NZ Glen : BodyCombat fanatic

Following on from my last post I was thinking about what would be my favourite BODYCOMBAT mix from 2008, and that got me thinking about if you really wanted to challenge yourself and your participants – what would be the the most challenging (read that as hardest!) mix you could create from this year’s releases. Here’s what I came up with:

Most challenging BODYCOMBAT mix from 2008 (releases 35-38 )

1. Amazed (Pascal mix)/Tick Tick Boom BC35 – 7:51
2. The United Vibe BC35 – 7:11
3. Like I Feel BC38 – 5:30
4. Headbangerz Rock Da Club/Cold As Ice BC38 – 6:23
5. Don’t You Wanna Feel BC36 – 6:30
6. No Good BC38 – 5:24
7. Let The Beat Control Your Body BC37 – 4:47
8. What Hurts The Most BC38 – 6:18
9. Dance Floor Anthem BC35 – 4:05
10. Our Solemn Hour BC37 – 4:17

Total time: 58:16

Honestly this mix would be a total leg killer! Almost too hard! The dual butt killing tracks of The United Vibe and Cold As Ice (both with roundhouse knees into side kick combinations) – along with the lunges of Don’t You Wanna Feel and the lunge/esquiva/lunge/front kick combos in No Good followed by the six rounds of continuous knees in Let The Beat Control Your Body – my God by the time track 8 rolled around you’d be ready to keel over! And then just to add insult to injury track 8 is real killer as well!

Truth of the matter is I kinda dislike Don’t You Wanna Feel so much it’s unlikely I’d utilise this mix terribly often as written -but it would make for an interesting experiment so perhaps I’ll pitch it as an option when we start mixing again… of course the members would have no idea what they’d be in for!!!

This is the time of year where we usually look back at the year that’s past, and reflect on the good times (and conversely not so good times), and lessons learned. So it seemed fitting for me to do the same for BODYCOMBAT; to take a look at the last four releases and their best bits (and of course their not so best bits), new developments and perhaps use these lessons to look towards the future of BC.

2008 was the year of BODYCOMBAT 35-38 (full tracklistings for these releases can be found here). It may seem strange that I’m writing about the past year in BC when I’ve only been doing BC since 2007. However bear in mind that over the past year or so I’ve averaged a minimum of 7 classes per week, usually at least 10 and sometimes as many as 16! I’ve also completed both the BODYCOMBAT instructor training module and subsequent certification, and when I look back at the past 12 or so releases there’s only a handful of tracks I don’t know so it’s been a pretty steep learning curve!

So, what can we say about BODYCOMBAT in 2008. Well there’s a few obvious points:

• The introduction of the esquiva (BC37 and 38 )
• No e-kicks (evasive side kicks)
• No jump knees 😦
• Minimal gingas; in fact they only made their appearance in two tracks- That’s Right (BC35) and oddly in the Muay Thai track Party Non Stop (BC36) (I say oddly as Muay Thai and Capoeira could not be more different!) and on both occasions the ginga was used as more of a holding pattern between combos as compared to earlier releases
• A move towards leg conditioning (That’s Right/Stamp/No Good (Start The Dance))
• The appearance of the jump kick in the first half of the year (Jump in BC35 and Zombie in 36) into the evil kick katas in the track 4s of BC37 and BC38.
• And overall looking at the above a DEFINITE lowering of the complexity of the releases.

In fact when you compare 2008 to the four releases of 2007 the difference is chalk and cheese. The complexity of BC31-34 was much higher. BC32 and BC33 had loads of gingas and LOADS of e-kicks in Call Me When You’re Sober and This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race, those releases that didn’t have the e-kick in the track 4 had the jump kick – and jump knees featured in the muay thai tracks. So big changes there. We also know that the complexity drops down even further in BODYCOMBAT 39 (see here).

However, that’s not to say that 2008’s releases were easy. Far from it. In fact in my opinion BC38 is right up there with one of the toughest releases ever! 37 would have to rank up there too.

Highlights for me? Believe it or not I’ve loved the warmups, specifically 35, 37 and 38 (36 not so much – Walking in Memphis – that didn’t really do it for me); I love the amount of fun we had with You can’t stop the beat (BC35) (and we’re still having – in fact we did that track again this morning!). I have also really enjoyed the recent track 8’s – Heaven (35), Sea of Love (37) and What Hurts The Most (38 ) – which despite being repetitive have been great.

Lowlights? That’s easy as there’s not many – really only 3; Jump (BC35), That’s Right (BC35) and Don’t You Wanna Feel (BC36). Those tracks didn’t float my boat at all.

One other point is that the muay thais  from this year’s releases have not been the absolute highlight of the workout for me as they’ve been in other releases. I think that’s because I miss the jump knee. Okay, truth is I really miss the jump knee! So What! is my all time favourite combat track (to clarify – I mean from BC27 not the So What in BC39 – although that was fun!). D&R please bring it back!

But what about the esquivas you may ask? well, they’re not on my highlights or lowlights reel simply due to the fact that I’m still of two minds when it comes to them! If you’ve read some of my past posts you’ll know that on the one hand I’m not a big fan as I do combat for cardio not conditioning (for conditioning I do BODYPUMP and weight training) – so I’d definitely prefer another “cardio” track over a leg conditioning track. However, on the other hand I know a lot of people love them and to be fair I think if we’d had another cardio track in BC38 I’d be ready to die by the end of the class – it’s hard enough! And I can see their merits from an interval training perspective. So, although I definitely don’t hate the esquiva tracks they also don’t feature on my highlights reel either.

All in all I think 2008 has been a fantastic year for BODYCOMBAT. I think the direction the programme is going in is the right one, yet in saying that I know Dan and Rach have a few new things planned for 2009 and I’m really looking forward to seeing those!

How about you, what were your highpoints and lowpoints?

Dan & Rach (combat programme directors) - kicking some serious butt!

Speaks for itself I think… simply awesome!!!