Cardio Drumming

Wednesday I tried something new. I saw information about a new craze called cardio drumming on our local news station a million months ago and since it tapped into drumming with exercise I was all like, whoa that is for me. But as most of my ideas and wants that was as far as it went. I discussed doing it but never got on the drumsticks until now. During a discussion of this craze, my "boss" at my volunteer job piped up that she knew someone who went to classes and that we should seriously go, and because she is more of a go-getter she signed us up and we went.

The class was held in what is apparently a nutrition shop that offers teas and shakes with protein supplements and who knows what else. The tables all had information, but I was there for the class so I didn't really focus on the pamphlets although I do know that weight loss is a huge part of it all. The cardio drumming class was held in the back of the shop in a warehouse room complete with a rolling garage door that opened into the back of the strip mall type building. There were several rows of buckets and balls and five to a row. I bet we had thirty people in the class that night, mostly women. I think I was probably the oldest. I know I was not the most coordinated. 

We got our drumsticks and found our "drums" and listened as the instructor told us we would drum through three songs, take a water break, and do another three songs. Then she hit play on her phone and music rang out through the speakers and BAM we were drumming. It was loud. Loud in nothing but people beating on exercise balls with a ferocity that amazed me. It was hard to hear the music over the beating, but I could follow the beat from everyone else's drumming. There were three instructors at the front of the room, and while I would have preferred them to count out loud, I just went with the flow and did the best I could to follow along. Apparently, I did it too well forgetting that I'm 53 with a herniated disc in my back. I jumped and pumped and drummed and bent and about four minutes in realized that I was 53 with a herniated disc in my back. I slowed down, and during the first break the instructor, perhaps looking at me, reminded us all that we were at different levels and different injuries and to go at our own level. Uh, yeah, maybe tell the newbies that in the beginning.

It was great. An hour went by quickly with the three songs and a water break routine over and over. I learned to not jump, but to come up on my tiptoes instead. I did bend though and beat the bucket several times and that is where I felt it at the end and the next few days, in my upper thighs. Made sitting down on the toilet a tad difficult. But my exercising previously gave me an advantage over my twenty-something-year-old "boss". Never mind that the woman just spit out a baby. I took that advantage. 

After the class, we came out to the shake bar to find large, and I mean LARGE, shakes waiting for us. It is included in the price of the class. Ours were strawberry-banana although peanut butter and cookies was the other choice.

Me: "So, what is in this thing? I mean, everyone just drinks this without knowing anything about it?"

Her: "You mean ala, Jim Jones?"

Me: "Exactly."

We sampled them, but it isn't quite like a big glass of water after a workout. Not sure what is up with the shake, but the class we signed up to do again. Because what's not to like about beating a ball with a stick in time to music?