JazzerThon report
Feb. 17th, 2008 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nlbarberAnd the event has occurred: the 6th JazzerThon for the Cure was this afternoon. The whole shebang raised over $212,000 for Komen for the Cure, mostly used for breast cancer screening programs, education, and research. My group (people from 2 Jazzercise centers) raised a little over $3,000, and I had just under $1,000 of that. Thanks to those who contributed!
The event was much as previous years. The first hour was all aerobics, with warm-up and cool-down stretches, and each song was led by a different group. Our team leader had offered to do one of the middle songs, but we ended up with the closing stretch, to LOVE, sung by Joss Stone. We modified the choreography to spell out L-O-V-E with our bodies, working in pairs, and it seems to come off pretty well despite the lack of rehearsal as a whole group and the small size of the stage that kept us from doing everything we'd planned.
The second hour was strength training, almost all done with a resistance band (Jazzercise calls 'em "tubes"), and led by the guest instructor, who's part of the team that produces the materials for Jazzercise instructors. As you'd expect, she was very good. The last hour was sort of a combination--the first part was like the guest-instructor session last year, which was a funk-heavy dance/aerobics routine taught to us in segments and then put together. But this year's guest either didn't handle that sort of thing as well, or didn't have very good choreography for it...or maybe I was just too tired. Anyway, I felt it fell flat, and I saw a number of people on the edges of the room sort of opting out. It was a relief when she spent the last half-hour back on 'usual' routines, including showing us a few that haven't gone out to the instructors yet.
Then there were the usual closing announcements from Jazzercise and the Komen folks, the award to the top fund-raiser, and we were done. I picked up a steak dinner from Outback on the way home, and will shortly be soaking in a hot bath with a Lush bath bomb. And very glad that tomorrow is a holiday!
The event was much as previous years. The first hour was all aerobics, with warm-up and cool-down stretches, and each song was led by a different group. Our team leader had offered to do one of the middle songs, but we ended up with the closing stretch, to LOVE, sung by Joss Stone. We modified the choreography to spell out L-O-V-E with our bodies, working in pairs, and it seems to come off pretty well despite the lack of rehearsal as a whole group and the small size of the stage that kept us from doing everything we'd planned.
The second hour was strength training, almost all done with a resistance band (Jazzercise calls 'em "tubes"), and led by the guest instructor, who's part of the team that produces the materials for Jazzercise instructors. As you'd expect, she was very good. The last hour was sort of a combination--the first part was like the guest-instructor session last year, which was a funk-heavy dance/aerobics routine taught to us in segments and then put together. But this year's guest either didn't handle that sort of thing as well, or didn't have very good choreography for it...or maybe I was just too tired. Anyway, I felt it fell flat, and I saw a number of people on the edges of the room sort of opting out. It was a relief when she spent the last half-hour back on 'usual' routines, including showing us a few that haven't gone out to the instructors yet.
Then there were the usual closing announcements from Jazzercise and the Komen folks, the award to the top fund-raiser, and we were done. I picked up a steak dinner from Outback on the way home, and will shortly be soaking in a hot bath with a Lush bath bomb. And very glad that tomorrow is a holiday!