What happens at Kazaxe stays at Kazaxe

I don’t twerk. This should be made perfectly clear from the outset. In fact my dance moves are about as graceful at the Tin Man from “The Wizard of Oz”. Parts of me just don’t like to move. I have learned, from my Orthopedist, that there is no joint in my body that is less than 47 years old. I was shocked but it’s nice to know I can still be shocked at 47.

Kazaxe (Kah-zah-shay) is a dance / exercise class…focused on hip movements best known as twerking.

I’m still not sure how I ended up doing this one. I liked the location, I suppose. About 15 minutes from home and easy to find.

I arrived early because I’ve been told parking can be tough. There are about 15 spaces and they say some classes hold over 100. The 5PM class is a bit lighter but they have several later classes.

Patricia and I met up in the parking lot and went inside to sign the waivers for twerking related injuries and we are told the first session is free. Sessions cost about $6 so even if we had to pay we’d be ok with it but free is better.

We filed in to a multi-use arena that can transform from a dance floor to soccer field and then boxing arena in minutes. Lisa joined us soon after and we all started looking to stake out our zone. The web site suggests everyone start to fill in from the back and, being first in, we were happy to stay in the back to minimize any collateral damage we could cause. As it happens this class wasn’t full, probably 30 or 40 people, so there was plenty of room and no one gravitated to the back.

The area we chose contained people who were familiar with the dance moves but did not have quite the aggressive hip movements as people closer to the front. This was a good place for us because we needed to follow the steps but not get caught in a twerk-vortex of some sort. A few rows ahead of us there were thin, lithe women who moved nearly as well as the instructors and I was glad we weren’t that close.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Meg came on the stage and asked if there were any new people. I tried to explain that we’re actually old people but new to the class. No Meg ever gets my jokes. It should be noted here that this Meg was not actually named Meg. I think she was Tammy. Since she was the first non-Meg instructor we encountered we decided it’s easier to call all instructors Meg.

Meg was welcoming and kind to point out that we should try to figure out the steps but by and large if we just keep moving she’d not be disappointed. She had some sort of skirt that had material that enhanced the visuals as she moved and I wondered if she attached whips to the bottom how much more motivated we’d be to dance.

Lights and music! The open multi-use arena turned in to a rave club. Are they still called raves? Anyway, the good thing about this club is everyone was sober (except maybe Lisa) and everyone was doing the same dance (except maybe me).

The steps were aggressive but not that hard to follow. The movements and positions engage the legs muscles as well as the… other ones. I did make a brave effort to do the more embarrassing moves and even though I did not do them well I could feel how much it engaged all the muscles below the hip. I was also encouraged to see a few other men including an instructor on the stage and see that men simply don’t twerk like women. Seeing so many strong women moving so aggressively in the dark arena lit by club lights I felt like a white explorer who stumbled on to a tribe of Amazons who were performing some ancient mating ritual that takes place just before they kill you. Death by mating, from the looks of it.

The songs weren’t so long as to bore anyone or push it too exhaustion and each song had its own dance routine. One of the routines was led by the male instructor and involved mostly upper body exercises. This was a welcome relief for Lisa and I. We could actually keep up and it did get a good burn going in the shoulders and back.

The entire crew on the stage was energetic and it was easy to keep moving the entire class drawing from that energy.

Towards the end of class they introduced a new song and new routine to the class. It was interesting to learn with the class at a slightly slower pace. I found by the end of the song I actually could do this one. Not well but I knew the moves. A lot of the moves were similar to other routines but it was different enough that everyone had to go at the same pace, even the advanced twerkers.

We had a great cool down / stretch song and that was it. It didn’t feel like an entire hour had gone by but that’s how classes are that keep you moving. The three of us talked about what had just happened afterwards and promised that we would never speak of it again but time can build a callous over even the most traumatic wounds and so we can laugh again.

Meg was excited to photobomb us, as most Megs are. I hadn’t realized just how young she looked until I was close enough to see her without my glasses. She had a commanding presence on the stage and could lead a group well, in spite of her age.

So, that’s how it happened. There were no twerking related injuries and no one (that I could see) pointed and laughed. Kazaxe is free to try and cheap to continue. Try to take an earlier class to start since a crowd would have made it more difficult and parking can be impossible, I hear.

Twerk-on!

http://www.azuka-bom.com/kzx/schedule/