Stripper? I Hardly Know Her!

Rabbit Rabbit. It's the first of the month! And after a rocky August I have to admit I wasn't eagerly awaiting September's autumn air. When 2010 began I promised myself that the theme of the year would be doing things that scare me. But after some rather draining weeks I had started to lose sight of that. Thankfully, a friend of mine made a suggestion (based upon a month I experienced two years ago) to commit to thirty days of saying yes. One month to open myself up to any and all possibilities and situations.

So where to begin? How to uncover a new challenge? Well, by uncovering myself, I guess. That's right, today I said yes to taking a strip tease class. Followed by a hip hop dance class.

We'll rewind. I've been a member of 24 Hour Fitness for over two years now. And with that membership I have access to all of their classes around the city. Until this summer, I had been too nervous to try a class. Convinced that I'd make a complete fool of myself and drown in a sea of athletic attractive gym goers. But the past few months have actually pleasantly surprised me. Attempting a few different types of their offerings has actually become, dare I say it, fun. While looking up classes for the week I came across 24Tease at the Castro location. A class that "provides a safe environment for members to get in touch with their inner stripper". I, of course, laughed at the class and laughed even harder at the idea of me completing it. But after a good hearty chuckle I realized that I had no choice but to fight my fear and say yes.

I arrived five minutes early and accidentally walked in on the end of a Turbo Kick class. I awkwardly hid in the corner with their mats and weights wondering if in the history of time if five minutes had ever passed by so slowly. Yes. Turns out the ninety minutes I spent in that room after that passed so slowly I convinced myself that time had actually stopped moving just to mock me in my misery.

"24Tease" started with only five participants. I was sort of hoping it'd be full of middle age women looking to rekindle their sexy ways and that I could hide in the back and judge them. But no. With only five of us, we were all on display. And I don't know if any of you have been to the Castro location of 24 Hour Fitness but the class room at this gym faces all of their machines and equipment. So we were also on showcase for everyone else who was casually working out. Yeah. Yikes, right?

Anyway, the class is only thirty minutes long. You do a sexy warm up for five minutes. You attempt a few different types of strut walks for another ten minutes. Then you learn a sexy routine for ten minutes. And it ends with running the dance with a towel and a sexy cool down. Sexy galore!

Now, no one told me I had to bring a stripping towel. So I had to use my bright pink hoodie I had in my bag. And I'm just going leave it at that. You can imagine how silly I looked, can't you?


It wasn't the greatest workout but there were some entertaining elements, I suppose. If anyone wants to see my version of a sexy towel dance though you'll probably have to just imagine it. I don't know if I'd be inclined to take the class again.

Afterward, I stayed for the Hip Hop class. I was hoping for an aerobic hour with fun music to dance to where I could, again, hide in the back. Nope. It was another small attendance full of cold and quiet people. And the whole class was spent learning choreography for one song I had never heard of. So sadly, I just wasn't into it. At all.

On my way out of the building I walked into a posse of naked men. Well, they were wearing socks and shoes. And sometimes a bag. But other than that, they were totally nude. I guess you don't always need a strip tease class to uncover yourself.

But that's part of saying yes to things you normally wouldn't think to do. You discover that yeah, you were right, some things just deserve a no. But you have to experience them before you're really sure... and now you can all enjoy the idea of this gal in a strip tease class. Hilarious, huh? And besides, perhaps tomorrow's yes will have an entirely different outcome...