roller blading and the birth place of the thigh master. We try what's new. What's cutting edge. The next big secret to 2% body fat and a red carpet body in just 8 minutes a day.
As you know, I am embracing L.A. But while I like - well, real food - too much to do the latest 'proprietary blend' 20-day raw juice cleanse, I am willing to turn to my inner cardio queen and give some of the new ideas in workouts a try.
I'm not talking pole dancing.....that's so 2008. After all, Santa Monica is the home of the first Cirque De Soleil show in the United States. Future performers - and the delusional among us - can take classes in high-flying arts like the trapeze and slick, colorful silk panels that make you cry for the 'easy' days of your 5th grade gym class rope climb. I loved it! No worries mom, despite the best efforts of the graceful instructor, I lack any skill to run off and join the circus.
Willing to watch me make fun of myself for my birthday, my dear friend Kim bought me a gift card for a dance cardio class and then talked me into the Hip Hop Dance Class. Of course we have hip hop dance classes...what else do you think the Fly Girls are doing until the In Living Color reunion show? It took us one hour to learn a 15-second hip hop routine that proves I am, in fact, too old to consider a second career as a Laker Girl.
It was a really good workout for me, but I am not looking for a weekly reminder that I do not, in fact, got the moves like Jagger. So another friend had an excellent alternative - do all the traditional exercises you have known for years. Let's just find a way to make it harder. Do it on 1970s-space-movie-inspired-prop-boot-gone-crazy shoes - it's called Kangoo. Once you master walking on the single-leg trampolines, you go through your basic cardio moves from jogging to jumping jacks to Jane Fonda-inspired aerobics. http://bouncevenice.wordpress.com/
Perhaps the genius of Kangoo is that it serves a dual purpose. Your quest for firm glutes take you onto the exercise trail running from Malibu to Manhattan Beach. So your very location helps you do double duty as extras in the entertainment capital of the world, providing a great deal of gawks and head-shaking laughs for the tourists. I try not to think about how many bad vacation photo albums I now appear in.
But if you really want to do challenge yourself, you have to turn up the heat. It may stay a cool 72-degrees year round in southern California year round (which is a lie, but that is for another column) but you can have the hottest workout around at Fire Groove, where in 12 1-hour lessons you too can swing flaming balls around your head for the entertainment of others. (I'll start booking for weddings and birthday parties in August.) It turns out there are multiple ways you can 'dance' with fire. Kim and I (I am starting to see a pattern with her!) tried Poi Fire Dancing, which is supposed to be a graceful swinging of ropes twirling beautiful flaming orbs around your body to music.
Thankfully, instruction was conducted with socks stuffed with weighted balls....slightly less painful to the temples while learning butterfly wings and angel wings and a move that should be renamed "the black eye" for it's ultimate accomplishment. I am going to use the word dance very lightly, as I truly felt like my moves were more defensive...standing as still as possible or moving as quickly as possible to avoid being smacked in the head - again. I will definitely say that Poi dancing got my heart rate up....though I think it was more out of fear than any cardio effort.
Next, Kim and I are going to learn to paddle board in Malibu. Just in time for prime whale migration season. I think it might be safer.
As Missing Persons sang "Nobody walks in L.A." - but we are willing to try just about anything else in the name of fitness. It's how you Survive L.A.
