'Twas the first time that I went to the gym without any sessions planned with my personal trainer. Felt a bit lost as I went in there without any purpose (so to speak). I thought of checking out some group classes, so I headed up to the studio area to check the schedules...I had a schedule given to me when I signed up, so I thought I'd join an RPM class (it said the class was supposed to start at 7.30pm), but to my dismay they changed the schedule and the earliest RPM class was at 8.30pm. o.O" Of course I didn't want to wait that long, so I went to the other studios....sad to see that they were already in session. Bleh.

Nevermind, I figured...there's always the machines to do cardio and I remembered some of the machines that Jack showed me during our first session. So, all gung ho I headed to a treadmill and started a 30-min walk / running session. Started out with a 5.5 km/h walk for a few minutes and then alternating that with a 10.0 km/h run. Gosh, I thought that I would have better stamina since I've been doing capoeira and all, but to keep a pace like that for 30 mins almost killed me. I first started out doing maybe a minute or two of the walk speed followed by about 2 mins of running....towards the end I think I ended up on the walking speed for maybe 3-4 mins and running only 2 mins. >.<" When the 30 mins was up, it felt great but I wish I could have done more....practice I guess. The total calories I burned (according to the machine) was a measly 200 calories (EEP!), but I walked / ran a distance of about 3.5km...yayy! 

Next, I headed to do a bit of rowing on the machines....that was fun too. Did about 10 mins of it, and my arms felt slightly sore after (a good sign). I wanted to continue with some hamstring exercises but the floor was getting quite full and there weren't that many of those machines to go around. The other machines I didn't know how to use yet, so bleh...thought of calling it a day. 40 mins of cardio seems ok for a first time. I went to see the class schedule again to see if I could join a class tomorrow or something. To my delight, they have a class starting in 10 mins! "Bodybalance", it read....cool. I stepped in and saw the instructor setting up.

She asked me to grab two yoga mats and set it as per how she did it on the stage, and we were to do the class without our shoes. I thought, nice! I remember hearing that this class is about stretching and it incorporates Tai Chi, Yoga and Pilates...would be nice to get some stretching done on this tired body of mine. As a few more ladies entered the class (some more elderly), I thought it would be a nice and relaxing class since even the 'older ladies' can do it....how wrong was I!

The first 10-15 mins were exercises on warming up and I was having difficulty in following...slow as they may be, those yoga poses are not easy to replicate (at least for me!). LOL! But I learnt to sort of let go and just try my best to follow and wow, it was a great workout =) Those poses, although difficult, really do stretch your limbs and your spine. At some points it got a bit too intense for me as my muscles couldn't take it any more...LOLL! I just laid down for a few seconds and waited for the next move. And I think I sweated more than I did during cardio on the treadmill....amazing! As we moved to the end of the class, we laid on the mats and quieted ourselves as soothing meditation and relaxation music filled the room....it was such a relief and I can totally feel relaxed and refreshed as we let ourselves go with the music. Super super cool =) 

All in all, a totally nice workout day...been feeling quite weird and unwell the past week, so to release all that energy out is really refreshing. I'm hankering to go and join the other classes. They all seem fun =) Sure, it probably wouldn't be as fun as my old classes (I think I'm missing them now) but it's something different and I'm feeling back the good pain...so for now, that will suffice. Crossing my fingers that this motivation will stick at least for a while...I need this =)