Kickboxing Aerobics

As this passion blog sadly draws to a close, I needed one last fitness class to attend. I've always wanted to take a kickboxing class, and the other remaining classes were HITT (High Intensity Tactical Training) which would've been pure torture.

The instructor began playing remixes of throwback songs, starting with "Since U Been Gone" by Kelly Clarkson, which by the way, was released in 2004. That's 9 whole years ago. Do you feel old yet? The instructor introduced herself, but I didn't catch her name because the microphone was extremely muffled and she wasn't the best at enunciating. She then followed up by telling us to get ready for 45 minutes of straight cardio, which was totally what I wanted to hear on a Wednesday night.

We started out with a 5 minute warmup of Power Remix/Zumba moves including step touches with variations on arm placement, grapevines, shuffle steps to both sides and squats. After this brief warmup, the instructor taught us the three basic kickboxing moves: the jab, hook, and uppercut. We kept our feet moving the whole time, continuing the step taps that we were doing before, but adding in the arm motions. She also taught us that we should always keep our arms in the defensive pose framing our face in between kickboxing moves to always keep our face protected. She encouraged us to imagine a person, exam, or project for to aim at as we punched. I was a bit taken aback by how intimidating the instructor and everyone in the class looked. I definitely would not want to be caught in a fight with any of the girls taking the class.

After doing a couple sets of jabs, hooks, and uppercuts while doing step touches, we started doing sets of squats, and then held a low squat as we jabbed, alternating arms. Then, we did two hooks, one with each arm and then jumped up, rotating 45 degrees, and returning to the squat position. We repeated this until we had faced each side of the room twice. Since we timed these squat turns to the music, it reminded me of school dances where everyone danced to the Cha Cha Slide or the Cupid Shuffle together. After we all returned to facing the mirror, we jumped and turned 45 degrees to the left and then squatted, and jumped back to face the mirror. Then we jumped and turned 45 degrees to the right and returned to the center. We repeated this move for a while, and it reminded me a lot of an intense game of Dance Dance Revolution.

Following the squat sets, we started a kicks set. The instructor slowed down a roundhouse kick, instructing us to keep our knee and legs parallel to the floor during throughout the kick. She also told us to look backwards in the direction of our kick in order to keep watch of our fictitious assaulter. After we repeated this kick on both sides, we added a step touch after kicking to stay light on our feet. Then, we repeated the shuffle steps we did during the warmup before we started our set of front kicks. Before doing front kicks we did high knees, raising each knee up and bringing our arms down to our sides as we did so. We then added in a front kick on each side. 

After these kick sets, we did two sets involving multiple kickboxing moves. We started the first one with high knees, with an added hop, for an eight count, and then we would squat and then jab to the right side four times. We would then start the high knees again, and jab to the left side. We repeated this set six times. Our other set included jabbing with one arm and then elbowing backwards with our other arm in a squat position. After repeating this move four times, we were told to "jack it out" and we did an eight count of jumping jacks, before we returned to our squat position and alternated the arms we jabbed and elbowed with. 

I would absolutely recommend this class to everyone, since the instructor also included tips on how to use these moves if you were caught in a situation that required you to defend yourself against an assaulter. Not to mention, it was definitely a great workout for your whole body, and an unique source of cardio.

Thanks so much for reading my blog and I hope that my reviews of fitness classes have motivated you guys to try a couple out! Until next semester!

Gif Creds

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