And You Thought Step Was Hard!

Last week I finally ventured down to the Hills Spa. It's part of the Ark Towers setup and as serviced apartment residents we have full membership. Which is great because don't think I'd be paying $50 per visit if I was footing the bill myself!

The gym itself is fairly, shall we say, intimate. As is the studio where the classes take place every day except Monday (Hills Spa is closed on Mondays). There are 4 treadmills, 2 bikes, 3 steppers, a weights machine and free weights. There are TVs but they have no sound and the only "English" channel is CNN. With no sound.

Anyways, on Sunday I decided to join the Shape & Pump class. It was new in October (apparently) and the description lead me to believe it would be along similar lines as Pump back home. I wanted something that required little coordination and instruction following just in case the instructions happened to be in Japanese.

Well, despite every other staff member at Ark Towers speaking English and most of the residents appearing to be short term and foreign, the classes at Hills Spa are conducted almost exclusively in Japanese. Except for when they welcome you to the class which is conveniently named in English. So welcome to Shape ando Pumpu, everyone.

I arrived 10 minutes before the beginning of class to find 6 step platforms set up in the studio. No weights (or dumbells as they described them in the foyer) hanging around, but maybe they were waiting till we got there so it wasn't too cluttered and Dangerous. Two more punters arrived (Japanese). No weights. The class started with a wonderful welcome from Mr Perky himself, including a full on bow which was returned by the Japanese members of the class. I gave him a wee nod and a tight smile.

And then we started marching. Behind the step. Uh oh, you guessed it, Shape ando Pumpu has nothing to do with pumping weights and everything to do with STEP! And to make things even more enjoyable lets just go and do a set of squats on the other side of the room in between every track! As some of you will know, I am bad enough with left and right as it is, but when the instructions are in Japanese?! Impossible.

Imagine how hard it was to keep a straight face then, when Mr Perky Instructor tried to help me out by calling out English instructions and ended up saying "down" when we were up and "up" when we were down. At least I can count to 10 already so I knew how many times we were meant to be stepping up and down!

And the icing on the cake - when it came to push ups was I allowed to do girly, on your knees push ups? Uh uh. I happen to be bigger than even the lone male Japanese guy in the class which means I am expected to do full manly press ups thanks very much. Yeesh.

So now, 4 days later, my muscles (or the things that are trying to be muscles) are screaming in agony, particularly after I returned for round 2 yesterday. The class is twice a week and you know what? ..I think I'll make my "reservation" a regular one.