Class #40 Pilates 10:00 a.m. (Barbara)

When I started this venture I promised all of the teachers I’d give them warning before I came to their classes but as time goes on I find myself deciding at the last minute about which class I’ll attend. Since I needed to do two today, I was looking for a combo that would be user friendly. I noticed the 10:00 a.m. Pilates nestled up to the 11 a.m. Yoga/Stretch and said “that’s it.” Deciding at the last moment, I just 'dropped in' on Barbara and she ribs me about not giving notice. I’ve now been to two of her classes and haven’t told her beforehand either time. Oops.

Partly that lack of notice is a compliment. I feel certain that Barbara, who is not lacking in poise, can handle my unannounced presence without missing a beat and that turns out to be the case. She is the matriarch of Pilates at the LRAC and has a reputation as a fantastic instructor. Somehow, I'm chagrined to admit, I’ve never taken one of her Pilates classes.

I’ll also admit that I am a little nervous about taking her class today, wondering if I’ll be able to do it. She has a lot of long time students and I know they are way more advanced than I am. In fact, there are three women who I’m pretty sure have been taking her class from the beginning (ca. 2000) and it shows. I’m referring to Sandra Ashcraft, Genie Sigler and Cathy Turner. These women are exhibits 1,2 and 3 for why one would want to regularly practice Pilates - they each have the lithe and graceful body of a ballerina.

There are lots of others in class today with similar levels of grace and skill – I cleverly choose the back corner of the room where no one can check out my form. Barbara, though, is such a skillful teacher that I needn’t have worried about my level. She is accustomed to advanced students but she easily teaches all levels at the same time – showing modifications for each pose. Even though I once took Pilates twice a week for two years, it’s been a while and I can’t remember all of the poses by name. No problem. Barbara describes each pose precisely but also recommends watching on some of the harder ones before trying them. She also comes around and gives adjustments to me and a few others who are relative newbies. These hands on adjustments are priceless for helping one understand correct positioning.

Barbara Sarnataro

I follow along with her instruction doing the best I can and I’m surprised at what an enjoyable experience it is. Well, the so-called “stomach series” isn’t exactly fun since it's composed of 5 different ab busting exercises with no break between them but it's over before you know it and on we go to the next thing. There are plenty of techniques that are similar to yoga postures and that helps with my comfort level.

One thing that Pilates does that yoga doesn’t do – at least on a regular basis – is the side leg series. It’s a whole set of exercises that isolate the glute and hip flexor in a way that make me want to scream. Today, we do this series in a unique way. Barbara has us do them standing on one leg while holding on to a weighted bar (like one would use a cane) for balance. It’s very effective because both legs are getting worked simultaneously. It’s my first time to try it that way but I like it better than the version where you lie on the floor on your side with the top leg doing all the work.

The whole class is a great experience for me and I’m very impressed with Barbara’s skill as an instructor and understand why she has such a dedicated following. Today, in class there are about twenty of us…all women except for me and my old pal Bill Felix. Bill has been coming faithfully to Pilates since he and I were beginners back around 2002 or so. He’s kept with it because it’s been so helpful in warding off low back pain. His core is super strong too….though you'd never get him to admit it.

The $25 gift certificate goes to Geralyn Applegate.

Next up is Beverly’s luscious Yoga/Stretch class.

PS Anyone wanting more info on the origin and history of Pilates can check out the blog on class #7.

Class #39 Cycling Thursday 5:30 p.m. (Martha)

I’ll admit that I went in to this class with the full intention of dogging it. You know, taking a Sunday ride, loafing, etc. That’s hard for me to do but I had it all justified in my mind because I’ve been a little sick. Plus, I thought it would be good to go against my grain and just take it easy. Couldn’t do it.

It’s not that I’m some workout animal or anything, truly I’m not – it’s just that it’s hard for me to ignore what the teacher is saying. When I’m told to raise the gear and pick up the pace, that’s what I do or try to anyway. I would have made a good (though skinny) pack mule.

This class was supposed to be taught by “lets make” Adiel but instead it was being subbed by Martha “the Master of” Diplaster. Okay, so her name’s Plaster and I’m reaching a bit – doing my Chris “he might go all the way” Berman imitation.

It was a fine class and all power to Miss Martha for getting me to ignore my promise to loaf. She ran us through a series of exercises that kept enticing me to just work a little bit harder…next thing you know I was a sweaty mess and begging for the end of class. This is how good teachers work you over – they just keep that carrot barely out of reach.

My average pulse for the class was 130 which is about standard for me and I felt pretty good afterward - that is, no lingering effect from my cold or whatever it was. I think I’ve recovered. No more “good” reason to loaf but I’m still gonna try it soon to see how it is!

Whoops – I forgot to do the drawing before leaving for home so I’ll have to edit this tomorrow and announce the gift certificate winner then. That’ll keep you on the edge of your seats.

Next up – I think I’ll go to a Pilates class in the morning.

Class #38 Yoga 11 a.m. Thursday (Stacy)

For those keeping score at home you will have no doubt noticed that class #37 was on Tuesday while class #38 is on Thursday – “what gives?” I can hear you thinking. Well, I took Wednesday off. “No classes on Monday” you scoff “and now an oh-fer on Wednesday - what kind of a slacker is writing this blog ?”

Well, I can give three excuses, er reasons, for yesterday’s absence. 1) I didn’t feel well. My sniffles grew into honking and my energy was almost nil. Plus, I doubted anyone really wanted me around in such a state. 2) Along with blog writing responsibilities, it’s also newsletter time and I had to finish my article. I enjoy writing (sort of) but I’m a bit of a plodder and needed some extra time to finish that piece. 3) My glutes were surprisingly sore from Bonnie’s Power Pump class on Tuesday (the lunges got me). By itself, glute soreness would not have prevented me from soldiering on but piled on top of numbers 1 and 2 – it convinced me to stay home and recover.

More importantly, I’m back with the program today. For my first class back I choose my favorite – Yoga. My thinking is it will help stretch out my glutes and I can get through the class even if my energy isn’t quite 100%.

Stacy begins the class with a short lesson on the number 108 and what its significance is in the yogic tradition. My ears perk up because I’ve read several things in the past about why this is considered a sacred number. Its mathematical and astronomical properties are interesting and fairly complex. For instance, it so happens that the distance between the earth and the sun is 108 times the diameter of the sun. Likewise, the distance between the earth and moon is 108 times the diameter of the moon. That sun and moon look about the same size when viewed from earth is the result of their having the same ratio between distance and diameter. To top things off, the sun’s diameter happens to be 108 times the diameter of the earth (cue the Twilight Zone music). And that’s just the tip of the one oh eight iceberg.

What does all this have to do with yoga? Well, it’s something of a tradition to do 108 sun salutations at the changing of the seasons and especially for the Vernal (i.e. Spring) Equinox. Since we are two days away from equinoxing Stacy is bringing this up as prelude to today’s class, which will be a dissection of the sun salutation. Fortunately, we won’t do anywhere close to 108 of them because that would take a while.

She indeed leads us through the sun salutation in a new and refreshing way. It seems like everyone has a slightly different style of saluting the sun and it’s fun to learn new ones. One of the poses Stacy throws in that I’ve never done before is the “ski” chair. I’ve mostly done one that she also includes and refers to as “awkward” chair. I like doing the “ski” version although I have to remember it each time because it’s not in my habit body (a good thing).

Ski Chair

Awkward Chair

Stacy Swanson, our instructor today is a newly minted yogini. In fact, she will complete her 200-hour RYT (Registered Yoga Teacher) training next month. Her teacher, Sherri Youngblood, teaches the “intermediate” class at the Club on Tuesday nights (see blog for class #32). Stacy stepped in to teach the Thursday morning class when long time instructor Lana Bienvenu decided to take a break from teaching. Stacy is also getting certified in children’s yoga and will begin teaching a kid’s yoga class at the Club in the near future. It’s easy to tell that Stacy is passionate about yoga and that will make her a great teacher.

In class today there are 8 women and me. The $25 gift certificate goes to Muriel Storrie.

Next up is an afternoon cycling class – check in with you after that.

Class #37 Power Pump 4:30 p.m. Tuesday (Bonnie)

Since I’m already warmed up from the Zumba for Kids class, I decide to stick around and do the next class as well – Bonnie’s Power Pump. I’m not sure if this is the right call or not because I’m in an in-between state – not quite well, not quite sick.

I don’t have any fever and I’m not coughing – my symptoms are sinus congestion and low energy. It could be an allergic reaction from my recent trip out of state or it could be a cold bug trying to take root.

There are two schools of thought on exercising in this in-between state – one is to rest and one is to raise your core temperature a bit and burn out the bad stuff. Every swim coach I ever had used the same advice when I was in this place – “swim it off” they would say. Of course none of them were actually physicians.

Frankly, I make my decisions on it by “feel”. If I’m running a fever or think I’m contagious then I won’t exercise but if I’m just feeling a little sluggish I’ll see if some exercise perks me up. Today I’m in the sluggish camp so I’ll give it a go.

When Bonnie comes in she tells us we won’t need the weight bars today, instead we’ll use a medicine ball and “light” hand weights. I’m not sure what rigors lie ahead but I’m secretly glad she’s having us skip the weight bars.

It turns out to be an interesting class – Bonnie employs the accoutrements in ways that make me work but in a different manner than I’m used to. It’s a fundamental principle of fitness to keep changing things up so the body builds capacity in new ways. If you always do the same thing you will become more and more efficient but not as well rounded in your fitness.

On most of the exercises, she shows us three or four progressions – from easiest to hardest. She tells us that if the next progression is too hard stick with the previous one.

We do lots of squats and lunges, which really work the quadriceps and I’m pretty certain I’ll feel it in my thighs tomorrow. Toward the end of class she has us go get the bosu ball or “balance trainer” as she calls it to do our ab work on. I haven’t done ab work using the bosu ball in the way she teaches it and I can feel the burn. It’s tricky finding the right balance to do the exercises but once found it’s obvious how hard the abs are working.

Bonnie Robertson has been teaching at the Club since 1999 and first started teaching group exercise in 1995. About being an instructor she says, “I LOVE teaching aerobics, as I know what it’s like to feel like the “fat girl” in the group, and I want to inspire others to be fit and LOVE their bodies.”

Bonnie grew up in Greers Ferry, Arkansas and is the daughter of Blue Court Grill manager Dee Rust. Along with teaching Power Pump twice a week, Bonnie also teaches Zumba twice weekly. Outside of the Club she stays busy operating her own law firm (Robertson Law) and raising three children with her husband Brian.

Bonnie’s class today has about 12 women in it, most of whom appear to be “regulars”. They were all gracious to the lone boy in the room and I was thankful for that as always. It's a good group and I was glad to join them.

The $25 gift certificate for this class goes to Betty Freeland.

Class #36 Zumba for Kids Tuesday 3:55 p.m. (Lisa D.)

"choco choco latte, choco choco latte, everybody wants a choco latte!"

I’ve just been to my second version of Zumba for kids and the above lyrics are dangerously stuck in my head. Apparently this song is an internet sensation with it’s own set of dance steps that are well known. By some. Not by others. Like me.

Anyway, it’s a really catchy tune and fun to move around to even if my movements don’t exactly match the teacher’s. Below is a clip in case you’d like to try it at home (by the way, all of our Zumba teachers are much better dancers than the yahoo's in this video, it was just the best I could find to give

you an idea of the choco choco song)

I went to Zumba for Kids today because Mary Olson (Club Manager) and Dana Smith (Club Controller) told me they were going. These two, inspired by the ‘quest’ have decided to try one new class a week and they chose this one today. There’s safety in numbers you know so I decided to crash their party.

Normally the teacher for this class is Karen Tonti but today she called in Lisa Duke to sub for her. Lisa was bravely pinch-hitting even though she had never taught Zumba before. I wouldn’t have known that if she hadn’t told me – I thought she did great. She was really good with the kids getting and holding their attention (no easy task) while she danced us through the 7 or 8 songs on the program.

Lisa Duke and family

It’s a cool class to be in and see all the manic energy of the children. Several of them knew all of the songs and dance moves as well as Lisa even though they appeared to be about 7 years old.

Remember, at 3:55 on Tuesday and Thursday it’s Zumba for Kids so if you want to wear out your child before dinner bring ‘em on by. They’ll thank you for it.

I’m going back to back this afternoon – up next is Power Pump with Bonnie.

….choco choco latte….choco choco latte…everybody wants a choco latte!!!

Lost Monday

In case anyone was wondering what happened to the Monday class blogs, I thought I better ‘splain myself. I’m afraid today's class plan got waylaid by traveling woes.

Due to circumstances beyond my control (i.e. weather delays) a connecting flight was (barely) missed causing me to spend Sunday night unexpectedly in Denver. To make matters worse, somehow on the way to Denver I’d managed to lose my drivers license. I was pretty sure that one couldn’t fly without some form of valid I.D. The airline official assured me though that I would be allowed back in the airport but only after a much more thorough screening than usual. All sorts of dark images clouded my mind but I pushed them out as I settled in at the Spinghill Suites just outside of Denver International.

This morning (Monday), I got to the airport early to attempt to make it out as a “standby” on a flight leaving around 11 a.m. I was pretty nervous about the ordeal that awaited me whenever I got to the front of the security line and tried to explain why I didn’t have a photo I.D.

In trying to think of possible solutions to help me with my lack of ID, Mary Olson suggested someone go to my house, photograph my passport and send it to my I-phone. In a matter of 30 minutes or so that task was accomplished and I at least had something with my photo on it.

As I got near the front of the line, I told a nearby TSA agent my dilemma and to my surprise, this gentleman said he’d help “walk me through”. In fact, he opened up a new lane for me and carefully examined my boarding pass, credit cards and the beautifully photographed passport, which was surprisingly crystal clear on my I-phone. Just when I was ready for cavity searches and crotch sniffing German Shepherds, the TSA agent said, “it looks fine to me, have a nice flight”. Yeehah!

The next step was getting on the flight to Little Rock as a standby. I was traveling with a buddy of mine and we were numbers two and three to get on this “full” flight. Amazingly though, the screen kept saying that three seats remained open. It looked like we were going to make it.

At the last possible moment, a young man came running up and it was pretty clear he was an unexpected addition. Uh oh, only two seats left. My friend insisted that I take the remaining open seat – asking only that I grab his bag when I got to Little Rock. I agreed to do more than that, I promised I’d come pick him up at the airport when his flight got in at 11 p.m. and give him a ride home.

Somehow over the course of trying to fly home I also managed to pick up some sniffles. I’m hopeful that this won’t turn into a cold causing me to miss more classes but I won’t know for sure until tomorrow (Tuesday). I’m planning on taking a couple of afternoon classes tomorrow if I feel up to it.

Right now though, I’ve got to head to the airport and pick up my selfless friend.

Class #35 Cycling 5:10 a.m. Thursday (Joe)

This morning’s cycle class makes the third one in the last 12 hours and the fourth one in two days. I hadn’t really intended to do so many bike classes this week but between the crick in my neck and scheduling issues, it was the only way to try and keep pace. Besides, this only makes my 8th bike class overall, which puts me only one third of the way through the full cycling schedule.

This is the earliest class on our entire schedule and it’s interesting to watch the body try and cope with the idea of doing physical work 90 minutes before it is usually awake. I suppose if it could, my body would write a letter of protest or perhaps picket whoever had the bright idea to get up so early to ride a bike.

This is my second class with Joe at this hour - he also teaches one on Tuesdays and I notice this time that his class requires a slight recalibration of the so-called “base” gear. The base gear is established in each class and is generally defined to be a gear you can pedal 90 rpm’s while exerting 50% of your effort. In reality of course, figuring out what 50% of one’s effort might be is a total guess.

What I suspect most people do instead is figure out what gear they need to start with to go up the number of gears called for by any particular instructor. The thing I’m beginning to see is that each instructor has their own system for how much of a gear change they ask for. The “normal” system seems to be a range of 8-10 gears to go from base to the hardest hill climb.

In Joe’s class, the gear range never exceeds five from top to bottom. At one point he mentions on a climb that he starts at gear 13 and goes up to 18. In my typical classes I start at gear 6 and on the hardest climbs get up to 15 or 16. All this amounts to is that in Joe’s class I need to raise my base gear by 2 or 3 to get a comparable workout in. (Joe’s ‘base’ rate of 13 boggles my mind cause that’s a really tough gear for me.).

In his professional life, Joe Barnett owns a landscape company called Little Rock Land Design. His company does some maintenance work, for instance they take care of the grounds at the LRAC but Joe’s specialty is landscape design and installation. Joe also has a fondness for creating really cool waterfalls and ponds.




About twelve years ago I hired Joe to create a landscape design for my back yard at home. Along with the Dogwoods, Holly’s, Azaleas and Japanese Maples, I also asked Joe to put in a waterfall. I thought the sound of water; right outside my bedroom would be soothing. And, so it was – until about June 1 when the frogs started showing up.

During mating season the frogs would flock to my pond and the males (I suppose) would indicate their whereabouts by emitting a racket that sounded (to me) like a child screaming for help. Whenever it happened, which was every night for about two months; I would grab my flashlight, go outside, and one by one capture the frogs, put them in a bucket and take them across the street to Allsop Park. Needless to say, this got old in a hurry.



After about the second year of fighting the frogs and realizing I’d never win this battle, I decided to fill in the pond and get a good night’s sleep. My backyard is still filled with the beautiful plantings that Joe designed and installed and that I absolutely love but the water feature (and the frogs) had to go. (To be fair I should say that some people find the sound of frogs ‘calling’ a pleasant and peaceful sound of nature – to each his own I say just keep ‘em away from me.).

Joe winds down the class at about 5:55 and we get off the bikes to stretch. I’ll catch a plane in about three hours and be stuck sitting for most of the day so now I’m glad I came. My body feels good, I’m completely awake and ready for some chow and still the sun isn’t quite up.

The $25 gift certificate for this morning’s class goes to Andy Ketch.

My next class will be on Monday as I’m out of town thru Sunday night.