Bokwa: fun with letters (and numbers)

Having joined a new gym for the very reasonable monthly price of £10, I have vowed to exploit this wonderful good fortune in any way I possibly can, and the first thing is using the included exercise classes as much as possible. 

Despite discovering a few classes at Kirkstall Leisure Centre recently, some of which I was suspicious were actually run by hit men with a novel approach to killing, but which I still appreciated for their undeniable effect (if pain is any indicator), I'm actually getting very much into the Xercise4Less classes I've tried. 

So far, I have attended Bokwa (I know, what? But I'll explain), Bokwa Tone, and Zumba. All three are ran by the same lady, Kelly Gomersall, who seems lovely and energetic, and appears never to sweat. Not even on her face around her hair, making it just a bit damper and stringer. Nope, not at all. It's just me.

Bokwa is a type of dance exercise was developed in the US and is loosely based on language, with the instructor using some kind of basic sign language to indicate the next moves to us. Or so she says. It's yet to become popularised in the UK, like Zumba, but it appears to slowly be coming into it's own. 

Here are my pros and cons of the Bokwa classes: 

Pros

• Bukva (which sounds a lot like Bokwa) means 'letter' in Bulgarian, and Bokwa is a dance exercise class based on drawing letters with your body and the steps you take. A sign? Massive coincidence? Either works for me.
• The time passes surprisingly quickly. Between trying to work out what the hell I was doing with my feet and coordinating (haha!) them with my arms in the jazzy way the instructor does, there was no time to wonder if I can handle another half an hour of this. That's definitely something I need.
• It's fun, like Zumba. You dance around, you yell "woohoo", you shake your back seat and you secretly hope that you'll remember some of the cooler moves next time you're out and dancing with your buddies, to replace the moves I've come to call 'the sway', the 'hand thrusts', and the recently developed 'floppy dancing'. 
• The instructor loves it. She gets really into it, and even for the biggest cynics and self-conscious souls, what can I say, it's infectious. 
• It is relative simple as a concept once the principles are explained - you spell out letters and numbers, and just count. And if you are not that bothered about getting the steps perfect, it's relatively easy to look like you know what you're doing by swaying with the waves, so to speak.
• It's still quite new, so it feels a bit exclusive. You and 59 other Bokwists are the only ones in the club. Shhh. 

Cons

• Popular classes at peak times, very inadequately sized car park – need I say more? I'm not a huge fan of traffic at the best of times, let alone when it is other impatient gym-goers who are in direct competition with you and keep their beady eye on your potential spaces. 
• The wall of mirrors opposite which Bokwa happens means you can't help but watch yourself and wonder why you don't look as good as the instructor. Sure, you can correct your body shape if you see that you're doing it wrong, but mostly, it's just depressing to see the marked difference in skill and body. 
• Bokwa is not very symmetrical. The L shape and the C shape seem to happen in only one direction, which makes me imagine my body, albeit overdramatically, as half The Hulk and half Bruce Banner. Even the most basic backwards and forwards step utilises the feet unevenly. 
• The sports hall is central, and leads to other rooms. Additionally, it's not booked exclusively for the class, and people do lift weights and do stomach crunches nearest the door. This can be massively off-putting when you notice in the mirror wall that some guy is leering and the pert Bokwa behinds of some of the ladies, with a letchy grin on his face – and worse still, when he notices you do some moves backwards to everybody else and sneers.
• The rhythmically challenged – like myself, sadly – may struggle slightly to get the exact jumps and leaps, steps and pauses, hip-circles and hip-thrusts in the exact time. It's both very simple to understand and surprisingly difficult to execute as well as you expect from yourself. Prepare for a lot of random flailing about. But then, may as well give Leery McGee something to gawk at, eh?

On the whole, however, I'm still keen on it, because it does its job well, it's fun, and the pros override the cons for me, and that's more than can be said for some other exercise classes (naming no names, Ls Bs and Ts!)

Xercise4less - Monday 7-8pm - Bokwa.