Aerobics, African Style

I don’t remember the last time I laughed so hard or had so much fun working out. Today Brooke and I braved our first aerobics class at Nucleus Fitness Centre.

I went for the first time yesterday (Sunday afternoon) when the gym was completely empty, except for two men lifting weights and one man in workout clothes intently watching the Ireland v. (?) cricket match on TV. I felt overexposed in a shorts and tanktop – there’s a sign on the wall that encourages ladies to: “Dress appropriately, not provocatively. Dress respectfully and be proud of yourselves!” Hmmm. I forgot I really don’t see people wear shorts here. Does that mean I need to wear short-sleeves and capris or pants? Eek. Then again, I’m rapidly losing my tan, so maybe it’s best for everyone if I keep my pale legs covered up.

Monday afternoon around 5, Nucleus was a totally different experience. The locker room was filled with women; both the weight room and the cardio machines were pretty crowded. We were about ten minutes early for the class and the instructor, noticing we were new, had a woman come up to us and explain the class was in German. We knew the aerobics class was German, right? We both panicked a little bit, I have trouble with choreography in English, but turns out he was kidding. He started the class by saying, “I hope you ate lots of braii and drank lots of beer this weekend, because I did, so we are going to have a killer workout today. If you didn’t, it is your own fault, because the rest of us need to suffer today.” I immediately liked him.

How to give you a visual of the instructor... Imagine a hybrid of Perez Hilton and Richard Simmons, with a little German thrown in. I have never done so many hip thrusts, hip circles, or butt shakes in a cardio aerobics class. Techno music was blaring, and the moves were a combination of spastic arm movements and kicks with some pelvic thrusts here and there. It was insane: loud, crowded, partially unintelligible, a little stinky, and I loved it. I’d never been to an aerobics class with so many people – there must have been 75 people in the room. It was mostly middle-aged women, though a few brave men stuck it out for the entire class. There were some moves we couldn’t follow but when we didn’t understand what was happening we just threw our hands in the air and shaking wild. We managed to blend, or at least avoided injuring others – we were cracking up the entire time, and Brooke mentioned we have some new dance moves the next time we go to El Cubano. I definitely started sweating, and I’m sure my abs got a good workout from all the giggling. Near the very end, the instructor played a techno remix of the 80s song “Send Me an Angel” by Mark Safan… one of my favorite 80s songs ever. It totally made my day! As we were walking out, I noticed the TV was tuned to MTV and they were playing music videos… yay TV! It made me excited to come back tomorrow. It was exactly what I needed to kick off the week.