Les Mills Launch At Cali

Today is the launch of BB, BC and BP at Cali. Very soon they will have BJ too. I decided to attend the launch in preparation for our launch next week.

I went for two - the first 1030 at Republic Plaza II and the second 1210 at Bugis Junction. After the two classes, I've come to the conclusion that BC37 is an awesome release and I'm going to love it lots.

The atmosphere was electrifying. Goodness knows how many people can wake up and attend a 1030 class on Sunday. I literally had to drag my ass up for this. And they had a team of instructors for the class too, 3 for RP, 4 for Bugis, and each team dressed up really well. I think they probably have a creative director or something.

For the first class, there were some delays due to technical error. The transmitter sets didn't work. I've attended several classes at Cali before and seriously this is the first time I'm seeing this. It was amusing (to me) seeing the instructors sweating, looking flustered, and running up and down to sort the problem.

I guess they dont get much practice on this, unlike me, it used to be a regular practice for me every Wed at FES and CSQ, and occasionally CHV too.

Of cos, I can't say that the classes were perfect. No class is ever perfect, but there were a few things which I found a little annoying.

The first is the space constraint. As both the classes were filled to the brim, there was hardly any space to move around or kick. The inability to shuffle or execute kicks fully does take plenty away from the workout.

Choreo mistakes. There were so many choreo mistakes in the 2 classes that it was unbelievable. A little too much for me to bear. The first class had mistakes in 8 out of the 10 tracks - T1, T2, T3, T6, T7, T8, T9, T10. I'm not talking about minor mistakes but rather major ones. Wrong moves, wrong timing, wrong kata, wrong type of skips.

The second class at Bugis was better. There were mistakes in only 4 tracks - T1, T2, T3, T4, T10.

Maybe the first class was suffering from nerves after the frantic 15mins when they were trying to sort out the technical error, or maybe they had too little time to learn the 3 or 4 tracks that they were each allocated. But their experience showed as they covered up some of the errors brilliantly. As this was the launch, most of the participants probably didn't know the moves anyway so they just followed suit.

I guess I'm just being a little anal about this cos nobody is perfect. I make mistakes too. I can tolerate mistakes but mistakes in 8 out of 10 is perhaps a little overwhelming. Choreography is first key element (out of 5) of LM programs and as my trainer for BA, Kylie Gates, put it. "I need your choreo to be 100%, not 90%, otherwise I will fail you".

The third thing which annoyed me was quite a number of the participants at RP tended to be half a beat faster than the music. They quickly execute their moves then spend extra time pulsing. It's a common phenomenon I witnessed at RP. There wasn't such a problem at Bugis though.

I must have sounded like I hated the class because I have been quite negative so far. But in actual fact, I really enjoyed the classes. Here's what I really liked.

Theme/Outfits. It's remarkable how much effort both teams put in to coordinate on the dressing, which fitted the Blade/Underworld theme in BC37 perfectly. Not to mention all those little accessories and make up on the faces. Full marks for effort.

The crowd is just awesome. Turned up in full force and lent their voices to the cause. Most of the members don't even need to be prompted before they start to holler.

Other than the minor glitch, the sound system was actually really good. The music was loud and clear, and the mic came through well.

All in all, I enjoyed my BC37. Already I'm liking it more than BC35 and BC36. Can't wait to launch it!