This essay has footnotes that can be found in the previously published post available here. It was created so that you could open another tab and flip back and forth if you wish. I also recommend opening up video links in new tabs.

“Do you teach Hollywood style or Savoy style?” *

I was asked this question a few months ago at the Jam Cellar. “I don’t mind which,” the person continued, “I just want to know because my boyfriend’s taking the beginner class and I want to know how to follow him.”

I have nothing against the person who asked this question—many people have been exposed to the terms “Hollywood” style and “Savoy” style, and it’s not their fault that the vocabulary still survives in the culture and makes people think weird things, like the idea that one should follow one differently than another. **

However, after years of research and great love for original swing dancers of all regions, I have come to cringe at hearing the words. The terms were loose and shaky to begin with, and not meant to carry the added weight that people have heaped on them over the years (myself included, at a few points in time). I’m pretty sure they have now officially collapsed, and we should do the good thing and take them out back and shoot them.

Let’s begin by explaining where the terms originally came from, to my knowledge:

Savoy style: As far as I know, the term began in the 80s, possibly the 90s. I first saw this term myself on the box for Frankie Manning and Erin Stevens’ videotape lessons on Lindy Hop. I always assumed Frankie allowed it because (1) Frankie Manning was fully aware that there were different styles of Lindy Hop in his day, and he didn’t want to claim his was the only way, and (2) he had pride in being one of the greatest dancers in the Savoy Ballroom, and he wanted people to remember the Savoy, and its place in developing Lindy Hop. However, in his autobiography (co-written by Cynthia Millman), he states on several occasions that all styles were individual at the Savoy (Pg. 169 and numerous others).

Hollywood style: Late 90s, early 2000s. Though there was Savoy style, there wasn’t really any other labeled style (again, as far as I know). Sylvia Sykes and a few others had taught “Dean Collins style” Lindy for decades, but that was because they had learned it straight from Dean Collins himself, and that was the extent of any “styles.” The phrase “Hollywood style” was coined by LA dancers, most notably Erik Robison and Sylvia Skylar, to describe the style of Lindy Hop done by the (mainly White) Southern California dancers prevalent in Hollywood films in the swing era. (And, yes, master Southern California dancer Dean Collins danced at the Savoy several times before he moved to Hollywood and introduced Lindy Hop there.)

At the least, “Hollywood” style was created simply as a descriptive term for people wondering why people like Eric and Sylvia looked different than the nation’s other top couples when they danced (in the late 1990s it was a significant difference in look). At the most, it was a small linguistic way of giving credit to a group of original swing dancers who were almost forgotten, or thought “uncool,” in the neo-swing renaissance of Lindy Hop. It should be mentioned Eric and Sylvia have always been good friends and admirers of Ryan and Jenny and Frankie Manning, the population’s ideals of “Savoy” style, and there were no malicious politics involved in either term when they were first coined, in my understanding.

Here’s where things started to get weird: Hollywood style took the world of early 2000s Lindy Hop by storm. It became extremely popular, and almost every city’s scene soon had their advanced dancers choosing sides.

For various reasons, many people chose Hollywood, and—here’s the main problem—based their understanding of the original “Hollywood” dancers not on what they saw for themselves in the old clips (which in those days were much harder to come by), but on what they were told, usually by the nearest “advanced” dancer. It should be added that it wasn’t just the “Hollywood” style dancers who did this; a scene’s advanced “Savoy style” dancers often did the same.

In embracing the new trend, many people very quickly cast off the old and left behind all of their Charlestons, Bleyers***, and any move they ever learned from Frankie Manning. They made the “whip” their basic swing-out, bought white bucks and wedgies, and every scene suddenly had an expert on “Hollywood style” and all the fundamental ways in which it was different from “Savoy style.” They included several general rules that we will discuss below.

Now, there’s a lot more to the story than that, and how we got to where the scene is today, but it’s not really important for this article. This post is mostly about deconstructing the style “rules” that have been going around for the last decade in hope of understanding the more complex—and sometimes surprising—reality. (And if you don’t think the theories, research, and opinions expressed in this essay are right, I hope to you they are at least new wrong answers for you to ponder.)

After a few polls with fellow dancers, here are the basic “style” assumptions that people made about “Hollywood” dancers vs. “Savoy” dancers:

1. Hollywood dancers stand up straighter; they don’t bend forward or as much as Savoy dancers do.

I’d like to break these down, one at a time. While we do so, I think you’ll agree that there are a few important problems to note regarding the old footage.

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But first, a few notes:

— Some might now be thinking “Dear God, why bring up the style wars again? Haven’t enough people died already?” When the student asked me the Hollywood vs. Savoy question, I was shocked myself at the thought that this wasn’t all settled long ago. Then, when I thought about it more, I realized I hadn’t settled it for myself. This post changed from me telling someone what I believed to me discovering what I believed. However, as you will see, it’s long. You won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t read the entire post. I promise I’ll never even mention it.

— I tried to link to every clip I mention. Most of them can also be found in this Basic Index of Classic Clips.

— After having spent so much time looking at footage and comparing it to other footage, I sometimes feel I’ve begun seeing things. It can be tricky trying to pinpoint what it felt like to do the things you see a dancer do in a clip, and even if what you’re seeing is really what you’re seeing. So, I don’t presume to be 100% right about this material—there are a lot of theories and guesses, and I’m still exploring ideas and annoying fellow instructors, loved ones, and innocent bystanders with discussion, etc.

— A common theme we will explore is how the terminology of “Hollywood” and “Savoy” gets in the way of our better understanding of the original dancers. Good terminology can be a needed shortcut on a long, monotonous route. Bad terminology, though, is the kind of pot-hole ridden shortcut that cuts off beautiful and enriching scenery and noteworthy landmarks. So, I’m going to try to use more specific terminology, as I’ll explain now.

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Problem:

Terminology and “The Frankie Factor”

Regarding the “style wars,” one of the largest mistakes people have made in the past decade is to equate “Savoy style” (especially the leader’s role) specifically with the styling and moves of Frankie Manning. This is mainly because Frankie Manning was a force both in his youth and in his old age. Charismatic, soulful, long-lasting, a master choreographer, inventor of hundreds of moves, and the only one of his peers energetic enough to travel around and teach across the world in his 80s and early 90s, it makes sense that he is in the forefront of our minds when it comes to what dancing meant at the Savoy.*

The city block-sized Harlem ballroom, however, produced many different unique dancers; Al Minns, Sonny Allen, Leon James, Snookie Beasley, and George Lloyd looked very different from Frankie Manning (and each other), and all of them were Savoy Ballroom dancers, and thus deserve their dancing to also be grouped with “Savoy style.” You could even argue (and many have) the Southern California dancer Dean Collins deserves at least some credit as a “Harlem” or “New York style” dancer, as he developed much of his dancing when he lived in New Jersey, and danced at many New York ballrooms, including the Savoy several times, and surely was inspired by the other Harlem dancers.

There is also an era problem: Just as swing dancing has evolved over the last few decades, so did it in the first few. “Savoy style” itself changed in various ways over the years, and that greatly complicates things when trying to fit it all under one blanket “style.”

“Hollywood” style also shares these problems. Many people equate “Hollywood” styling simply with Dean Collins himself. Hal Takier, Lenny Smith, Wally Albright, Bob Ashley, and Johnny Archer were all unique Southern California dancers in their own right. (Though, the “Hollywood=Dean Collins” idea is admittedly not *as* much of a conflict as the “Savoy style=Frankie Manning” idea, because Dean Collins for all intents and purposes introduced Lindy Hop to Southern California and taught many of the dancers there his specific dance mechanics: Bob Ashley, Lenny Smith and Johnny Archer were all his students, we believe. Frankie Manning was very influential, but almost definitely not as directly influential to Harlem dancers as Dean was to Southern California dancers.)

You can say the same for the followers: Of the Savoy Ballroom, Norma Miller is a very different dancer from Willamae Ricker and Ella Gibson, for instance, and Jewel McGowan is a very different dancer than Jean Veloz, Irene Thomas and Betty Takier. (All of which will play a role in the essay ahead.)

More specific language is easy and will go a long way towards understanding the reality of the original style differences. Therefore, in the discussion of the topics in this essay, I’ll use “Southern California (or SoCal) dancers” or “Dean Collins students” instead of the blanket term “Hollywood style dancers,”** and I’ll use “Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers” or “post-war Savoy dancers” or “Harlem dancers,” etc., in place of the blanket term “Savoy style dancers.”

So, with that in mind, let’s look at our first style “rule”:
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1. Hollywood style dancers stand up straighter; they don’t bend forward or as much as Savoy style dancers do.

Regarding leaders, this is probably the one I hear the most. First, we need to realize there are different ways a leader can “bend.” A generic bend is bending shoulders over knees over toes—so both the leader’s torso and knees bend. However, a leader can also bend his torso further forward than his knees, or, bend his knees more than his torso.

Almost every single leader in the old footage had a kind of athletic bend—so the old debate goes that Harlem dancers bent more dramatically as a rule. We’re going to test this out, and, as I mentioned, discuss how the various bends were accomplished. (Henceforth in the essay, when I say a leader “stands up straight,” I mean he is in only a slight athletic position. No original leader I know of stood up totally straight.)

First, let’s look at the early Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers in (1937) A Day at the Races.

The first leader, Johnny Innis, does have a dramatic basic bent posture most of the time he’s dancing. The second leader, Leon James, only bends dramatically when he’s at the end of his movements or mule-kicking or otherwise styling. In the middle of swing-outs, however, he’s moderately bent. The third leader, Snookie Beasley, is standing pretty straight in almost all of his dancing (again, trick steps get him bent a little more). The final leader, George Greenidge spends the entire time bending prostrate in what must have been a very uncomfortable position: His legs are straight but his torso is bent dramatically far forward. (He later changes this styling to more of a generic bend in Keep Punching.) And, in the group’s final swing-out choreography, the leaders all do a generic, but only slightly-bent, posture:

The earliest of the Whitey’s clips, A Day at the Races is where you will find the most dramatic bends and the greatest range in one clip. (Which makes sense, as it’s hard on the back to stay bent as much as some of those leaders are, and often looks more uncomfortable than it does cool. Dance styles naturally tend to gravitate towards the more comfortable and efficient.) There’s still a variety of range in many other Whitey’s choreographies, though the golden age of the bent-Savoy look is probably (1938) Radio City Revels , where all the leaders are bent like Frankie, and, to a lesser extent, (1941) Hellzapoppin’, where most of them are pretty bent, though in slightly different ways than Frankie.

However, watch any of the Harvest Moon Ball footage and you will see that most of the dancers are only slightly bent, and almost none as bent as Action-Frankie (Frankie Manning when in performance mode). Even a brief video of Frankie social dancing in a crowd at the Savoy in Ken Burns’s Jazz: (Episode 4: A True Welcome; video is roughly at 35 minutes into the episode) shows a Frankie Manning dancing without his dramatic bend. Yet another interesting film is (1942) The Outline of Jitterbug History, which shows the four couples of Hellzapoppin, all dancing without any dramatic bending (except, you know, to pick up girls).

Whitey’s like Al Minns and Leon James, as well as a post-war generation of Savoy dancers, almost all had only a slight bend in their dancing, as shown in social dancing jams in (1950) The Spirit Moves. Also see (198?) George Lloyd and (2001) Sonny Allen.

And we can’t forget the famous Savoy dancer Shorty George with his partner Big Bea, as seen in (1937) Ask Uncle Sol. He almost never bent dramatically (Frankie mentioned on several occasions that almost none of the first generation Savoy greats like Shorty picked up the dramatically bent style.) Again, for trick steps, Shorty bends down, but not for his basic dancing movements.

Now let’s look at Southern California dancers Dean and Jewel in (1942) Rings on Her Fingers. Dean here is dramatically bent through all his basic movements, and, just like the Whitey’s, he tends to fold his posture more dramatically when he does tricks/styling. You see something similar when you watch Lenny Smith, the sailor, in (1944) Swing Fever or Hal Takier in (1943) Maharaja , though Hal stands up straighter than Dean and Lenny for his default dancing.

Lenny Smith’s bend is worth discussing. Look at him in Twice Blessed, or at his sugar pushes at 2:50 in Swing Fever. Notice how, one moment, he will be bent dramatically forward, then the next, his knees are bent dramatically out in front of him and his torso is straighter? This is how Lenny created counterbalance*, by moving his feet in front of him (at the same time he moved his center away from her). Other Southern California dancers did this (mainly only the students of Dean Collins), but Lenny is at the extreme end of the spectrum (perhaps because he’s shorter than most leaders and can get away with making it dramatic). Even though Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers might “sit” away from each other to create counterbalance, especially in aerial preps, it doesn’t seem to happen in their basic movements like it does in Lenny’s.

Also, that primarily happens in sugar-pushes, a step the original Southern California dancers did, and, as far as we know, the Harlem dances did not.** (As you can imagine, the moves that each coast did are often very telling about the general mechanics of the style of jitterbug. We’ll come around full circle to this later.)

So, it seems there is no generic rule about who bent over and who didn’t in the classic swing world.*** Some people did, and some people didn’t, regardless of which coast they lived on. Frankie Manning himself was the first person he knew of to give his Lindy Hop that bent over “running” look (back in the mid-30′s), and there was an entire generation of Lindy Hoppers at the Savoy Ballroom who came before him. And, even after Frankie adopted the look, it still was not universal.**** Again, a great example is his peer Al Minns. Watch Al dancing here or here: Even dancing to “Jumpin at the Woodside,” the older Al Minns is standing straight and proud.

Dean Collins and other dancers on the West Coast also came naturally to a bent look in their own development (or, there’s also a possibility Dean took this styling with him from the East Coast to California), with or without Frankie’s influence. Such an athletic posture is perhaps natural to many when dancing to such energetic music (and throwing women).

Going back to the way people can bend, I have seen pretty much all the various types of bending in both Southern California and Harlem dancers, and this diagram shows four main varieties: Snookie Beasley (top left, Whitey’s) standing up straight; George Greenidge (top right, Whitey’s) with straight legs, bent over torso; Lenny Smith (bottom left, SoCal) with straight torso, bent knees (though, this is only when he counterbalanced—his look is more like Wally Albright’s when he’s not counterbalancing); Wally Albright ( bottom right, SoCal) with bent torso and knees.

As for the followers, the SoCal followers were almost always straight, and many Harlem followers were, as well. Some Harlem followers did, however, choose to bend shoulders-over-knees-over-toes in a similar posture as a leader. That’s a mere taste, though, of what we’ll discuss in the swivels section.

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2. Hollywood dancers are “smoother” in their pulse and dancing than Savoy dancers; hence, Hollywood style was also often called “smooth style” in the early 2000s.

This is an interesting one to mention to old-timers. Whether they’re from Harlem or LA, they will almost always say “of course Lindy Hop should be smooth.” In interviews, Frankie Manning often seemed confused that people called Hollywood style “smooth style” dancing, as if implying that his dancing was not.

Once again, a lack of specific terminology becomes a problem: What does “smooth” mean when we talk about the Harlem dancers vs. the SoCal dancers? Several of the old-timers describe smoothness simply as “not bouncy,” but there are many other ways “smoothness” can be applied in a partnered swing dance.

In the early 2000s Hollywood vs. Savoy terms, for instance, I think it was a blanket term for “fluidity of feet, ankle, and knee movement” to some, and “pulse and energy” to others (and even “fluidity through the ends of movements” to others). This makes sense when you look at some of the “Hollywood” dancers of the early 2000s, many of whom dramatically rolled their feet through steps (in sort of a Boogie-Woogie styling) and/or killed their pulse, while others took “smooth” to mean hardly picking their feet up off the floor. We’ll explain how these are not what the original SoCal dancers did. (At least, SoCal leaders…but let’s get there after we visit Harlem.) *

We’ll start by finding “smooth” Savoy dancers. Two obvious ones are George Lloyd and Sonny Allen. (Note: YouTube took down the best clips of Sonny dancing because of song copyrights.) Almost every aspect of these dancers is smooth: their pulse, their footwork, and their movement across their body and across the floor. And, in Sonny Allen’s case, his dedication to fitted suits and soul pompadours. Note also the use of slides.

Allen and Lloyd were both big presences in the post-war Savoy Ballroom, and you can see some of that post-war era’s jams and social dancing in the middle of this clip from The Spirit Moves. The leaders are almost all showing off for the camera, so it’s not that “social”, but as you can see, almost everyone at this time was trying to be smooth as glass in several ways: minimalizing their pulse, some even making their footwork hardly leave the ground, and almost all enjoying a ton of slide footwork. Leon James especially plays with the fluidity of movement across the dance floor and with his partner.

The things that get in the way of some of these dancers’ “smoothness” are (1) their hiccups in leading/following — some of them appear to hardly be leading/following at all— and (2) their use of moves that involve moving the torso and arms around dramatically (more on that later). Al Minns, who does a little Lindy Hopping in the jam, is the non-smooth one, specifically, in that his pulse is large, and his movements, especially his steps, staccato.

“But,” you might be saying, “that’s all post-war Savoy styling. Let’s get down to the original Savoy stuff.” Well, as I mentioned earlier, that’s part of the style problem. Is Savoy styling meant to imply pre-war Whiteys? Post-war Savoy? Or 80-year-old Frankie? They are all quite different. But let’s look at what aspects of smoothness existed in the pre-war Savoy dancers. (1937) A Day at the Races is probably the least smooth of any Whitey’s choreography; staccato Charleston kicks are rampant, many movements aren’t fluid, and in general things seem slightly jagged, bumbling and out-of-proportion, the perfect definition of adolescence, which was where their dancing was at that time. (Please don’t misunderstand me; I love the dancing in this clip.) But just a couple of years later, in (1938) Radio City Revels the Whitey’s Lindy Hop is obviously growing up connected and fluid, and comes into maturity with (1941) Hellzapoppin’ .

Hellzapoppin’, and to a smaller extent, (1939) Keep Punching, are very smooth in pulse, footwork, and across-the-floor movement. Sure, if they’re wearing sneakers and dancing aerials at 300+ BPM, you’re not going to see the sort of “smoothness” you get out of Lindy Hoppers dancing to 200 BPM songs in leather shoes, but I think the group of dancing kitchen and house workers show a mastery of “smoothness” by almost any dance definition of the word.

Now let’s investigate the smoothness of the SoCal dancers. Let’s look at (1945) Twice Blessed, one of my favorite SoCal clips (In this essay, I’ll use Twice Blessed a lot for examples, as it shows three distinctively different SoCal dance couples):

The dancers in here, like the Savoy dancers above, are “smooth” in that they try not to have their shoulders bounce up and down while they kick ass. But if you look at their feet, especially the leaders, you’ll see the pulse pump through their knees and feet. They are charging with their footwork, which isn’t the sort of feet-never-leave-the-ground style a lot of people equated with “Hollywood style” smoothness in the early 2000s. (Btw, please don’t pay attention to the actors. But, if you ever bump into me on the dance floor, just look at me coldly and say “Better watch your step, Clarence.”)

Just for a moment, pretend that all you ever saw of Savoy Ballroom dancers was the Sonny Allen or George Lloyd clips above, and all you ever saw of SoCal dancers was the Twice Blessed clip. Would you ever draw the conclusion that “Hollywood style” was the “smoother” one of the two?

What is an obvious difference between the original Harlem and SoCal dancers, and which could affect the “smoothness” of the look, is the way they choose to express themselves in their footwork and body/arms. Whitey’s, for instance, used a lot of Charleston substitutions (like mule-kicks instead of rock steps and kick-steps instead of 7&8 triples) and swinging-the-leg motions a lot. They also tended to use hop and jump steps to set up aerials, whereas the SoCal dancers didn’t, at least not nearly as much or as obviously.

SoCal dancers mainly kept to triples and kick-ball-changes, and we don’t see any mule-kicks from any of the SoCal dancers, whereas probably more than half the Whitey’s Lindy Hopper leaders do them. (Part of the SoCal dancers footwork choices could be dramatically influenced by the speed of most of the music they danced to, which was significantly slower than that in the old Harlem clips.) One interesting footwork substitution of note takes place with Wallie Albright, in Twice Blessed above. He’s the guy in the sweater who does a swing-out very soon following the “Jitterbug Finals Tonight” part of the clip. At the end of his swing-out, he does a sort of kick-step variation for the [7&8]—but it looks more like a heel back than a kick-step as a Harlem dancer would do them. Still, it’s the closest thing I’ve found to a SoCal leader doing a [7&8] kick-step variation, which, again, Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers did all the time.

The choices the dancers made with their torsos and arms also affect the overall smoothness: SoCal Lindy Hoppers (especially the leaders) kept their torsos and arms pretty low-key, whereas Harlem dancers allowed their torsos to move around more (such as in mini-dip movements), and their arms to swing wide, wave in the air, and play a much more attention-grabbing role in their dancing. (However, an interesting exception to the torso/arms styling rule are SoCal Collegiate Shag dancers like Ray Hirsch and Patti Lacey, or Fred and Betty Christopherson who did quite a lot with their torsos and arms.)

The exceptions to these rules are always interesting, just as I imagine the sound a monkey wrench makes when it’s thrown into heavy machinery is probably quite interesting. We do have an example of a Savoy dancer who has many of the footwork, pulse and torso/arm traits of the SoCal dancers. Shorty George in (1937) Ask Uncle Sol has a charging pulse, no mule-kick or kick-step substitutions in his basic footwork, and keeps his torso and arms low-key. What’s missing to make Shorty George even more like Dean Collins? Counterbalance.

I’d like to argue that how the dancers tended to use counterbalance could affect the “smoothness” of the dance. Notice how some SoCal dancers, particularly Dean Collins and those he trained, seem to have a time-stretched look to the end of their patterns. To at least one swing dance historian, it appeared they many of them, particularly Dean Collins and Jewel MacGowan, were actually holding onto counterbalance at one particular level for a few counts of the ends of their patterns. This is different from the Harlem and several other SoCal dancers, who appear to simply stretch into and out of counterbalance without holding onto an amount of it for a significant length of time.

This use of holding onto counterbalance is one reason the continuous swivels Dean and Jewel did so often look so natural and flow so naturally from their movements— if Dean and Jewel usually keep the counterbalance the same level at the end of a swing-out as part of their default mechanics, it’s nothing to just keep it going at that level and just add more swivels until Dean brings her in.

See, for instance, 30 seconds into Rings on Her Fingers.

Now, certain Harlem leaders do have a time-stretched smoothness to the end of their patterns. For instance, Frankie Manning’s second set of swing-outs in his Hellzappopin jam come to mind (some of my favorite swing-outs of all time).

However, it appears that what they (as well as several of the SoCal dancers) were doing is just really slowing down the stretch, making it take up a lot of time in their movements, milking it. But that’s not the same as holding onto one specific level of counterbalance for a significant amount of time. (For example, try holding onto the exact same amount of stretch during the [7&8] of a swing out.) Of course, it is possible a Harlem couple at one point in time or in a move or two did do this, but with Dean and Jewel and several of the dancers who learned from them, it appears to be a trait with their generic dancing mechanics. Anyway, the theory (it’s not mine) makes sense to me, and I think it produces similar results when I try it in dancing.

Now, how does this relate to “smoothness”? The visual effect of holding onto counterbalance is that it appears to slow down the momentum to a stop before starting it again, and thus stretches out the timing of the patterns, giving it a subtly powerful smoothness of flow (The same smoothness that, exaggerated, gives us “The Matrix” slow-motion special effects. Or—cough—the Gap Swing Commercial effect.) This could be one reason why people felt the SoCal dancers tended to be “smooth” in a way the Harlem dancers, as a generic group, weren’t.**

Something else interesting—then I’ll let you take five and get a drink of water. A fellow dancer*** also pointed this out to me, and when I looked for it, I couldn’t deny it appears correct. After introducing the Twice Blessed clip above, I mentioned how the leader’s footwork in the clip was in general more charging and lively than the follower’s. This is a common theme in the SoCal dancers, and is an important aspect to the SoCal’s unique “smoothness”: Many of the followers didn’t charge with their pulse or pick their feet up off the ground as much as the leaders did, or as much as their Savoy Ballroom follower counterparts did. See also Dean and Jewel in Rings on Her Fingers.

In the Harlem footage, followers tend to move their feet with a lot closer to the same pulse and energy as the leaders move theirs. (I think this is part of an elegance motif that SoCal followers went for, which we’ll dive into a lot more in the swivels section.)

It’s interesting—a person who watches only the leaders of the era might not see near as much difference in pulse/footwork “smoothness” as person who watches only the follower might.

Week 13 was my final recovery week, followed by an additional week of exercises I felt were necessary to make sure I gave the complete P90X program all I had. I owed one Yoga and one Kenpo, not to mention there were a few times when traveling made a some other workouts less than optimal. So, my final week of P90X went like this: Day 1: Shoulders, Chest, Triceps; Day 2: Yoga; Day 3: Back and Biceps; Day 4: Kenpo; Day 5: Legs and Back; Day 6, rest, Day 7 Core Synergistics. I did the Ab Ripper 3 more times, mainly for the after photos, not because I got any enjoyment out of it.

Day 97: CONCLUSIONS
“You have choices in life,” Tony Horton says in one of his non-P90X workouts. “Some people wake up with coffee and bagel. I wake up like this.” It’s easily said, but even easier to think of excuses as to why you can’t work out in a day. The first time I attempted P90X a year ago, when I only got through the first month and a half, I had a lot of excuses for why I needed to skip a workout. One of the things I’m proudest of is that I didn’t give myself excuses this time. Whether I had a 9-to-5 job and full weekends of swing dancing, or whether I was a full time Lindy Instructor who had thirteen hour days at dance events, whether I was sick or tired, there was only two times where I didn’t get in the day’s workout. I didn’t keep up with a few television shows, I didn’t get to see as much of my friends as I wanted, I didn’t sleep in late as much as I would have liked. But after having done it for three months, I can honestly say that it wasn’t that bad; even if my skinny body will take a lot more work before it produces bulging muscles, it was worth it.
Also, it gave me an enjoyable, if overblown, sense of superiority over buff guys in gyms who stopped working out after only 30 minutes.

WHAT NEXT?
One of the most important changes that happened to me over the course of p90X is that I stopped looking for an end point. At the beginning, I said to myself, “I’ll get through the 90 days, then, man, imagine the break I’m going to take from working out.” Then, slowly, over time, I started thinking about what I wanted to do next. The imagined break I planned on taking was no longer going to be a month, but two weeks, then one week, then a few days. I want to keep going, especially because I just now feel that I’m getting the hang of working out, and it’s just now becoming a habit, and its one I want to keep.
I originally was going to reward my hard work with some form of (probably close-fitting) clothing, but now I think I’m going to order P90X Plus and maybe buy some heavier weights. Before then, I have a plan of my own devising I’m going to try out for a month, the big thing being it’s all new exercises to give me something new to do. It involves a collection of independent Tony Horton workouts, including his recent Plyo Legs Workout, a 40 minute intense Yoga (yes!), and a new ab workout. After summer traveling, I plan to start P90X Plus. For a person who once found working out profoundly boring and intellectually un-stimulating, it feels good to recognize that my body at least looks forward to working out.
By the way, I don’t think I ever personally thanked Naomi Uyama for the name “P-Lindy-X.” It was a joke name she made up, and it stuck.
Anyway, I’ll be sure to rate any new workouts I try out, and will probably do a smaller, less intense journal on P90X Plus.

STATS
Total abs ripped:

X-TREME COSTS
Protein for the last two weeks. $100.
While traveling, I bought a water bottle in order to make recovery drinks easier. $5.

TOTAL COST SO FAR: Approx. $1,560
Obviously, most of the things I have bought are usable for quite awhile. I now have a mini-gym, complete with work-out mat, pull-up bars, push-up bars, weights, heart rate monitor, and yoga equipment. My DVD player has served a lot other uses, as well. But, if you didn’t have this equipment to begin with, like I didn’t, I’d recommend getting them to get the most out of your P90X experience. The real cost, however, was in time.

TOTAL TIME COST:
For each workout, there is preparation, shower time, and take-down time. When adding in additional grocery and sports store shopping, I allotted about an extra twenty minutes for each workout. This means that, including Ab ripper, three days a week are about 1:40, Yoga is about 2, and Kenpo and plyo are merely 1:20.
After three months and two weeks of working out, this comes to roughly 135 hours dedicated to working out. Though it seemed a lot when I had to do it every day, I realize that’s only a few days worth of waking hours for improved health and energy, it seems pretty cheap.

GENERAL RESULTS:

Muscular: Around the second month, I increased the weight I was using for bicep exercises by around 5 pounds. Around the third month, push-ups and pull ups became noticeably easier, increasing my numbers greatly from my first month reps. I still can’t do the thirty the guys in the video do, but I’m a lot better off than where I began.

Before P90X picture, Back view

After P90X, Back View

Overall, though, I don’t think my results were off-the-hook for a few reasons. First off, and this is a very important one, P90X is meant to be a sequel to an introductory program called P90, or at the very least, a workout regimen geared towards those who are already in excellent shape. I thought I was in excellent shape because I’m a Lindy Hopper. But I quickly got honest with myself. If we’re not throwing around a partner twenty or thirty times a few times a week, then all we do is a few nights a week of mild to high cardio exercise; nothing that really qualifies as an incredible work-out. So, going into it, it would have helped if I was in a little bit better shape. I also believe following the meal plan to a T would have produced better results.
Also, as I mentioned in one of the posts, I have the curse of having a body type that doesn’t produce a lot of muscle. Basically, I worked really hard to get the results I did, and if you think they are less than impressive, then don’t worry, you might easily get better visual results than me.

Before P90X, front view -- Killing you softly with whiteness

After P90X, front view

Flexibility and Balance: One of the most obvious gains for me was in flexibility and balance. Where once I could barely touch my ankles when I started, now I can touch the ground and am well on my way to putting my entire hand on the floor with straight legs. And, I attribute my cushy gym mat and all of Tony’s balance exercises to giving me much better balance. In the beginning, I could do crane for only a few seconds. On my last Yoga, I did it for the entire 60 seconds without faltering.

Speed dance trial: In order to test endurance, I danced as many swing-outs as I could at a fast tempo.
Results: SUCCESS. In a trial test of dancing as many swing outs as possible as long as possible and as fast as possible, I danced for TWICE as long after completing P90X, on top of which, my dancing was more controlled and I felt my breathing was more relaxed. I even danced at a SLIGHTLY FASTER TEMPO in one of the test videos. (I did not practice speed swing-outs between this time, in fact, at a quick glance, I like the way the first ones looked a little better, so my technique might have even gotten slightly worse.)

Strength Test: Perform two different basic swing aerials with as much power as possible.
Results: SUCCESS. I certainly felt more solid on all of the after aerials, and felt I had a lot more power. Nina, Kate, and two or three other people I’ve done aerials within the last few weeks have also remarked on the difference.

Balance Test: Do as many free spins as possible.
Results: SUCCESS. The video taping process, however, was not. The files were deleted in transit. I noted great improvements in balance throughout P90X.

Surprise Results:
I was surprised at what might be the most important results: P90X taught me how to push ahead, despite pain, or general not wanting to do something. It taught me how to train my mind to go the extra step. I realized this in dance practices, when, tired and spent, I’d go just a little bit harder, for a few more minutes, and it was a good feeling. And, because of a few mistakes I made in P90X, I knew that the time to stop was when form was starting to go and working on something became destructive rather than constructive.
This has applied to everything in my life; when I’m tired of doing something, I ask myself, how much further can I go before I’m REALLY done. The result is that I feel I’m constantly building my endurance to all things in life.

A Note on Results: A big reason for doing P90X originally is because of how it would help my dancing. I think it’s important to mention here that, obviously, these results were successful physically. But, I did work on it an hour a day. P90X won’t make you a better dancer; but what it will do, is make your body a better tool for your dancing. So, even though I’m going to keep up with the working out, the next big step is to use this cross-training to make improvements in all of my dancing.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Tony and I didn’t get started on the best foot. I called him “Prickishly Annoying” (to my credit, I mentioned he was to such an extent that he often became charismatic), and he bossed me around in my house an hour every day.

But, around the second month, I stopped, well, caring so much, and he amazingly responded by not being as prickishly annoying. By the end of the workout, Tony was more than bearable; often times, he was downright enjoyable to spend time with. Perhaps it was his persistence. He never wavered; he told the same jokes over and over again, regardless of whether or not I laughed. He always pushed me to “Suck it up” during the rock-star hops, and was always apologetic for yelling during Yoga. When working out with friends, we found it oddly fun to quote him before he said, which brought us together in a strange way. For instance, I’m going to use an Ab Ripper quote right now. Tony Horton; “I hate him, but I love him.”
It simply can’t be denied that Tony Horton is incredibly good at what he does. He knows all about fitness, and is ham enough to make a 12 disc series of workouts not at all boring. I now can’t wait to dive into his newer workouts, especially his one-on-one series, where it’s just him and a camera, where I’m sure he’s going to say some hilarious things.

So, even though I started off this blog on the wrong foot, I’m going to end it on the right one.

“Thank You, Tony Horton,” I’ll say. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

OTHER THANKS
I’d like to thank Lindy Bloggers for their support, and Nick Williams for all his advice and help. I’d also like to thank Kate Hedin, for all her support, Marty Klempner, for his advice, as well as Nina Gilkenson, Sommer Gentry, and Abigail Browning for their help in the experiments of the project. I’d also like to give a shout out to all the people who have done P90X with me during the process, for their motivation and inspiration: Andrew Thigpen, Jen Scricco, Javier Johnson, Adam Spleen, Marcus Koch, Barble Kaufer, Abigail Browning, and Nick Williams.

RANDOM INSIGHTS FOR THOSE DOING P90X:
Since I began this project, I can’t count the number of swing dancers who have told me they’re doing P90X. Here are some things the veterans, and I, have learned from doing the program:
Bands. I had a hard time getting great workouts form the bands, but do believe that I am starting to get the hang of it. They actually adding lot of endurance to the arms workouts because standing around with a band is a lot easier than standing around holding 50 pounds. However, I recommend trying whatever way possible to do pull ups on a pull-up bar whenever possible; a pull-up is a full body exercise, and no matter how you use the bands, it’s hard to get more than an arms and shoulders workout.
Ab-Ripper. It took me awhile before I realized what they were doing with the Oblique V-ups that makes them all in anguish. First off, play with the angle your body is from the floor. Finding the oblique sweet spot depends on this angle. Second of all, they go down really low and come up really high. Thirdly, they keep the elbow propped on the floor really close to them to make it harder. Finally, like all the ab exercises, keeping your legs straight increases intensity. Other ways to intensify Ab Ripper X: try to keep your upper body off the ground on the scissors, keep your legs straight on Mason Twist, Let your torso down first and then your legs at the end of each V-F Roll-ups.

Kenpo-X. I mentioned in the Kenpo write up that Kenpo X isn’t the most taxing workout, but there are definitely a few things you can do to get a lot of good exercise done. First off, do Kenpo in front of a mirror and try to get your hips and core into it as much as possible. Kick as high as you can, get as low as possible in your horse stance, and explode with all your movements, trying to find a calm between.

Side-Tri-Rise. I’ve always noticed that Side-Tri-Rises aren’t hard for me like they apparently are for Tony. I talked to Nick Williams about this, who had a similar experience. We came to the conclusion that these should be easier for swing dancers because these are basically swing-out and toss-out arm muscles we’re working. However, it’s also easy not to do them as hard as they do on the video; so, make sure your shoulder never touches the ground when you do them, make sure you go at the video’s pace, make sure you try to straighten your arm for a full rep, and make sure you keep your hand close to your shoulder (the further out, the easier it is.)

DAY 84

I mentioned earlier that I feared I had made a huge mistake in not following the diet plan. At the time, I don’t think I had made a huge mistake. Now, however, might be slightly different. During a week-long Balboa camp at a beach house with friends, I limited my protein to the meals I ate and the after-work out shake. I didn’t think this would hurt, and thought it would be about right as far as my third month regimen went. However, upon returning home, I noticed…wait a minute, have I LOST muscle mass? I stepped on the scale, and found that I had more or less lost ten pounds somehow over the previous few weeks. A similar friend had also lost wait during the same period. The sad thing is, I’m afraid some of the weight I lost was muscle. My next days pull-up reps showed me I might be right—my numbers were less than the week before.

However, I refuse to think that one week of only slightly less protein, and still doing p90X workouts on schedule would have affected me so much. So, I put this question to anyone out there who might know. Is it possible a week of different diet, but still working out, could destroy a lot of muscle?

The other thing I’d like to mention is that this week, while at the week-long Balboa camp, I began my last body building week of P90X, and how fitting is was that I got to do almost all of the exercises with Nick Williams, the first person who introduced me to the workouts. We also had six or seven other people at the camp join us for some of the workouts, including some hilarious Ab Ripper X workouts (see below). I can safely say that I held my own next to the half human, half clydesdale horse on a lot of the stuff, and would even like to think that inspired him to bring it on some of the workouts. He especially inspired me to work harder, and I had some great workouts with him.

Workout breakdown:AB RIPPER X

Throughout this series, you might have noticed that I’ve kept a count of the “total abs ripped.” That’s because, three times a week, there is an additional ab exercise called Ab Ripper X, which is 16 minutes of nothing but various crunch exercises (11 exercises, 349 reps total.) And, it’s not just abs, but the entire core; your legs and back get a workout, too. It’s also an opportunity for the video production crew to show off Adam, a shirtless black guy who, as Kate says, “is made of nothing but abs.” He is the official goal of every dancer I know who does P90X. “Yep, Adam’s body is what I’m shooting for.”

The first few times I did this exercise, I wanted to do all the reps, regardless of the time. I took an average of 30 minutes the first couple of weeks to get them all done. As I mentioned, by the end of the second month I was doing it a few times with no breaks. My results? Well, there’s a different story. Core Synergistics actually gets me more ripped looking than Ab Ripper, but doing Ab Ripper three times a week defiantly helped me be able to do a Core Synergistics workout.

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a few new people step in and try out ab ripper when I do it. It’s slightly actually nice seeing even very fit people sit down and proceed to curse, laugh, and usually give up half way through and just lie there. I don’t mean to make fun of them, ab ripper is HARD. And I’m completely honest when I say how helpful it is to have them around. It’s a reminder to those of us who have done it for awhile of how far we’ve come.

Workout Song: Okay, this is one of the best song experiences. Every time it comes around to mason Twist (the final exercise), I take a quick second while he’s talking to put Animal Collective’s song “My Girls” on my MP3 player. (Technically, I do it before the Leg Climb, because the song has a two minute intro before it gets going.) Then, when the song gets going, it has the perfect timing for the Mason Twists. I hit the mat in rhythm, and even add claps when appropriate. It helps me get through them.

Workout Tips: On the scissor kicks, think about flexing your butt to keep the legs up. And on the mason Twist, try to do it Adam style, by keeping your legs straight (“boat” position.) If I do Ab Ripper a few hours after my regular workout, this is usually possible. I haven’t been able to do it yet if I Ab Rip right after a regular exercise.

The Next Day, I have a new found love of the smaller things, because I don’t have to do Ab Ripper X.

Choice Tony Horton Quote: I imagine most people have Tony’s complete AB Ripper dialogue memorized after three months. “Ab…Ripper…X…Let’s climb our legs.” “We got cruchy frog.” “40 times…we might even do a little extra.”

X-TREME COSTS

Protein! $50.

TOTAL COST SO FAR: Approx. $1,455

DAY 77

At the writing of this post, I began the third week of my final month of P90X, which starts off with a First Month workout week, followed by a Second Month work out week, and then repeats that two-week chunk, ending with a final recovery week.

Over the past few weeks, a few important things have happened. First, I was shopping in the grocery store, about to pick up my favorite $1 food, a box of Swiss Cake Rolls. Over the past year, it has been a ritual that every few weeks I get a box and I was long overdue. But I suddenly thought to myself. “No, I’d rather have a healthy, great-looking body than a Swiss Cake Roll.” It sounds silly, even melodramatic; but anyone who knows what it felt like to say that knows what an important step that was. To celebrate, I got a box of Swiss Cake Rolls. (Just kidding).

The next important thing to happen to me was that certain foods or drinks have become undesirable. My taste buds, now used to other things, find them too surgery, too fattening, or just not at all what my body wants. I’m like this with empty carbs now. Potato chips, fries, and pizza crust seem like they’re just a waste of taste.

Finally, on the workout side of things, my body is now finding exercises not as much of a chore. Perhaps I’m just used to the burn, or getting over the “Oh, crap, I have to workout now!” state-of-mind. I find myself calmly pushing play now, as if it’s just another part of the day.

So, even if my physical results are not through the roof, I am, without a doubt, changing. And that’s pretty nice to feel.

Workout breakdown: CARDIO X

Cardio X is a collection of all the low-impact cardio exercises from the rest of P90X, and the whimsical backup music that comes with them. You’ve got your warrior one through three yoga, a collection of Kenpo moves, a collection of the small jump plyo moves, and a core-synergistics finale. The only new move is Whacky Jacks (“ ‘cause they’re wacky”), but those are pretty fun if no one is watching. All in all, a mild cardio workout. Over the 36 minutes of non-yoga work out, I averaged 130 heart rate, and sometimes got it into the 150s, a pretty good zone for fat burning. But, it’s not anything more impressive than a thirty minute jog—more muscle groups, maybe, but less scenery.

Special Note: There’s a version of P90X called doubles where you add the cardio workout three times a week in the final two months of the program.

X-TREME COSTS

Only protein this week $50

TOTAL COST SO FAR: Approx. $1,455

In my wanderings, I often reflect on what makes a gentleman, and particularly what makes a great gentleman. Here is the first of hopefully many character sketches.

SHERLOCK HOLMES: All the benefits of rationality without quoting Ayn Rand.

In watching the Jeremy Brett series of Sherlock Holmes, I was amazed at what an incredible character Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had created. Sherlock Holmes is an unequaled combination of an intellectual powerhouse and an overly-dramatic schoolboy.

As a detective, he is absolutely 100% his own man; refusing to work under the law because, I believe, he knows that the law is an institution that is subject to regulations, governments, and necessarily black and white principles of right and wrong, none of which his superior logic could possibly find a home in. He doesn’t discriminate a case based on money or payments, and he seems to live off of doing what he was born to do alone.

And yet, this great analytical mind cannot resist an opportunity to play pranks on villains, cops, and best friends alike, in disguise if possible. He performs his pranks with an almost sinister giddiness, one which reminds me of Mr. Rochester’s gypsy fortune teller prank towards Jane Eyre.

In his clothing, refinement, and the way he carries himself, he is a gentleman. But he is a gentleman who will climb over furniture in excitement, or who will leave his room in ruin trying to find a randomly placed paper.

Sherlock’s main vices are his well-documented drug addictions and his Victorian attitude towards women. However, he at least approaches his addictions rationally: they don’t physically hurt anyone but him, he seems to conclude, so it’s alright as far as a vice goes. He smoked like a chimney, but rarely around a woman, as was the accepted etiquette.

His Victorian attitude towards women is another matter. Holmes finds women unreliable, and though he might praise one for her moral fortitude, he hardly ever seems to think any are capable of much intellectually. (Watson, however, makes up for this coldness by finding almost all women delightful creatures.) Despite the feelings he confides to Watson, at least Sherlock always grants women great respect. Whatever he thinks of them, he treats them with the stereotypical Victorian chivalry one would expect.

He is proof that a man can combine an adult sense of logic and thought, but still keep a child-like zeal in his passions. He is also an incredibly snappy dresser. (Who only wore deer stalker caps when he was out in the woods, where it was appropriate.)

DAY 70

At the writing of this post, I began the second week of my final month of P90X, which starts off with a First Month workout week, followed by a Second Month work out week, and then repeats that two-week chunk, ending with a final recovery week.

This weekend, one of my closest friends, Andrew Thigpen, came to visit, and jumped in on a few exercise days. Having him present turned on the testosterone-fueled male mindset of me of trying to impress him with how hard I work. The result was the best Plyometrics workout I’ve done yet. I worked so hard I felt like I was going to throw up afterwords…so maybe I worked too hard. But at least I know I can work too hard, you know?

Anyway, as Tony mentions in the videos, having friends around helps a lot in a workout—you give each other support, you have a healthy competition that helps each of you push yourselves, and you share in the post-workout exhaustion of having worked hard and accomplished something. I had that experience with only a few workouts with a friend; I can only imagine what its like with, for instance, people in the armed forces who go through boot camp, and perhaps combat, with each other.

Workout breakdown: GUNS (BACK AND BICEPS)

This is probably the least exhausting workout in the series, at least for everything but your biceps. It introduces some new pull-ups, like the Corn-cob pull-up and the towel pull-up, but otherwise, it’s almost all curls. It’s a nice mid-week break.

STATS
Total abs ripped: 8,376

X-TREME COSTS
For the final month, I’ll be completing most of my protein regimen to the GNC brand Wheybolic Extreme 60 Shake (which is rated below.) The final phase of P90X cuts the protein regimen in half, I believe in order to stop adding mass and shape up the available mass into lean attractive muscles for the after pictures. So, I’ll get most of my daily dose with this expensive protein shake. $50

Last week, at a Balboa workshop, I had to get a taxi to and from a gym to work out so that I could get my hand on some weights. And this time I was pumping iron in loafers in front of a bunch of non-dancers. $30.

My Other Personal Trainer, Nick Williams, showed me his trick for traveling; he put all of his p90X onto his ipod, and bought an athletic arm strap. He then just listens to the exercises being called off, and if he needs to see what they are, he just looks at his arm. In order to test this, I needed to go to the Apple store to get an arm band for my ipod. I had a gift card, which apparently they could only run off in this one register. That register, however, was occupied for the next fifteen minutes because someone was paying with a check, and the Apple store isn’t apparently ready for that kind of technology yet. The piece of elastic and Velcro cost me. $35.

TOTAL COST SO FAR: Approx. $1,405

X-TREME EPICURISM:

GNC WHEYBOLIC 60 EXTREME (CHOCOLATE). After my last experience with powdered whey beverages with the words “extreme” in the title, I was very hesitant to try this particular brand recommended to me at GNC. It’s expensive, looks like a computer in Sweden designed it, clumps in milk, and is actually pretty damn good. Also, it packs in 60g of protein into one drink, and apparently that’s a special kind of protein.

DAY 63

At the writing of this post, I had begun my final month of P90X, which starts off with a First Month workout week, followed by a Second Month work out week, and then repeats that, ending with a final recovery week.

I started off the third month reaching two big personal goals: I did a complete Ab-Ripper X workout without taking any breaks, and I did a really good, complete Plyo workout without taking any breaks.

For the Ab-Ripper goal, I was afraid that it would be awhile before I could do it all without breaks, because my back could never last through the little Bermuda triangle of Scissors/Hip Raise/Hip Pop, which takes place in the middle of the workout. But I did it, and though my form got a little sloppy towards the end of some of the work outs, and though it hurt a LOT finishing up the Hip Hops, I stuck with it. I never expected to get through it all, but, late one night, tired of taking breaks, I just tried to keep going. It somehow worked.

Completing Plyometrics with a hard workout and without a single extra break was equally surprising for me, but only because it happened at 8 in the morning—a time I usually dedicate to drooling. When I usually do Plyo, I stop after the fifth set of excercises, because I think the sports bonus is a bit of a joke and doesn’t do much for me. I’ve done that without breaks for awhile now. But today I knew we’d be traveling from ten in the morning to ten at night, and there was no other time to do my workout. So I woke up at 7:30, laughed at the thought of doing plyometrics, shook the house a bit, and decided early that I was going to go straight through the sports bonus. It was a great way to start the month.

Workout breakdown: SHOULDERS, CHEST, AND TRICEPS.

This is the workout that kicks off the second month of P90X. (Basically, for the second month, all the other workouts are the same, except for two replacement upper body workouts; this one, and next week’s featured workout.) And, right from the beginning, it steps up the intensity, letting you know that your second month is going to require a lot of work. Aside from the month 1 chair dips and shoulder flies, it’s got all new sets of push-ups, as if you expected that Tony Horton ran out of push-up ideas. There’s one armed-push ups, Pike presses (sort of like doing push ups while staying in downward dog position), and, of course, the flash and trash of the push-up world, the Plyometric Push-Up.

Let me tell you about these. Near the end of the DVD, it’s time to do Plyo push ups, and Tony steps up. “Bob’s going to do them on his knees, Vasquez’ll do them hard core, and I’m going to show you extreme.” He then gets on the ground and pushes up into the air, allowing his feet to come off the ground, claps, and comes back down. He does twenty of them. He basically does a push up while simultaneously pushing his feet off the ground, so he’s midair when he does his clap. What you probably don’t realize the first time you see this incredible feat, is that for the previous forty minutes Tony has been doing nothing but checking up on people, maybe getting in one or two reps himself, and not even breaking a sweat. He works a lot less in this workout than other ones, it seems to me. Granted it’s a pretty awesome thing to watch, and after I’ve done my three (Third month update: 8!), I’ll sit and watch him do the rest, amazed at this ultimate body-builder’s stupid-human trick.

Also, this video gets props for including a middle-aged woman who is a lot more like the average human than the circus aerialist Dreya. And that middle-aged woman brings it.

The Next Day, you feel pretty chiseled. That’s the good thing about the month 2 exercises, they really make whatever muscles you do have bulge out.

TOTAL ABS RIPPED: I realized there was a terrible error in my calculations over the past month. The real number is 7,329

X-TREME COSTS

Hopefully, I’m done buying stuff for awhile, except for protein. $50

TOTAL COST SO FAR: Approx. $1,290
Regina

Since I have finished the first three weeks of my second month, this week is a “recovery week,” which, if you remember, is only called a recovery week to trick you into actually pushing play on the Core Synergistics workout. We’ll talk about that workout today.

Day 1: Core Synergistics , Day 2: Yoga, Day 3: Stretch, Day 4: Yoga, Day 5: Core Synergistics, Day 6: Kempo (a martial-art type cardio workout), and Day 7: Lying in the fetal position, whimpering (rest day).

DAY 56

While in my second month of P90X, I was at Boston Tea Party, where a group of fellow p90Xers spent probably a half hour at the midnight breakfast buffet talking about p90x and boring onlookers. Among the group were Nick Williams, Mickey Pedroza, Dave and Kim, and myself. We discussed the women in the video we think Tony wants to make out with, the exercises we love or hate, the recovery drink, and techniques for working out.

Though it had to be totally the most inane conversation for anyone else in the area to be a part of, it got me really pumped up to workout the next day, and to vent about all the things I’ve been thinking and feeling throughout this process. I was inspired by those who had done the program, and hope, in turn, I said something that inspired those in the group who were just starting. It reminded me of how great it is to share something like this with someone. P90X involves things I’m beginning to love, things I hate, things I’m proud of, things I’m new to, things I can’t understand. It’s changing me, both physically and mentally. And somehow, cracking silly workout jokes with friends is reflective of a great feeling of community. I work out alone, in a small room, where all my struggles and personal battles take place. But I’m not alone. And that gives me strength to go back and struggle more.

Workout breakdown: CORE SYNERGISTICS

Core Synergistics is one of my favorite workouts (and not just because it sounds like a bullshit name, but is actually a pretty accurate description of the workout.) You start off feeling good, might not even feel like you’re working hard, and before you know it, you’re covered in sweat and rolling around on the ground. (Sounds like a great date—ZING!). The workout is about 40 minutes of various core exercises, including a few sets of yet-even-more-kinds of push-ups, imitating the act of putting boxes on a shelf, running with weighs, walking around in push-up stance for a minute, and Dreya Rolls, which are my personal favorite P90X Workout ever, despite the fact that Tony obviously only included them in the video in the hopes he could make-out with Dreya. Don’t do it, Tony; a gymnast might be fun for a fling, but she’s got high maintenance written all over her. Go for Pam. They call her Blam.

One of the exercises is called a Prison-Cell push-up, which is what you do when you’re incarcerated. You jump down into a push-up position, do a push-up, bring a knee into your stomach, do another push-up, bring the other knee into your stomach, and then do another push up and jump your feet back into your hands and come back to standing. Repeat. (7 weeks into the program, I can do 7 with a few tiny breaks, while Adam in the video pumps out 18 or so.) This got me thinking that Tony should do an entire workout series for criminals (P90-TO-LIFE -X), all of which are exercises that can be done in confined spaces and help felons. The Kenpo exercise can be geared more towards avoiding stabbings, the Yoga could be a little more aggressive, the use of horizontal bars in the area could surely lead to great exercises, and the heavy lifting exercises could include weaker cell mates. The video would include Tony’s new cell mates in place of the normal P90X crew. At the Boston Tea Party, I told this idea to My Other Personal Trainer, Nick Williams, who immediately impersonated Tony Horton: “We call him Tiny, but he’s not.”

But I digress.

The only problem with this workout is it takes up a lot of space, and needs some small weights to really get a lot out of some of the exercises, so it doesn’t travel the best. I actually owe the program another day of core synergistic because I tried to do it in a dorm room-sized space one time without weights, and felt like the workout went badly enough that I just as well might not have done it and just did an ab-ripper instead.

The Next Day, all the abs along my stomach and side poke out. It’s a good feeling. (Perhaps this is why it’s one of the last workouts of the program before you take your after pictures.)

STATS
Total abs ripped: 6,148

X-TREME COSTS
Hopefully, I’m done buying stuff for a week or two, except for protein. $50

TOTAL COST SO FAR: Approx. $1,240

The second month of P90X goes like this: Day 1: Shoulders, Chest and Triceps, Day 2: Plyometrics, Day 3: Biceps and Back, Day 4: Yoga, Day 5: Legs, Day 6: Kempo (a martial-art type cardio workout), and Day 7: Lying in the fetal position, whimpering (rest day).

DAY 42

I’ve made a huge mistake. Well, not huge, my Other Personal Trainer, Nick Williams tells me. In fact, he seems to think I’ll be fine. Let me explain; when I originally undertook P90X, I decided to only do the workouts and concentrate on the protein regiment, not messing with the intricate meal plan, which requires experience working with NASA. The book, of course, tells you that the meal plan is a CRUCIAL part of P90X; and I’m afraid my results aren’t near as good as they’d be if I had done the meal plan.

P90X veteran and Lindy Hop Champion Nick Williams, however, thinks I’m overreacting, and he’s never really followed the meal plan to a T either and gotten great results. That said, however, I’ve started cooking. Don’t worry, I won’t force you to eat any of it.

First off, the power bars are simply too annoying to eat more than two of them in a day. So, I’ve dug through the nutrition guide, and chosen two meals I can easily cook and stomach, with the intent of eating them a lot. Here they are, and I have to say, I’m very pleased with my choices. They don’t taste like much, but what little they do taste is good and my body likes them a lot more than protein bars.

CHICKEN SCRAMBLE. One can of chicken, a bowl of egg whites, and vegan Italian cheese. Stir and fry. Serves 1,803.

“SAUSAGE” “BISCUIT”. One veggie sausage patty (Morning Star Maple Flavored Sausage is my choice), one whole grain English Muffin. Combine in whatever way you feel necessary.

Workout breakdown: KENPO X

Most P90Xers I talk to would say that Kenpo is probably the easiest of the classic P90X routine, and many say the most fun of the workouts. Other people think it’s a waste of an hour. I go back and forth. If I throw my body into every move like you’re supposed to, it definitely gets me sweating, using my core, and helps me let out some pint-up aggression, most of which is caused by the other work-out videos. (It also helps me do contra-body dance movements.) When I check my heart rate monitor, though, it takes a lot of work to keep it anywhere near my zone, which is good evidence that it’s not that useful. Its primary use is probably as a fat-burning workout.

What it definitely does, though, is give people just enough martial arts training for them to think they can do Kung Fu, and actually be totally ineffective at it. Another down side to this workout is you have to do it four times before you get comfortable with all the movements so you don’t have to spend half the reps trying to figure out which hand should be hooking, and which should be jabbing.

Here are a few tricks I’ve heard of: If you have the money, Nick Williams recommends replacing the P90X Kenpo with P90X Plus Kenpo, a more recent exercise Tony created that ups the stakes and gets the workout done in only 40 minutes. I’ve done it with him before and liked it a lot.

Or, a professional work-out reviewer recommended simply putting in your own preferred cardio work-out in place of Kenpo; such as running, kick-boxing, or playing with children. They seemed to think it wasn’t a problem, and from what I can tell, it might even be more useful.

Afterthought: I was in Denver, staying at a house with a circle type patio in the middle of their back yard, surrounded by small trees. I did Kenpo on it on a windy day, and had a great time, because I basically felt like I was in my own private Bruce Lee-like training nature circle of death. It was one of the few instances where traveling with a workout was much better than doing it at home. Also, the guy in the back looks like he’s hardly doing anything. How is his heart rate 160? Is he a really-good-looking 85?

Choice Tony Horton Quote: (Hurts hand while sticking it in front of a block) “Oww! See? It works.”

Workout Song: Let’s go with old school. “You’re the best (Around)” by Joe Esposito, from the Karate Kid soundtrack.

The Next Day, I feel maybe a little more invigorated and energetic. That’s about it.

X-TREME COSTS
I had to buy some 12 pound weights because I want to up some of the 10 pound exercises, but 15 pounds is too much. I think, for getting better results, it’s an unavoidable cost. $25.

Protein! $50

TOTAL COST SO FAR: Approx. $1,140

X-TREME EPICURISM:

I’ve currently stopped rating energy bars, mainly because there are so many that simply taste like sawdust. The Clif Builders Bars are currently the only ones I can stomach regularly. However, as I’ve mentioned above, I’ve started upping my natural-ish food intake; Here’s what I love to eat:

Canned White Chicken or Canned Dolphin-Safe Tuna. One who can cost about $1.50, and carries 30g protein (if you eat both its servings at once). My Personal Trainer, Marty Klempner, lives off of these things. It might seem weird to eat them right out of the can, but after one or two, I got used to it and found it rather delicious. My dinner sometimes is simply a piece of fruit and a can, and it’s hard to get a meal cheaper than that. Warnings: there’s good canned Chicken (I prefer Swanson) and there’s bad canned chicken. (Stop & Shop canned chicken) Also, if you go the Tuna route, you might want to throw it on the stove for a few minutes.

Blue Diamond Salted Smokehouse Almonds. Meth, in nut form.

V8 Fusion. Okay, so this isn’t a protein substance, but it is a great thing for those, like myself, who don’t eat a lot of vegetables. It’s a combination of carrot juice and a bunch of fruit juices that cover up the carrot juice, and it’s a good source of your daily servings of both veggies and fruit. There’s three or four flavors, but the Acai berry is my personal favorite.

DAY 49

The second month of P90X goes like this: Day 1: Shoulders, Chest and Triceps, Day 2: Plyometrics, Day 3: Arms, Day 4: Yoga, Day 5: Legs, Day 6: Kempo (a martial-art type cardio workout), and Day 7: Lying in the fetal position, whimpering (rest day).

I wonder a lot these days if movies and television have wired my generation to think that things come easier than they actually do. Every guy is destined to meet that quirky, witty girl, who also happens to have a perfect body. That promotion is just a bold risk and charismatic smile away. Or, think of the training montage, for instance. In almost any sport or martial arts movie, like Rocky 1 through 13, half of the movie is spent with a down-on-his-luck hero getting kicked around by the enemy, and finally deciding that it’s time to stick up for himself. Then a five minute 80s song plays while we see our hero get stronger, pump iron, drink raw eggs, download all he ever needed to know about kong fu through a portal in the back of his head, and perfect the crane kick.

Obviously, as an audience member, we don’t want to see the months of hard-work—the montage is much more affective entertainment tool. But, at the same time, it implants many of us with the romantic ideal that getting into good shape should be a fast, dramatic experience with an inspirational soundtrack. When, in reality, getting into shape can be boring, annoying, smelly, painful, and anything but romantic.

Training montages don’t really capture the really impressive bit. The impressive moment comes when the out-of-shape guy with a full schedule and a family pushes play on the workout program. The impressive moment comes fifteen times during a workout, when you get to the point where you have to work HARD to do another pull up, or push up, or lunge, or hold that yoga position, and you grit your teeth and do it. The impressive moment comes when you realize how many hundreds of hours you’ve spent trying to accomplish something, something a training montage could never do.

Workout breakdown: X STRETCH

When rest day comes around, usually the last thing I want to do is put in the optional Stretch X DVD, taking yet another hour of my life and spending another hour with Tony Horton. But, at the Balboa on the Potomac event, my friend Heather Ballew and myself decided that some good stretching would be great before a dance. And we were right. Also, for a dancer, it is probably more crucial to do the Stretch than other P90Xers, because of flexibility. Stretch-X focuses on flexibility, not to mention teaches you a stretch for every part of your body for the next time you feel tightness or start to pull something. It’s also important to remember that as you build muscles doing all the other workouts, you can lose flexibility.

Workout Song: Finally, I don’t have to just listen to music when I work out. For this video, I watch Simpsons episodes I’ve seen; I know what happens in them, so I don’t have to worry about keeping up, but it does keep me entertained while I stretch. Probably doesn’t make for the most useful stretch experience though, because my mind often wonders from the stretch and to the episode.

That night, I feel great for dancing.

STATS
Total abs ripped: 4,054

X-TREME COSTS

Hopefully, I’m done buying stuff for a week or two, except for protein. $50

TOTAL COST SO FAR: Approx. $1,190