Work it, girl

Working off the holiday season with a little Cardio Striptease and Brazilian Capoeira

By Samantha Levine

An innumerable amount of holiday cookies later, and I think it’s time for all of us to consider the inevitable attempt to get back into shape now that it’s January.

And, since getting on the treadmill makes me feel like the hamster I had in first grade, it might be the right time to shake things up, exercise style. So, in the first of a three-part installment, I’m presenting my experiences at two trendy new workouts. Read on to find out about kicking and stripping away all the November/December damage, and maybe even enjoying yourself while you’re at it.

 

Cardio Striptease class at Crunch Gym

“Take it off ... the weight we mean. This class takes some of the basic moves of the strip tease and combines them with aerobic elements to create a fun, energizing and sexy workout. Careful, it may also improve your private life!”

That’s how Crunch describes its Cardio Striptease class. I was immediately enticed and nervous. Who doesn’t want to have fun, feel sexy and “improve your private life” all at the same time? What a package deal.

However, if anyone has seen the Celebrity Fit Club show on television (B- and C-list chubby celebrities sweating it out for not-so-glamorous prizes), where plus-sized model Toccarra attempts the pole, gets tangled up in herself and comes crashing to the ground, you can understand my qualms. And considering myself to be an adequate dancer for my own purposes, none of which include pole tricks or lap dances, I wasn’t sure I was up to the task.

On the night of the class, I can’t say my friend Lindsay and I were feeling particularly sexy, bundled up in layers upon layers to brave the negative-degree weather, shortly after really overdoing it on apple pie smothered with soft-serve ice cream (a great idea at the time).

Nonetheless, we head to Crunch’s Lincoln Park location for “Cardio Striptease” with Antonio. Several wrong turns later, we arrive 15 minutes late. Through the glass doors, the class looks relatively harmless: The perfectly built male instructor in the front, making the strutting and hip gyrations look effortless for a bunch of average-looking women. Lindsay and I sneak into the back and try, unsuccessfully, to fit right in.

“Raise your knees as you walk, make it sexy ... That’s right.”

I’m feeling pretty good, except catching myself in the mirror, I realize while trying to raise my knees that I look much more ostrich-like than seductive.

The class proceeds in a should-be-simple fashion, with Antonio demonstrating choreography in counts of eight, the class mimicking, and then putting it all together to the tune of breathy Janet Jackson lyrics: “I feel so X-rated …”

Feeling rather PG myself as the “one-and-two-and-three…” and “and-left-and-right-and-down-and-back…” absolutely overwhelm me, it’s all I can do to jump in on the easy parts.

Just when I’m starting to get comfortable dancing by myself in the back, where no one can see me, and avoiding eye contact with Lindsay so as not to burst out laughing, Antonio pairs us up. In the front of the room, he demonstrates the moves with the class enthusiast in the front row, a 20-something blonde who, as Lindsay accurately describes, “looks like she’s about to quit her day job.”

Now I have never considered myself to be particularly modest or easily shocked, but my jaw drops just watching Antonio and Blondie, and I am dreading my own turn.

“Okay, now go,” Antonio says.

Heart racing, I plunge into the striptease. Sexy walk until I’m behind my partner, drop to my knees, smack the floor, pull myself under her between her legs, let her grab my hair and swing my head side to side, roll onto my back — it gets worse, or better, depending on the what kind of person you are — roll over again onto my hands and knees and crawl toward her when she has moved across the room.

Then, I crouch between her legs as she’s lying on her back (“Get in the goods,” Antonio calls out to me as I grimace) and toss my head back on the final “and eight.”

Since I can only keep up with about 20 percent of what I’m supposed to do, I make sure I get that last head toss just right so it looks like I’ve been keeping up all along.

“Good,” Antonio says.

Yeah, right.

While I can’t say I ever once worked up a sweat or that I’m ready to become student by day, stripper by night, when all was said and done, I did have a great time. And judging by the unabashed average women dancing as if they were about to rip their gym clothes off and take the show on the road, everyone else did too.

Which makes me think, even if Cardio Striptease doesn’t offer the workout needed for a sexy supermodel figure, isn’t half of looking sexy actually feeling sexy?

As Lindsay and I packed up our stuff, Antonio gave us a wink and told us to come back. Who knows, we just might take him up on the offer.

 

The art of Capoeira

My attempt to become a Brazilian martial arts master in two hours or less

It’s called Capoeira — pronounced Cap-oh-WARE-uh, with that rolled Spanish “r” if you want to get fancy. And no, it’s not some trendy new cocktail; it’s a Brazilian martial arts technique. According to www.capoeirista.com, “Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art with over 400 years of history. In recent years, Capoeira has exploded out of Brazil and continues to grow in popularity.”

Capoeira originated in Brazil as a self-defense technique designed by former slaves to escape recapture by their masters, using only one’s arms and legs. Fast-forward a few hundred years, and you might recognize Capoeira from the scene in “Ocean’s Twelve,” in which the acrobat miraculously dodges the laser beams crisscrossing the art museum in a series of flips, turns and tumbles.

Think karate meets break-dancing.

Now I knew that my first day of Capoeira class couldn’t transform me into a stunt double, but I was confident I could play Capoeira (yes, you play Capoeira, you don’t do Capoeira) with the best of them, since I like to think I’m in decent shape, and I take a girly-girl kickboxing class every week at the gym. Three hours of grueling class time later, and I couldn’t have been more wrong.

At least I was training with the best of the best. I embarked on my Capoeira experimental journey at Gingarte Capoeira, one of the most prestigious Capoeira schools in the country, directed by Marisa Cordeiro, who, I learned afterwards to my surprise, is one of the highest-ranking women capoeiristas in the world.

Not that she doesn’t seem capable. The techniques she demonstrated were executed with effortless fluidity, mimicked by no others in the class. She just seems awfully down to earth for a world master, in sweatpants with a ponytail braid.

That sort of approachability, along with endless patience for me — a stumbling mess confusing my left and right feet — got me through the seemingly endless class of kicks and turns, tumbles and balancing acts, all put together in a sort of choreography I could barely watch without getting dizzy.

But Marisa stayed by my side, walking me slowly through the steps, with both of us getting a good laugh at my expense. Most of the class time consisted of partnered practicing, with one capoeirista kicking his or her partner, who ducked at just the right time, ideally.

I was, however, too confused with the steps to be partnered with anyone and not risk kicking them in the face. Walking through the frustrating footwork alone, I had ample opportunity to watch my classmates, who, being just a few classes ahead of me, kicked and spun with ease and — yes — smiles on their faces. They all seemed to be pretty good friends, and most of all, in fantastic shape, complete with chiseled abs and impossibly toned arms.

At the end of the class, we all sat in a circle, Kumbaya-style with bongo drums, and sang Capoeira songs one by one. I hadn’t sung solo since my bat-mitzvah back in 1999, and I felt just as nervous, butchering the Portugese lyrics in a singing voice quite shy outside the car and shower.

But no one laughed, and at the end, one of my classmates invited me to play Capoeira with her inside the circle. Yes, I just sort of hopped from one foot to the other and sat down after about 30 seconds, but my partner nodded approvingly, as if I had it down pat.

The truth is, people who play Capoeira love it, and it seems more like a lifestyle than a once-in-a-while workout, based on a rich culture and tradition. Good friends? Good workout? Sounds like a perfect match, you know, just maybe not for me.

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