Exercise class review: Punk rope
Seven-year-old Kim was not into gym class. She was always picked last for teams (probably because she was hiding behind everyone else hoping that the teams would be full before anyone noticed she was there.) Clapping supportively from the sidelines was always more my speed. I was never into recess or tag, and by the time I got to high school I opted out of lunch in order to take another class (Can you say GEEEEEEEEEEK?).
I had a chance to redeem myself Monday night when the lovely Sarah and I hit up our very first punk rope class. Punk rope is like recess and gym class for adults which, at first, made me all sorts of trepidatious. Wasn't the best thing about being an adult that I no longer had to relive those childhood humiliations? But, and this is a big BUT, punk rope is fun--really, really fun.
More ways to get fit like a kid: Why not use your neighborhood park to tone head to toe?
Our inaugural class was Halloween themed, featuring instructors in costumes, gummy eyeball candy, and punk versions of our favorite Halloween standards, all of which made the 55-minute class fly by. Don't worry, we were not standing there just jumping rope for an hour--I would have died. The class was segmented between rope jumping routines, relay races, a good ole-fashioned game of tag, and mat work for arm and ab toning.
It may have been all fun and games, but I was seriously sweating and panting and my heart rate was in my 85 percent target heart rate zone almost immediately. But all the running and jumping and skipping (yeah there was a decent amount of skipping) was truly so enjoyable, I didn't realize that I should have wanted to keel over and die! (Jump off the jiggle: 12 high-powered moves to melt fat super fast!)
I will admit that when class first started I was a little leery of letting down my adult guard and channeling my inner third-grader (especially because my inner third-grader was a little lame) but once the games got going and all of the running around started, I totally left the over-thinky judgmental part of my brain and just embraced playing with these total strangers as we laughed and sweated and skipped and jumped and crawled around like werewolves (yeah, that happened). Who cares how many calories I burned (but I bet it was a lot), I would go to this class again just for the pure, unadulterated silliness of it
Punk rope is offered in 14 states, so if you're interested in trying a completely different type of exercise that will make you feel like a kid again, check out their website to see if you're in one of the lucky 14. As we were leaving, the only thing I lamented was that I was so unable to enjoy doing this stuff when I was a kid, when running and jumping and tagging and skipping were abounding. Sarah reminded me that it would never have been this way when we were kids, because boys were mean and smelly then, and I agreed. I guess it's good that I grew up enough to appreciate the silliness, and that I no longer keep the company of seven-year-old boys.
Related: Exercise class review of capoeira
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