(This is another oldie but goodie, originally written on 31 October 2006.)
My father always
needs me to tell him very specifically what I want for my birthday or
for Christmas, which is fine by me, and in previous years has resulted
in booty such as my teensey digital camera and my beloved Dyson vacuum
cleaner. This fall, when he asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I
asked him to get me T-Tapp-related presents. I asked for these funky-looking Skechers sneakers,
because I am vain enough to like the idea of silver metallic leather on
my workout shoes, and also because the T-Tapp divas (Teresa, the
trainers, the multi-year veterans) all swear that Skechers are the
ultimate T-Tapp shoe. Now that I've tried them, I too am a convert.
They've made a huge difference in my stance. If you're tapping, get
some Skechers Sports, you won't regret it.
I also asked my dad
to sign me up for a clinic, so I could spend an afternoon being taught
by a certified T-Tapp Trainer. I'd never gone to a clinic. I tried to;
in late 2001, I signed up for a clinic with Teresa Tapp herself, who
had come to DC to host a weekend event. I was seven weeks pregnant
(pregnancy #1), and I started bleeding two days before the clinic.
Instead of going to the clinic I'd been so excited about, I spent the
weekend, and the next several weeks, on bedrest in a futile attempt to
save that baby. But! This time I'm not pregnant! So I got to go to the
clinic!
On Saturday afternoon I drove up to Laurel for the
clinic. It only takes about 30 minutes to get there, but I gave myself
nearly an hour, which turned out to be wise. I drove past the building
twice before finally finding it. I was still a little bit early, ten
minutes or so, but I was surprised that I was the first student to
arrive.
As it turned out, it wasn't that I was so early -- I was the ONLY student who showed up. It was just me and the trainer, Kiona Leah,
and for the next three and a half hours her eagle eye was on me. "I
guess I don't need to ask you to keep a close eye on me on certain
moves," I said. And no, I didn't. She gave me form corrections on every
single move. She positioned me so that the mirrored wall was behind me,
so she could check my form from the back as well as the front.
The
biggest advantage to having Kiona all to myself was that I could call
out questions to her as we worked. I didn't have to worry about
interrupting the class, or disturbing someone else's concentration. We
were able to spend extra time working on the moves I have trouble with;
I'm now closer than ever to feeling like I "get" the T-Tapp Twist.
(It's still hard, and weird. I think I need to go to another clinic.)
Kiona
peppered the session with explanations of the physiology behind each
move -- I'd known where the lats are, roughly, but I'd never realized
just how much of the back they cover -- and with insider information
about how Teresa has continued to tweak the form over the years. She
was able to give me alternate explanations of some of the form
reminders that Teresa gives on the videos; for instance, on the seated
floor exercises like In-Outs, Teresa often says "tighten tummy", and
Kiona told me that I could think "lift ribs" instead. What a
difference!
And speaking of "what a difference"....
I'm a regular user of the T-Tapp forums,
and I'd read with no small amount of jealousy the reports from people
who'd gotten to go to the October T-Tapp retreat in Florida. After the
retreat, many of the attendees posted the inch losses they'd had from
just that one weekend of (many intense) workouts -- many people, even
ones who'd been slim to begin with, lost ten or more inches! So I found
myself wondering if I would see a measurable inch loss just from a
one-day clinic. I designed my experiment: I'd measure myself first
thing on Saturday morning, and then again on Monday morning, giving
myself a day for muscular swelling to go down. I'd expected to see a
little bit of progress, but I was shocked by the results. I lost:
0.25" in my belly,
0.5" in my hips,
0.75" and 1" in my upper thighs (whoa!),
0.25" and 0.5" in my lower thighs, and
0.5" in each calf, for a total of 4.25".
I
couldn't believe it. If I lose 4.25" in the course of a 4-day
bootcamp, I consider that to be impressive progress. For reference,
over the course of the 60 day challenge this summer, I lost a total of
10.25", and that was including measurements of the bust and arms, too.
4.25" in 3.5 hours! I LOVE T-TAPP!
Would you like to guess if I'll be seeking out more training from Kiona? Oh, yeah.
Do you remember that chart
I made over the summer, the one that listed the number of inches I'd
need to lose to get back to the size I was before I first got
pregnant? Well, as of yesterday, the number of inches I'd need to lose
to regain pre-baby hotness is... 3/8". My waist is still a bit less
than half an inch larger than it was at the end of my first T-Tapp
journey, but every other measurement is now SMALLER. I'm pretty
certain that I'm now a size 2 again. Because it's Halloween, and
Halloween should be scary, this morning I tried on the two pairs of
leather pants I bought in September 2001, when I was a skinny T-Tapped
nulipara. Both are size 2. The black ones, which are made of a
thinner, more supple leather, zipped up and snapped without any
breath-sucking, and there was only the merest hint of a muffin top
above the high waist. I wasn't brave enough to try sitting
in them, but I got into them. The purple ones, which are a jeans-cut
and are made of thick heavy leather, came up over my hips but didn't
come close to zipping up.
The gap between the button and buttonhole was WAY more than 3/8", which
leads me to believe that perhaps bits of me that I don't measure are
still larger than they were five years and two pregnancies ago. But
that's okay. I'm still proud of myself, and I'm still planning to hide
a few of the dark chocolate mini-Mounds bars before they go into the
trick-or-treat bowl.
So if you want my assvice, my shrinking-assvice, it's this: if you aren't T-Tapping, start. If you are T-Tapping, go to a clinic.
