This day started with 90 min of dance - dance when it’s just wonderful.
Those 90 min gave me more than so many other classes together.
The teacher was just awesome. It was the first time I took her class, but definitly not the last.

The day finished with an a m a z i n g movie: going the distance. I loved it!! Justin Long and Drew B is awesome!!

I’m writing this series of articles for Fitness Magazine (the swedish issue) Åsa and the City - and it’s about fitness trends in NYC.
You’ll be able to read it later on this fall, for three issues in a row, in the actual paper magazine.

So now I’m draging Fredrik with me all over the city to try different kind of workouts.. and for the most recent article that’s about different kind of bootcamp places we found this cool club that run by two former US marines.
And the workout you get there is authentic to what they did in the marine…no humiliation though (or rhymes) - but it’s really diciplined, tough and yes.. hard core!
You WILL get results by doing it!

This is not really my favourite way of working out… and it’s waaaay out of my comfort zone.. but I think it’s so much fun to get all theese opportunities to see all this places, and to meet all kinds of people.
Even though it feels like we’re at totally different places in our approach to training (and we are) we do have our passion in common. The passion of training hard, and also the ability to use our bodies to find an outlet for our feelings and expressions…even though I might do it through a body role or a pirouette and they through climbing monkey bars… isn’t that just awesome?!

Here’s a part of the obstacle course in the club

One of my friends from home’s always asking me if I’ve seen any NYC-celebrities… and I’m always the worse.
Cause I never pay attention to stuff like that.
But only for you - a list of celebrity spotting for the last couple of days:

• One of my favourite NYC-celebs, the one and only, Sarah Jessica Parker. Earlier this summer we met her at the beach in the Hamptons, I’ve seen her at the streets of New York before, and this time we saw her in here in Greenwich Village, chillaxing with her son.
  
• Katherine Moennig - it was Fredrik that spotted her first when we strolled in East Village the other day. I saw her recently in an old episode of one of my favourite shows, Law & Order SVU, but I guess she’s most famour for beeing in L-word.
  
• From both SATC and Law & Order… lol. We met Mr Big/Chris Noth on the street outside our house yesterday. I’ve seen him once before…apparently, cause I’ve even caught him on a photo, totally unaware of it in the moment though - as I would shoot my friend Marc.
  

AIM is a new education from LMI, and it stands for Advanced Initial Module… and it’s devided into two steps.
The first day is program specific - and we did held this first day of it in Sweden last year, in connection with Super Saturday, for a few of the programs. Not for BODYJAM® though.

But after the US Summit we did the AIM step 1, for BODYJAM® - and since it was a relly big group attending (about 40 ppl), there were a couple of trainers that held it together - and then G of course. 
 
To be able to attend AIM, you should have had your license - and been teaching for about a year I think.

I could feel quite a difference from doing trainings in Sweden/Scandinavia… it wasn’t better or worse - it was just very different, and it was interesting for me to see. I learned a lot myself.

We had to split all the instructors into four groups for the presentation/feedback sessions, and I worked with lovely Josh, giving feedback to one of the groups.

The instructors that participated was ON to it.. great vibes!

The whole group, including all the trainers and G.

After the summit we had the traditional Buffalo court session - lead by Dan Cohen, of course.. who else?!
And then dinner, and parteey… but since a lot of the trainers had to work eeeearly the day after it wasn’t as wild as I have seen ; )

Team Sweden:

The awesome John & Peg from Canada - two of my absolute favourites from the US/Canada team

A little performance by Josef & Jake…not voluntarily

Justin & Karen

This is what an pretty hungry trainer team looks like during Buffalo-session, longing for food. : )

Day two… went well too.

8.00 am we started with the BODYBALANCE™ presentations, under the leadership of Jackie Mills and Peg Cleland - that’s the US program coach, and she’s just fantastic!!

Like I said - I had track no 3, Standing strengt: I got you (Leona Lewis) and it was a really good track I think.
As a mather of fact - I loved the whole release of 51. Strong, athletic and good music.

I’ve noticed it before… and so I did even this time.
It IS such a different feel in a group of balance-instructors from a group of jam-instructors. And I’m not talking about the feel of the program, cause it’s two completely essence’s, obviously.
But the flow-people seems to be a bit more pretentious some how. (in general - not everyone it’s best I say)

We all presented our tracks once - and since there were 18 of us we did the whole class exactly twice. I love learning by doing - and I can’t wait to start teaching this release, in november/december : )

In the afternoon we had a two hour jam-session, where we went through some of the AIM-exercises.. as well as some other info, such as changes of the manual for the initial training.. and stuff like that.
It was a fun session that allowed us to leave the pre-choreographed format for a while - and just let go a bit…! Good stuff!

Some random in the moment pictures of sweaty US & Canadian jam-trainers after our session…

I’m in Atlanta… Came here yesterday after a crazy delayed flight due to thunder storms and a lay over we didn’t know of.
So, Team Sweden did a not so invisible-more-than-fashionable-late entrance in the middle of the Les Mills US trainer Award…!

The summit is two full days, today and tomorrow. Two packed days!
And today was all about BODYJAM®, for me at least.
When we came yesterday we all got our tracks to present… and a dvd, with the music only.
I got track no 3 & 4 which is a block of hiphop - sort of. Pretty uptempo though.

We presented one at a time - and we presented twice today, so we did the whole class about five times, back to back.
THEN we did the whole master class of release 55 this evening with G, Sarah and Josh.
So I know the release of 55 pretty well now.. ! : ) I hope it stays somewhere in the back of my head until the end of november when it’s time to present it.

After our first presentation we recieved feedback from Gandalf (who’s the program director for BODYJAM®) and US Program Coach Mysti!
Then we got a bit of time, like two good minutes, to adapt and adjust - and then we did it all over…!

Tomorrow it’s the same thing all over again - but with BODYBALANCE™.
I got track no 3 - standing strengt. Soooo,  I suppose I should start practicing that now ?!?!

Didn’t take to many pics today… but I sneaked in during one of the BODYPUMP®presentations and took one… one of my famous paparazzi pics, lol!

Fredrik and John from Candada - doing some serious weight training! : )

I booked an appointment to tint my eyebrow and lashes…and here’s the confirmation I recieved from the beauty place on my email:

Asa Darling,

Big Kiss,

Isn’t that just awesome? I think it is - and I already love this place : )

Tre härliga saker som gjort veckan lite extra bra so far… 

• Tog klass för bästa bästa Nadia igår, en street jazz. Speglarna var igen-immade, och golven snorhala och studion kokade.
  Men inte (bara) för att det var varmt - utan för att det var en sån grymt skön energi på klassen.
  Riktigt kul, riktigt jobbigt och bara så bra!
   Nadia (från Nike Finland förra året)
• US trainer summit i Atlanta nästa vecka! 
  Imorse fick jag ett mail med informationen att de program vi kommer jobba med är de som precis har filmats, dvs i mitt fall BODYJAM® 55 och BODYBALANCE™ 51.
  Yippi… Framförallt när det gäller BODYBALANCE™ - eftersom jag inte riktigt hunnit lära mig 50an än.
  Det känns skönt att alla är on the same page när det gäller koreografi liksom.. : ) 
  Förutom när det gäller min US jam kollega Josh då - som var nere och filmade 55an för ett par v. sen.
  Han har väl lite lätt försprång kan man säga.. hehe!
• Burlesque…såg trailern för filmen häromdagen, och jag tror att jag kommer ä l s k a den. Vill att den ska ha premiär nu.. nu!
  Inte om flera månader!

 Och så en mindre bra sak… som counterweight då antar jag, som enligt de flesta 40-talister behövs i livet

• Bikramklassen idag…
  För första gången under de fyra år jag tränat Bikram så hamnade jag på klass för en lärare som jag inte alls gillade.
  Han pratade way to much och way to sloooow för min del - och hans personlighet var inte alls kompatibel med min, om man säger så. Men ändå rätt bra statistik får man säga… för jag har testat en hel del olika lärare…!

At class today we did a choreo to I like that, the song that I used for my class at Nike Convention 2010.

And that choreo is so strong in my muscle memory…Cause, I’ve done it so many many times, I’ve broke it down - I’ve reversed it from the “right” side to the left - and then back.. and the choreo is really in the music for me.. so when I hear it - it’s almost like my body starts dancing, automatically..

So - it was a bit hard to do a completely different routine to it.. but fun, of course.. and I do really like that song.

And now,  I’m re-charging for tonight’s lyrical class that I’m heading to in a minute.
Love my life!