YOGAGIRL: As a mantra of fact.......
Samurai Sweat...
A staff instructor at the gym has rolled out a new format for summer. She's been teaching group fitness for over 15 years, and in all kinds of forms but in the past few years she's been kind of stuck doing a bootcamp format at 6am in the morning. After getting certified by AFAA in March, she received the monthly AFAA newsletter and came across an article for "Forza"...and in turn she got really fired up about doing it our club. I was all "yay!" for something new and different.
Samurai Sweat, patterned after Forza, is a sword-fighting-fusion workout and Forza was created by the same folks that brought us the "Powerstrike" kickbox format in the '90s. Particpants use a wooden "bokken" or practice sword and slice and dice their way into a pretty intense upper body and core workout. Not wanting to bust the bank and buy $15 practice swords for a potential class size of 20, that we weren't sure would build anyway, my manager agreed to purchase 8 foot wooden dowels that we cut into 3 pieces and sanded to be about 30" long. If you are at all curious about what this format looks like, check out the demonstration clip from the Today show a few years ago:
Unfortunately I'm either training clients or doing Fit Coaching at the same time we are offering Samurai Sweat on the schedule this summer (Wednesdays at 8am and Thursdays at 4:30pm) so hopefully in the fall I can move it around a bit, so that I can try it, but mainly so that we can feature it in a more prime time spot! I think it's going to be a run away hit with the members!