Unleashed and Empowered – My new hobby, and the other reason Glenn’s not gettin’ any.

BODYCOMBAT™ is the empowering cardio workout where you are totally unleashed. This fiercely energetic program is inspired by martial arts and draws from a wide array of disciplines such as karate, boxing, taekwondo, tai chi and muay thai. Supported by driving music and powerful role model instructors, strike, punch, kick and kata your way through calories to superior cardio fitness. .

And it kicks your arse, and you have no time to update your blog, which is annoying, but strangely, you feel better than you have in a long time. I have written a few times about wanting to get fit, lose five stone and transform into Kate Moss but hadn’t found a way to do it which fitted in with my laziness, my unwillingness to spend a lot of money and The Job. However, my boss has granted me a reprieve from the travelling for a couple of months, the gym had a ‘bring a friend’ offer which Moch got for me (£25 a month all in), and the evenings are lighter now which means I am less likely to want to crawl into bed the second I get home.

The first time I went to Body Combat I spent an hour not really believing I was there, the instructor was taking it very seriously (with such gems as "give me your tiger, GRRRRR!", "Where's your guard? If you ain't got your guard, you ain't 'ard!" and "WEAVE! WEAVE! We go undetected....."), and there were lots of routines which I didn’t understand, but eventually you realise that everyone in the class is so busy concentrating on getting it right themselves, no one could give a damn about what you’re doing. My personal favourite is the one where you punch the head of an imaginary person you are holding against the floor with your other hand, with every punch you have to shout “HEAD!” as loud as you can, and it’s done to a track where the main lyrics are “It’s time to die” or something like that. Honestly, I couldn’t have wished for a more dramatic form of exercise, it’s absolutely perfect!

I can highly recommend getting a gym buddy though, someone who you have to go with, so you can motivate each other, I am incredibly weak willed when it comes to keeping this up, especially at the level we have thrown ourselves in at, so it's massively helpful to have someone who will leave you answer phone message that say "We're booked on Body Combat, pick you at at quarter to eight, NO EXCUSES!". Am unsure what motivation I am providing her with as I mainly lie on the floor after the class spluttering "no... more.... want... to... die... leave... me... alone", but I can tell you that she's certainly helping me. Her and her Big Gym Pants.

So the plan at the moment is to do at least 4 classes a week, and a mixture of combat (cardio, cardio, cardio), pilates (tone, tone, tone), yoga (if I could just remember to breathe….), and then a bit more combat (cardio, cardio, cardio).

This time next year I am going to be America’s Next Top Model, which is Glenn's absolute favourite TV show in the whole world... can't think why.... Although I do regularly hear him shouting "It's all about YOU Tyra isn't it?! All about you!" at the TV.

PS. I have been doing this for four weeks now and have not the smallest clue what it means when it says that you ‘kata your way through…’.

PPS. Try not to feel too sorry for him, he is getting some…

Length of Love

This could be destiny
Oh sweetheart
I've had no sense of time
Since we started
I got friends in need
Oh sweetheart
I've grown lengths and lengths and lengths of love
Since we started this thing out

Combat salacious removal
Combat salacious removal

There is a bitter breed
Oh sweetheart
They will be watching you sometimes
With their bitter hearts

But we are through with these
Oh we're shifting the heartache
We want strong summer love, the most robust blood
Just to stay awake

Combat salacious removal
Combat salacious removal
Combat salacious removal

NYC - Day Three

First of all, can I say, this is hard! I can't believe I'm only on Day Three! Does that mean I am lazy or very busy? I don't know, I think I'm very busy but that could be to make myself feel better about the laziness... who can say?! And the photo is the view of Long Island from across the Hudson River.

So we got up first thing and trekked down Fifth Avenue to the Empire State Building, we had been warned to get there early because the queue really builds up but luckily we managed to be on the 105th floor in about 20 minutes, which pleased Glenn no end, and that's a joke, because he hates heights and visibly shook the entire way around the top. He's actually been up there before and was going up again just for me so we must not laugh at his shakiness because he could have told me to do one. It was freezing up there but we tried to take our time and take some photo's, some man was shouting at his what looked like about 8yr old son to "STAND BACK FROM THE SIDE, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU FELL OFF?!" well if he wasn't thinking about it before.... there is a HUGE fence that goes way, way up all around the side so you would have to incredibly dedicated about doing it to actually fall off, and there are so many people around that I very much doubt even the most committed suicide jumper would manage it, but apparently there is nothing to match scaring the living shit out of your child.

Spectacular views by the way, but I guess you already had an inkling of that.

After the Empire State Building came my absolute favourite part of the day, if not the whole holiday, the Museum of Modern Art, there was a Munch exhibition on (they did not have 'Scream', but they did have 'Despair' and 'Angst', which are equally disturbing! So that was nice), there were countless works by Mondrian, Picasso, Matisse, Klimt, Dali, Hopper, Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. And one of my favourite paintings in the whole world, 'Christina's World', by Andrew Wyeth, it was tucked away in a corner somewhere and when I noticed it it just took my breath away.

Glenn is a bit gay and very much enjoyed Monet's 'Reflections on a waterlily pond', which is HUGE by the way, but it was a very big thrill standing right in front of it.

A lot of people hate modern art and I think sometimes it's felt that it doesn't take as much talent as more traditional pieces, but can you imagine being in the world, say, 100 years ago and seeing something like a Picasso for the very first time, a world that had never dreamt of Mondrian or Warhol, where does an artist like Picasso come up with the idea for something like that? With no point of reference, how does he think to do it? I don't agree with the idea that modernism is not as accessible as more classic art, surely it's the most accessible, because you can make of it what you will. What is it? It's whatever you want it to be, what do you think and feel when you look at it? That's what it is.

Anyway, blah blah blah and all that...

Munch's 'Portrait of Inger' freaked Glenn out so much he had to leave the room, which was very funny.

After MoMA, we walked down Fifth Avenue and attempted shopping for the first time which was a disaster of mythical proportions, turns out in New York, I am just all the wrong shape, looking back they have the same problems we have n the UK, no proper sizing system, the size 12 jeans slipped on easily in old Navy but I couldn't get them past my thighs in Gap. As say though, it's on reflection that I have realised this, at the time I was not rational and thought only of changing my name to Lardy McFatArse.

Sachs was beautiful, really, really beautiful but not for people like us..... I asked Catherine where the 'Sex and The City' type of women were to be found because I hadn't yet seen any of these uber stylish, wealthy types yet, she said 'Sachs, they're all in Sachs', and she was right! Except close up they're just frightening looking... Like an extreme version of the make up counter attendants in Debenhams, very orange.

Back at the hotel to have an hour off from it all and we discovered that American news reporting is bloody weird!

"A father goes to court today to seek to legally relinquish his parental rights, is he right to do so? Or an irresponsible jerk?"

I want to hear Anna Ford say that!

Another gem:

"Convicted of his parent's murders 12 months ago, new evidence comes to light during his appeal showing his father's business partner could be to blame"

And that poor sod is sat in front of the TV, innocently watching to news, only to find out he's the new suspect in a murder case...

Now according to the diary, we didn't do anything that night. I think that means that that's the night we had a row and Glenn stormed back to the hotel while I stood aoutside the Rockefellar Centre wondering what to do, but I didn't tell you about that, shhhhhhh......

New Link

I have added a new link, a very funny site which asks people to contribute things they have overheard strangers say in New York....

My favourite is this;

Hobo: You have a quarter for a cup of coffee?

Suit: Excuse me, can't you see I'm on the phone?

Hobo: I don't have time for your games!

Sunset

The view from my parent's apartment in San Antonio Bay, Ibiza, August 2004.

A thought.

Of all the diseases, in all the world, that I could have developed, little ones and big ones and life changing ones, and life ending ones and life dependant ones....

... Why couldn't I have developed something with just a teeny, tiny, bit more dignity?

I remember being terrified of a smear test, so mortified that someone was going to have to go down there and have a look around, that I didn't go for years and years, not until my mother made me.

The only thing I can equate my attitude to now is how I imagine a woman views these things post childbirth. My dignity is thrown to the winds. Come one, come all. Poke me, prod me, investigate me, violate me, I'll just lie here, staring at the ceiling, and it will all be over soon.

Smear test? Pah!