Super Kondi Body Attack

The gym that UZH and ETH share is called the ASVZ, which stands for something very sporty and Zurich-themed. They have all kinds of really cool classes (all of which I am very excited to try out) like the usual spin and yoga, but they also have erging and stuff.

  

I'm leery of an erging class with no rowing. But they do hold the world record for the most people erging at once!

I can't officially go yet since I'm waiting on my Master's diploma before I can get my student ID card, but Martin helped me borrow one from a really nice girl in our house. On Sunday, we and another guy from our house went to a class called--I kid you not--"Super Kondi Body Attack." Kondi is short for the German word for conditioning, so I figured it would be a little like bootcamp; I can do that! I've been weirdly missing pushups since my arms aren't sore all the time, so I was excited.

It turns out that SKBA (it even sounds hardcore as an acronym!) is what would happen if Zumba started doing Crossfit and had a child with circuit training. It's an hour-long class where you're doing things like high knees, squat jumps, push-ups, planks, and general jumping up and down, all at 90 beats per minute. Needless to say, it totally kicked my butt. And it was awesome. 

 This picture is blurry but you can see the room and the podium where the instructors are.

The class had about 150 people in it (huge!) and took place in a gymnasium about twice the size of your normal high school variety. I would say the human density was about twice that of the above picture. It was totally crazy and super fun. This is the highest level of three conditioning classes, and the average fitness level in there was pretty impressive. It was mostly guys (not by a huge margin) and almost everybody was keeping up. Except on the push-ups. There was a long segment of close-grip push-ups, and I was relieved to see that most of the girls were not keeping the rhythm (I certainly wasn't, but now I have a goal!).

After that the million stairs back up to the house felt a little like Everest as I'm not used to living on a mountain yet, but it felt really good to eat dinner and watch some of the European soccer championships. I'm rooting for the Netherlands in honor of my heritage, and they have to beat Germany (Martin's team) tomorrow to advance. Time to whip out the orange!

Love Katie