M. Suzanne Terry

During my Smallville fandom days, I received a recommendation from one of the people whose fanfiction I read for Why Girls Are Weird by Pamela Ribon.* If you have ever participated in online community, blogging, etc. (hint:  you are participating in it right now), you might like this book.  I love it. I read it in one day, and it is still one of my favorite books.  It’s one of the books I take off the shelf when I’m tipsy and read to people (because at a certain level of tipsy, I become convinced that this is what the people want).

One of my favorite chapters gives a script for the main character’s experience with Billy Blanks’s Tae Bo workout.* It closely resembles my own experience with Tao Bo. She talks back to it (as do I – he asks questions!). She muses about what the downstairs neighbor must be thinking (I thought about it…then I decided I probably don’t want to know). She stumbles and steps on the cat (I relate to the stumbling part, and if I had a cat, it would have to learn to stay out of the way).

Billy Blanks entered my life back when I had cable and insomnia and thus watched infomercials a lot. After seeing the commercial eleventy dozen times and jumping up to work out with the people on the TV,  I finally caved and ordered the videos.

After they arrived, I became obsessed. I probably went through the basic routine every day for the first month. Then it was every other day. Then I moved on to the accelerated video. I got pretty good at it. The don’t-hurt-yourself principles were basically the same as the ones learned in dance, and the moves are pretty simple, so I caught on quickly.

I also may or may not have started acting a little more physically aggressive in other areas of life. I would practice on people – not in a mean way, but in a way that helped me with my placement (you know…like you do in self-defense classes).  I have taken self defense classes, but it was Billy Blanks who taught me to find the strength in the movement and to control where my foot goes when I kick.

I still have the VHS tapes. The tape is worn thin in places, but that did not stop me from popping that bad boy in and seeing how far I could get into the video yesterday.  I got almost all the way through the half hour one. I even did the jumping jabs part.

You’re welcome, guy downstairs. I bet he’ll be glad when this 31 Days series is over and NaNoWriMo begins.

In November, I write a lot.  But this month, I’m committing to 31 days of movement.

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