30.8.07

FORZA is Fab!

I’ve been feeling a bit down since we returned from Ireland. A combination of hormones, no exercise, less than adequate sleep, relentless childcare and housekeeping, stressful early morning lone maneuvering of three children out of the house, and an inability to relax without imbibing lots of alcohol are some of the factors to blame. It’ll pass; these things usually do. The mood that is, not the contributing factors.
However, this morning while waiting for the weight of the world to spontaneously lift from my shoulders, I knew that actually moving my shoulders a bit might help, so I decided to brave the gym. I’ve only ever really done exercise classes, as weight-lifting and treadmilling are too excruciatingly boring to manage more than 10 minutes of at a time. Needing to slot my class in with Aidan’s nap, feeds and the gym crèche opening hours, I was forced to go for a class which I’d never tried before. Actually it’s called FORZA and I’d never even heard of it before. I am still, this evening, having great trouble remembering its name. Anyway it turns out that Forza is fab!
It’s a cardiovascular workout that uses Samurai-type sword-fighting moves. Yup! Sounds weird. Basically it’s waving a wooden stick around in the air, while holding it in both hands, in a controlled and repetitive manner. It had me beating the crap out every molecule of air that dared to hover near me. Very good for blowing off steam. Fortunately the class was poorly attended meaning there was no immediate threat to anyone’s life although I did get concerned, as my hands grew sweaty, that the wooden stick might fly out of them and concuss the instructor, or worse, shatter the wall of mirrors and hence the sight of me doing my best Tom Cruise in the ‘The Last Samurai’ impression (minus the whitened teeth and coiffed hair of course).
The instructor said that the first time she tried it she couldn’t lift her arms to eat the next day because they were so sore. Only seven hours after the class, I’m beginning to understand what she meant; there are lines of pain running the length of both my arms, from my shoulders to my thumbs. I don’t think I’ve ever had a sore forearm before, not to mention two. Just as well I didn’t get to do the full Forza routine – my son missed me so much that I was forced to put my sword aside so I could carry him around the crèche instead.
Tomorrow, I may still have the weight of the world on my shoulders, but I suspect that they’ll be too sore for me to notice.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

When something sounds weird, it's because it is weird.