Monday, February 22, 2010

Cardio Tennis: It's not Pole Dancing, and It's Not for Wusses. It's not for Super Cool People Either.

Thanks to everyone who entered Friday's contest, and special thanks to those of you who provided a Morgan Freeman Mad Lib. The winner will be announced on Wednesday's post.

What I'm Reading: Just started Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin
What I'm Writing: 15,000 words on current WIP

1. Happy Monday, y'all.

**Sam told me to warn you: Don't read following paragraph if you haven't had breakfast**
Well, not very happy at our house. Kid B has been blowing chunks. You know it's bad when the only solid chunks are made of milk.

**End Warning**

I know this, because it was all over me. I think he lost half his body weight with that move.

2. Cardio Tennis: It's not what you think...
Saturday morning, my friend Alissa convinced me to go to a Cardio Tennis workout. She convinced me by telling me there would be music.

I'd never been to Cardio Tennis. All I could picture was all of us with our racquets, jogging in place to the beat of the music, or stepping up and down on a platform, or dancing around a metal pole suspended from the ceiling.

What else was I supposed to think, when I Googled Cardio Tennis and found this:
Am I alone on this? That is not what playing tennis looks like. With one arm, she's pretending to hold a pail of water, and with the other, she doesn't even look like she knows she's holding a racquet. She's either about chop vegetables with that thing, or dismember her students.

And I thought, if there's going to be dismemberment, I'm so there.

So we get there, and we are the only girls, with eight men. The instructor comes out with a boom box (do people still call it this? Boom box?), blasts some 90's techno rock, and then she starts firing balls at us.

It was intense, and it looked nothing like the picture. At one point, I was paired against this one guy. I was instructed to hit passing shots. He was instructed to sacrifice everything including life and limb to thwart me. It was war and it was ugly.

Afterward, as we were picking up balls and bloody appendages, he sidled up to me and we both acknowledged the fierceness of our competitor a la Starsky and Hutch.

him: "I like your style."

me: "I like your moves."



3. Ice Dancing. Class with a capital K. 

Anyone catch the ice dancing last night? Anyone see the Russian pair, and wonder what alternate universe we'd landed in where this is a sport?

At least they weren't toting guns and shooting stuff.

So, how was your weekend? What are you Reading/Writing?

20 comments:

  1. Yeah, on the ice dancing thing, I love figure skating, but when we saw the cowgirl outfits, etc, we pressed fast forward on the TiVo to get back to ski cross and bobsleds and other real sports. I love figure skating when they're doing the triple axels and cool tricks like that. When they're pretending to jump out of a mid-20th century musical — or worse? I'm not so much a fan of that.

    Sorry about the milk chunks! We had banana chunks at our house last week, and I've decided that bananas rank far above other throw-up smells. You have my pity.

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  2. Wow. I'd heard that a delegation of Canada's First Nation had met with the Russian pair over concerns about their costumes. I can't tell if they changed anything.

    My word verification for this is "meatol". Probably something Kid 2 shouldn't eat for now. Hope he feels better soon.

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  3. the blowing the chunks was not that bad as thankfully we will able to catch most of it with our clothes and hands.

    You forgot to mention that when you started the cardio tennis workout with all the men, you screamed out for all to hear: "I am woman, hear me rooooaaaaarrrrrrr!" That put them all on edge for the rest of the workout.

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  4. Nikki- I can't wait for the actual figure skating to begin. You're right too- banana chunks do sound better.

    Nomadshan- That's a coincidence, because I made "meatol" soup for dinner tonight. Guess I'll have to rethink that...

    Sam- And then I put on my Bjorn Borg headband and wristbands, and yelled, "Woop, dey it is!"

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  5. I would have thought the same thing you did regarding cardio tennis. The actual sounds interesting.

    Sorry Kid B is sick and that he got sick all over you. I hope he feels better soon.

    What music were the Russians dancing to? Those are some crazy costumes.

    Other than my textbooks, I'm currently reading Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. I've been reading it since the beginning of January, but alas, I don't have enough time to devote to it. Currently, I'm writing a research paper about left-handedness for my English class. It's going to be a best seller!

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  6. Reading: Wings by Aprilyn Pike
    Writing: I think I'm about 23,000 words into my WIP. (WIP sounds so much better than "my book" because it suggests there was a previous WIP....) I should be up to 25,000 by the end of the week, but I have to spend the time writing a kick-a first chapter before March 1st. My current first chapter only kicks ankles.

    So, I have a question: in college (especially at BYU) we have all sorts of inspiring stories of students who dedicate all their time during a given week to church service and still manage to write an A paper in the 2 hours before it's due. Does the same hold true for non-academic writing? FHE Monday, Blue&Gold Ball Tuesday, Visiting Teaching Wednesday, Relief Society Book Club (that counts as church) Thursday, supporting my husband's ski patrol fund raiser Friday, clean-the-house / write Sacrament talk Saturday. Just when am I supposed to write my First Chapter, due Monday?

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  7. Nice cardio tennis. Sounds fun as long as your instructor was not Richard Simmons with his leg warmers.

    Sorry Kid B is sick...we won't be coming over anytime soon. Asher has been coughing all month long so I'm feeling your pain...although, not the throw up part. Hope he gets feeling better.

    I still love watching the olympics even though ice dancing has questionable costumes. Curling is the only "sport" I cannot get into to save my life. Let me know if you find out any insides to curling.

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  8. I couldn't stomach (pun totally intended) the ice dancing either. I watched a few couples in the short program (or whatever it's called) and not only was it the same song/dance over and over, the couples made me feel ill. So glad I missed the free dance. And the costumes. And their facial expressions.

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  9. Jenni- Did you know half of my writer's group is left-handed? I thought that was a weird statistic. You're welcome to use it. Ha ha.

    Robin- Good question. I'd tell you which ones you could skip, but then I'd feel guilty. Suffice it to say you are a better woman than I. Good luck making your first chapter kick-a(not ankles)

    Erin- I actually decided curling is more fun to watch than ice dancing. Sometimes the costumes are just as funky.

    Melissa- Don't get me started on the facial expressions. As if they're saying, "I've never had so much fun at a ho-down!! Can you believe how much fun we're having?"

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  10. I loved the cardio tennis story. I can't hit anything in regular tennis I'm sure if I was there it would have been very ugly.

    I didn't see the Russian's dance but the next day I saw that picture under with a tag line proclaiming: "Russian's Controversial Costume Choice". I thought maybe it was because they were wearing marijuana leaves.

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  11. Egggs-ellent! I loved the guy from India that looked like he was on break from teaching electrical engineering at the U of U. Did you notice he had pens in his pockets? Somehow I was always paired with him. c u esta noche

    Alissa

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  12. Sick kids are the worst :P

    15,000 words on latest work? I bow to you! I think there are a few less fluffy white bunnies in the world today!

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  13. Howdy all, hope you are all doing well!

    Brodi - are you sure that cardio tennis isn't intro to Ice Dancing? Hope your son is better soon!

    I do love the Olympics but I must say there are some REALLY odd "sports". I love the pairs figure skating but find Ice Dancing to be such an odd duck...why do we have both?

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  14. Olivia- The controversy hit a high when after dancing, they rolled the leaves and smoked them.

    Lis- He really did look like he'd been teaching a class in the next building over, and then he wandered onto the court.

    Cam- Yes, there are fewer fluffy bunnies! Literal ones, unfortunately. I ran over a few on the way to the grocery store. They came out of nowhere.

    Una- I know. Ice dancing is like the bastard stepchild of the skating world. Howdy back!

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  15. Missed the ice skating this year. Ditched cable a few years ago. Haven’t bothered to download the Olympics off the net.

    I don’t EVER remember ice dancing. Is it possible I’ve blocked it from my memory? All that pair needed was blue skin and they could have been from the cast of Avatar.

    Read some chick lit and blogged about it yesterday. You’ll have to wander over there to see if I liked it or not. It had psychics, so I kept telling myself I was reading the sequel to Vibes.

    Currently reading Inkheart and thinking it’s a 3 star book so far. Interesting premise, but the characters are a bit flat for me. The Aunt seems to have shown up and asked the author, “What’s my motivation?” and the author told her, “You prefer books over people and you’re cranky.” “That’s it‽” “Yep, run with it.” Then she sorta walked instead.

    Cardio Tennis sounded fun. Did you folks eat the loser?

    I’ve done extensive research and discovered that those in the know—and by “know" I mean, “Can you please pass the Grey Poupon?"—refer to those contraptions as portable stereos. Everyone else calls them boomboxes. One word. That’s the word: http://www.jr.com/category/audio/portable-audio/portable-stereos/
    Peace out. Wait, no one says that any more…

    ~Douglas

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  16. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDHjVDeCbuU&NR=1

    Music AND Tennis... genius.

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  17. Douglas- thank you for clearing up the confusion over the "boombox" conundrum. I'll check out your chick lit reviews!

    Kent- How did you sneak a camera into our workout? Some people thought tennis and music should never come together. Darn the naysayers. Darn them all to heck.

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  18. Sorry for the little dude being sick. =[

    Cardio tennis, huh? It sounds kind of...fun? As long as the war part is true. ;)

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  19. I am kinda wondering if Bro. Goaslind is blowing chunks also. Makes you wonder.........I will never tell!

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  20. L.T. - the war part is very true. And by war, I mean we hit lots of balls at each other.

    Amy- I will absolutely die if Bro. Goslind is sick. He already puts up with so much from Kid B! Yeah, keep it on the down low. a.k.a. low down.

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