My second class came sooner than I think I was ready, but mentally I needed to be in the game and in the game I was putting myself. So back to CKO I went the next day.
To help me on my journey, I was given a free set of passes to use and write up my experience so I took advantage of it and jumped in with both gloves and waited to see what this next instructor had to offer me.
The Instructor
The instructor this time was a guy by the name of Amon and he has a boxing background so his class was very different from Nick’s the day before.
As I was struggling to get through crunches, Amon yelled out at us to remember our motivation to which I quickly replied my motivation was to make it through my second class in two days. Fist bumps quickly followed.
Once he learned I was only in my second class and I was interested in both the fitness and self-defense parts of class, he watched me during class and helped me out when he could.
Amon’s methods were to show you how to get both the fitness and the self-defense out of the moves. A jab on the bag is one thing, a jab on an opponent was another.
He showed me how to get the fitness portion of the class and then how to modify the move if I was in a real situation where the move needed to get me out of danger.
For instance, for a front kick you may want to kick higher on the bag for fitness reasons, but in a real-life scenario, you’d be better off aiming lower on a male to hurt them (if you catch my drift). So depending on what I wanted to work on I could modify where and how I was kicking.
Anxiety Check-In
From an anxiety standpoint, I noticed I wasn’t looking at my heart rate as much this time and I could do the running because mentally I was prepared for it. This gave me a huge sense of pride that I was able to run despite my asthma issues.
It’s a good thing I was able to do the running because Amon has this evil version of “Duck. Duck. Goose.” where everyone planks in a circle and one person gets up and runs around the gym while everyone stays in the plank. Then the person comes back and tags the next person into the run while everyone stays in the plank. When it was my turn I was nervous on the run but everyone cheered me on and I did it just fine. YAY!!
Powerade Lessons
I had Powerade with me this time thinking that would be better for me than water but I quickly realized that my body preferred the water from the water fountain over the sugariness of the fruit drink. I just didn’t react the same while exercising as I did with the water. I actually ended up feeling sick with the Powerade and was relieved when I ran out.
I’m going to look into an electrolyte alternative that doesn’t give me the flavor or the rebound that the Powerade gave me for the future (and if you have any suggestions, please let me know!).
Day 2 Overall Impressions
So far I’m loving how I can go to different instructors and get different views. It’s nice to see various backgrounds leak into the class and it not be run exactly the same way each time. I don’t want to go to the same class regardless of who is running it. I want the personality of the trainer and the uniqueness of the person to shine through, and at CKO so far that seems to be the case.
I look forward to more classes and what else I can learn from them.
Until next time, keep kicking!
Disclaimer: Dakster was given a set of passes to use to write up her posts. Full disclosure, she recently joined as a result of her experience.
