Boston Mania, here I come!

(Geez...this photo gives me nightmares of face planting on the floor...)

It's that time of year again! Every November (for the last three), I've attended Boston Mania, a fitness convention held by SCW Fitness. The first year (2006), I was a full-fledged attendee. In other words, I paid a boatload of money to get in, as well as bought fun goodies like music and clothes on top of that, and it was a pretty streamlined, easy experience.

The great thing about it that year in particular was that I was getting seriously burned out at the gym. I was teaching 2-3 step classes a week and was bored of my combos, my format, and was grasping for something, anything, different I could do. I thought about teaching double step (using two benches instead of one) as my regular class, and started creating combos for that. Then I went to Boston Mania 2006. Ooooh boy did my world turn upside down. Or rightside up. I discovered vertical step. Step is normally taught with the bench horizontal (long end to the front of the room), but vertical is when you turn the short end to the front of the room. And I don't know what it is about vertical, but I don't get bored of it. Granted, I'm always coming up with new combos, or I do get tired of the old ones. But I've now been teaching vertical longer than I taught horizontal regularly, and I'm still loving it. Whenever I do teach horizontal, it just doesn't seem the same. Kind of like when you eat when you're really hungry and everything tastes great (vertical), and when you're not feeling well and everything tastes like cardboard (horizontal).

I also discovered gliding, which is a super-awesome way of working all your muscles low impact, and not just the major muscles but all the supporting ones too. Especially legs and abs. Lots and lots of legs and abs. I was a major gliding convert for the longest time. Until I finally came to terms with the fact that I'd lost about 80% of the members in my class (it used to be weight lifting and I'd changed it to gliding). So now I teach boot camp. But I do occasionally throw in a gliding exercise with the boot camp.

Boston Mania 2007 I volunteered, so I didn't have to pay the attendee fee, but I did have to work the event. I set up all the equipment before and after each workshop, did setup on Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon, and I got to attend all the workshops for free. It's awesome because I don't have to shell out the big bucks (except for new equipment, music, and such, but that's at a conference discount anyway), I get to attend all the workshops I want to, and I don't have to pack stuff up on Sunday. Because seriously, after four days of all that, the last thing I want to do with my Sunday afternoon is pack everything into trucks. Last year, I got a massive, body-shaking, throat-wrenching cold after the conference because I ran myself too ragged. So this year I'm going to go to sleep early, take my vitamin C, and take it easy (I'm there to learn new moves, not for the exercise).

Boston Mania 2008, I'm so looking forward to it! They have several boot camp workshops on the schedule, which I can't wait for. My boot camp cardio is getting pretty stale (how many different kinds of jacks and lunges and kicks and punches can you really do, if you only have 2 minutes at a time of cardio?), and I'm always looking for new step and weight lifting tips. I have a new combo for step that I can't figure out for the life of me how to teach. So I'll see some old friends I met last year and hopefully they can help me break it down.

Can I share with you the craziness of my schedule over the next few days?

Wednesday 5p-10p (last year they let us out at 6:30, and I'm really hoping the same this year because there's a French dinner I want to go to)
Thursday 6:30a-1:30p
Thursday meeting 6p-8p
Friday 8a-6p (or 7p if I want to go to the special workshop)
Saturday 6:15a-6p
Sunday 6:15a-1p

I'm so sleeping in on Monday. Expect me at work around 11a, 10:30 if I'm lucky. Next Wednesday I'll tell you guys about all the cool stuff I actually encountered at the conference! To warn you though, I'll probably still be hopped up on a massive conference high, so you might see bouncy happy faces flitting through my blog...