There are two places in the Boston area that offer Lotte Berk classes, one of which was brought here by two former Lotte Berk instructors who opened a luxury spa and have tweaked the method to develop what they call Core Fusion. That is the class I had planned to attend on Friday but was waylaid by an injury.
This morning I travelled to a little suburb about 5 miles away. It is an enclave of fou-fou ladies-who-lunch and one-of-a-kind boutiques. There is a Starbucks on each corner.
So the class began at 9, I left a bit after 8. As I'm following the mapquest directions, I see suddenly that the area isn't so serene and the cars have gone from Volvos and Range Rovers to pimped out, tricked out, low riding Hondas.
I
know Lotte Berk Method is not taught amidst graffiti tagged walls and debris littered streets. I turn around, realizing the difference between "St" and "Ave" is tremendous.
Driving slowly, ticking off the impatient latte deprived occupants of the Mercedes behind me, I see the studio. It is early enough to snag parking. As I'm about to make a U-y, a bone-thin, no-fat-in-her-diet woman on a bicycle suddenly appeared and I had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting her. She never turned around. Dumb gal.
I park and as I'm approaching the studio, I see a small group of women gathered on the sidewalk and lo and behold, Miss Starving Bicyclist is now walking her bike towards the small gathering. I walk up to the group just as another woman approaches from a parked ultra sleek Volvo wagon. She is as sleek as her Volvo: long, lean lines and elegantly muscled. A
bit on the thin side but beautiful. She is wearing a platinum necklace with a diamond circle pendant, gargantuan diamond studs in her ears and a diamond and pearl ring on her right ring finger. Her left ring finger is weighed down by a boulder shaped into a marquise diamond wedding ring. She is pulling her hair back into a ponytail and smiling brightly as she greets the women on the street.
She looks directly at me, not recognizing me and chirps brightly, "Hi there! Are you here for class?"
Mesmerized, I said, "Yes!" To which she responded, "Wonderful! What's your name? I'm Sarah and I'm the instructor."
She has pulled out a key and opened the studio. The other women are staring at me curiously. Miss Starving Bicyclist is a bit older than I initially thought, probably in her late 40s. There is another older woman, very skinny with very little muscle tone, a woman about my age who looks supple and strong and two women in their 50s who are short and very squat. They appeared to be doyennes of The Ladies-who-lunch.
We walk upstairs to the Yoga studio, Sarah chattering away the entire time, explaining that she hopes I like it enough to return and that should I join for the customary 10 visit rate, I should make sure they credit me for today. We all remove our shoes and socks then enter the studio. The room is large enough to accomodate us and there is a mirrored wall with a high
barre and a brick wall with a lower
barre. The room is unbelievably and unbearably hot. There is an air conditioner but the heat of the morning and the previous evening had done it's jobe. Panting already, I grab a mat, a strap and get a little "block."
"What's the block for?" I ask. The other women laugh knowingly.
"You'll see." Sarah looks at me and says, "It's a surprise."
Sarah introduces me as her "new student" to the class and introduces the other women to me who wave happily.
We begin with the traditional high steps, opposite arm and knees, warming up. Then we stretch the left and right arms. We immediately move into push-ups.
Not your usual push-ups. We begin in The Plank. Then we lower down to about an inch from the ground (The Hover in Yoga), then pulling in tightly on the abs, push up. This is agonizing. I am already sweating more than you can possibly imagine and my arms are shaking and trembling. Sarah has her eye on me in the mirror. She is not pleased with my form.
She gets up and comes over to me, giving me very detailed and gentle instructions. When I am in the proper form, it has now taken on a torturous dimension. I am shaking so hard I can't possibly remain upright. Sarah smiles with satisfaction. "That's
much better, B" We do three sets of 10 sloooooooooly.
We immediately move to tricep work. Lying flat on the mat with our hands very close to our chests, we bring the elbows way up and imagine trying to press them together. WE ARE GRASSHOPPERS. We then raise all the way up, extending through the length of the arms. By the end of the first set, Sarah has bestowed upon me her mark of approval: "EXCELLENT, B."
We complete a few MORE tricep exercises then get off the mat for stretches. Sarah instructs us to move to the barre. I immediately head towards the end of the
barre on the brick wall, nearest the glorious a/c unit.
Sarah foils me.
"B! Come up here next to me! Come on, I don't want you hiding in the rear."
She is dead center in front of the mirror.
It is time for seat work. Gals, what we thought was challenging on the DVDs and the Bonus Blasts? A stroll through the park those DVDs are. A. casual. stroll. through. a. child's. park.
Thought I was gonna die. Sweat was pouring from my face and dripping down to my shoulders. My arms and back were slick. I glanced over at Sarah and she was also dripping sweat but
not trembling although she was grimacing and grunting. She said grunting makes it better.
I really thought at one time, when we went all the way down until our bums skimmed the floor whilst still high up on our toes that I would reach over and slap Sarah, but I just had no energy. Besides which, if I removed one hand from the barre, I'd collapse.
We do so many variations of glute, quad, hip and waist work, I am jelly. Nope, I am liquified jelly. But no. We're not done. We get the "blocks." We perch on the blocks, just under the
barre and let our heels dangle from the back. We do work for the calf.
We work the calves to death then we push the mats under the
barre and press out backs firmly against the wall. I gasp, "Oh God. We get to sit down."
Sarah laughs and says, "Don't even think about relaxing, B!" because we are now ready to move on to ab work. At this point, I am
and am now blindly following directions with no resistance. I have no fight left and I can now barely blink. The ab work is as intense as the seat work. I want to clutch the bar that is over my head just to keep myself upright but I have no energy in my arms so I end up doing the exercises in proper form
by default.
I am satisfied to see that even the super toned woman my age is struggling and sweating and looking as if someone has beaten her to within an inch of consciousness. Her poor hair is a wet and matted mess around her face, the elastic thing-y skewed off to one side of her head. Yes, I am the devil for taking such pleasure in her misery.
We take a blessed break for water and Sarah goes to collect towels for those of us who have forgotten them. She tells us she expects us to be in full plank upon her return.
She wasn't kidding. The women were getting down into position.
I want to go into plank but my arms are quivering and throbbing, my abs are screaming and my legs are shaking and trembling. I'm going to cause an earthquake with all my twitching.
Sarah returns with the towels and I mop myself gratefully. We are now into The Plank again, then up to Downward Dog and she travels around the room, getting us to stretch farther and extend more. We do this endlessly before go BACK TO PUSH-UPS!
We are gradually cooling down now, going into stretches with the strap. Sarah makes us get the "block" again and we hold them between our feet and squeeze tightly for 25 seconds. Then we hold them whilst crunching upwards for three sets. Then she sneaks in more ab work while we're hysterical with pain. She hops up and forces us to reach up another inch to touch her hands and then she grabs our arms from behind and asks us to stretch even more to grab HER arms in turn.
Finally, finally, finally, we are in full cool down and stretch mode and suddenly, mercifully and wondrously, we have completed the class and we're all smiling widely and applauding. It was wonderful! I wanted to kill her, sure but my body felt amazing afterwards and I felt as if I'd pushed myself to the brink in spite of myself.
Sarah said she herself could not be motivated at home when she works out. She asked how many of us would have done that final set of push-ups at home? Uhm, I wouldn't have done the second set, who am I kidding?
But there is definitely something about the community and warmth of kindred souls together in solidarity that does force you to pull out more than you thought possible. It was amazing to see and feel it.
