Upside Motion

Happy new year to one and all!  This is my first post of 2014 and I've got something hilarious to share.  For the first time in my life, I joined a group of like-minded individuals determined to work out during lunch.  Yes, this was in a studio where most of the participants were women and what I went through was 2 Xtend Barr at Upside Motion.  It's touted as a workout at the "ballet barre for a heart-pumping, calorie-sizzling dance workout that will change your body as you know it".  Thankfully, I wasn't the only guy there.  Another of my male colleagues was also there.  For reasons that defy explanation, we allowed ourselves to be convinced by 6-7 female colleagues that we should join them for the 1-week trial at Upside Motion. 

At the first class, which went on for 1 hour, the guys and some of the girls were rather apprehensive.  Not knowing what to expect, we went buoyed by unrational enthusiasm and supported by peer pressure.  We started off with some warm-ups and very soon got into various routines.  I must say the girls did them way more effortlessly than the guys.  For some reason, standing tiptoe and doing different sets of exercises was very tough for us.  I was sweating profusely and one of my colleagues asked me if I was alright.  I forced a smile at her direction and looked at the clock.  To my horrow, it had only been 20 minutes or so.  I wondered if I could go through the whole session.  The other chap and I encouraged each other and we both remarked how difficult everything was.  It was clear to us we had little or no core muscles to talk about. 

Once we focused on the exercises, it became slightly easier and before we knew it, it was over.  From hindsight, it felt like the longest hour of my life.  But our instructor, a pretty lady from Kazakhstan, was very encouraging to all of us.  We overheard her telling the other participants chirpily that there was 2 guys for class that day.  Apparently, she had come to Singapore in 2006 to study Computer Science at NTU. A Latin Dancer since 12-years-old, she continued dancing and competing in regional dance competitions while studying algorithms and Java programming! 

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