DawnaM Certification

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06-05-07 09:27 AM 06-05-07 09:27 AM
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JAB! CROSS!! HOOK!! UP! x 100 TWIST!! x 50 FRONT PUSH KICK!! BACK PUSH KICK!! SIDE PUSH KICK!! ROUND HOUSE!! KNEE!! OMG!!! HELP!!!! YAY!!OK...Soooo...WOW!!!!! This'll be a long one, so get comfortable if you'd like to read it!! Or just scroll down to TK Day if you just want to know how the day went. Sue and I had a GREAT weekend! Our plan was to leave early enough to shop on Saturday, then settle in for a good night's sleep. Well, I was quite tardy in picking her up on Saturday but after filling up tank we hit the road by 1:00pm or so. Off we went, down the road to hit the highway, where I promptly jumped onto the wrong on-ramp!! So instead of heading West, we went East!!! I realized it right away...well, at about the same time Sue said "that's Eastbound!" . Too late to do anything about it...however, for those of you who know anything about traffic in Toronto (and any big city really) you'll appreciate how I REALLY didn't want to jump onto the Gardiner Express Way, somewhere past Parklawn, Eastbound BACK into the downtown core . UGH!!! So we sped along at the break-neck speed of about 40 KM/H (I guess that's around 25 mph for my American friends ) and it took about 20-30 min to the next exit, which is actually only about 5-6min away!! For those of you who aren't sure about the geography of Toronto to Niagara Falls, I'll tell you this much so you can appreciate this silly story. It's essentially a STRAIGH SHOT from the T-Dot (Toronto) to Niagara Falls! One Highway and a gazillion signs that say "to Niagara Falls". You CAN'T MISS IT! So it's quite frustrating when I can't even get OUT of the CITY!!!! lol! Sigh....well, 2pm and we FINALLY got turned around in the right direction and headed back WEST to Buffalo! The ride down was smooth and uneventful (thank goodness! lol!) and we listened to R-28 for kicks while Sue flipped through the study manual I got with the home study pgm. I know R28 pretty good now so it's quite a challenge NOT to do some of the combos when listening to it. I mean...you can only do so many jab/cross/jab/knees while driving before it starts to get dangerous!! We get to the border and make our way to customs...passports all ready! The nice man steps out of his booth, we hand him our passports while he asks and we answer the standard questions:Customs: Where do you live?Dawna: TorontoCustoms: Both of you?Dawna: YesCustoms: Is this your car?Dawna: No, it's a rentalCustoms: Who rented it?Dawna: I didCustoms: Where are you going?Dawna: Niagara FallsCustoms: Where are you staying?Dawna: The Best WesternCustoms: Purpose of your trip?Dawna: We're going to a Turbo Kickboxing workshop...(so, at this point, we got his attention, as you can imagine...) Customs: A what???Dawna: A Turbo Kick workshop! It's a Kickboxing exercise program that we'll be doing all day tomorrow.He leans down to look into the car more closely at myself and Sue Customs: BOTH of you?Sue replies, emphatically, "THAT'S RIGHT!!!!"Customs: (eyebrows raised, with a smirk on his face as he hands back our passports). Woah...glad I have a gun!!! LOL! LOL! It was too funny...you should have seen his face...like he has a story for 'the boys' at break time. "Hey guys...I had a Black girl with braids and an white grandmother come through telling me they were BOTH going to some all day kickboxing event, can you believe that???" Thankfully, he bought it...especially since it was the truth! And he let us through.So now, while we were busy laughing and looking for the directions to the hotel, we blew past the exit we needed!!! Of course, we didn't realize this until we hit Bufallo (therefore leaving Niagara Falls behind us). So I pull off the Expressway and into a drug store parking lot. Just as we park, this Black guy pulls up in a nice new truck pumpin' some crazy tunes! He was obviously lovin' whatever song was playing because he sat in the car for another couple of minutes just bobbin' his head and singing away right there in his truck! He finally get's out and I say "Excuse me!" Stops dead in his tracks and gets this huge grin on his face and says "I'm gonna FLIRT with you, beautiful! What can I do for you?" I’m thinking, Oh boy...here we go. All I want are directions back to the hotel so we can shop, eat and sleep! But! I went with it anyway and said "OK...can you flirt and give us directions at the same time?" He was quite happy to help. So after he spent a few minutes showing us on the map where HE lived, he finally showed us how to get back to Niagara Falls and to our hotel. He was a really nice guy though. . We finally got to the hotel....and by now it's after 4pm!!! Limited shopping time!!! Oh no! Well...maybe that's a good thing...good for my credit card/bank account ! We found one of the many "outlets" just around the corner from us and whipped through it both finding some great stuff for summer! We then had dinner and headed back to the hotel to settle in for the night.TK Day!!! The next morning, we were up bright and early so that we could eat breakfast and head to the fitness centre with plenty of time to digest our food. We didn't know what to expect at 8 o'clock in the morning! When we finally found Summit Fitness, we walked into the room and there was Christine....zipping around the room setting up all the Turbo products she'd brought with her so we could satisfy our shopping addictions right there all day! After signing in and picking up the kits we'd reserved earlier (they included a bunch of great tools to get started as an instructor!), we all sat down and got to "work".Christine talked about the history of Turbo Kick and Turbo Jam, where it came from, how it's evolved and where it's going. We did a little more "housekeeping" then took a break before getting down to the workouts. She would basically be "testing" us throughout the day but would actually be scoring us at the end of the day during the 2nd Master Class. Yup, I said SECOND! One in the morning and our testing in the afternoon. By the time lunch came around, we were all exhausted!!! It was definitely time to refuel! But a light lunch was definitely in order because we knew there was more of the same to come.After lunch, we actually sat for a bit, going through the Study Guide and talking more about Turbo Kick, teaching techniques, TK format, how to actually make your class a party, and the industry in general. Just enough time for our food to digest! Then we were up and at it again. We were broken up into groups, each responsible to learn one section of the round, which we were then going to lead the class through! YIKES!!! Well, we all went up there on stage and each person in our group took turns cueing, which was FUNNY and GREAT! Nerve-wracking as it can be, the absolute BEST thing in the world to do is just to get up and do it! So after ANOTHER HOUR or so of THAT, we were then put into lines in preparation for our practical. She started the round AGAIN and would put us in "holding patterns" when she wanted to take a minute to check us out and make her notes. So sometimes we were doing the punches for a while and later we were doing the kick segments for a while. WOW!!! Did we ever push it! I mean, she could be looking at you right? So you HAD to give it your all...ALL THE TIME! WHEW!!! That was tough, but it was fun! Thankfully (or mercifully ) she finished scoring us BEFORE getting to the turbos....which we did about THREE times...just for fun. LOL! We did the R29 turbo....then she previewed the R30 turbo so we could see it. It was cool...and oh....it's almost THREE MINUTES LONG!!! Then we did R30's Turbo AGAIN full out, for real. Everyone gave it everything they had….under threat of doing it FOUR MORE times if we didn’t! HAHA! Wholey Cow!!!! At the end of that third turbo, Christine asked how everyone was doing....you could almost hear a pin drop except for the music since we were all SUCKING WIND and PANTING!!! LOL! I’m sure most of us were trying to respond, but simply couldn’t just yet! So, that pretty much meant the turbo(s) did its job, right? When we recovered enough to do the Recovery section and beyond, we got started again and went through to the Finale and Legs sections. What was cool too, was seeing all the variations of how to do the round. Robbie has been doing Round 29 for some time now, so we'd see some variations of it with him. Doing it with Christine showed us even more variations!!! Which really illustrated how flexible the Turbo Kick format is and how much personality you can put into it, but still have it be a Turbo Kick class that anyone can follow!After another short break, we settled down to do the written test. No Problem! No one should worry at all about this because you go through everything throughout the day. Christine always led us to the right answer and HINTED STRONGLY about what to remember for the test. And that was the day in waaaaaay more than a nutshell! All in all it was a great day. We had an AWESOME presenter with Christine!!! She is actually in Round 29. Sue and I both picked up some Turbo Wear, met some great people and really enjoyed the day! After the certification, we went to get some dinner (FAMISHED by that point...funny though...I didn't really notice until we were done for the day!). Then we went back to the hotel, had a swim and a few minutes in the sauna to stretch. Then I remembered that I had my laptop with me, so what did we do? Threw in the Rounds, of course, and watched them till we couldn't keep our eyes open! LOL!It's Tuesday (I started this last night, but was waaaaay too tired to finish) and I'm, of course, still pretty sore, but it's all good! I got into the pool last night, then the whirlpool and the sauna which helped IMMENSELY!!! If you go get certified, but don't have a pool/sauna or anything like that, I definetly recommend a hot shower AND stretching right afterwards, the next morning, the next evening, etc. until you feel more 'normal'. WHEW! Well, that's all for me, for now! More than enough, I'm sure!Have a great day everyone! We'll let you know when we actually get the "official" word about the cert!!! Dawna

Posts: 883 Registered: 07-03-04