Racing through the galaxy? Fighting against aliens? A yoga tree pose on a mountain top in New Zealand? That sounds pretty amazing, doesn’t it?
Last Saturday at Alexanderplatz in Berlin I experienced all this in one day. How? Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to “The Project”. That’s at least what the voice said before we entered the Les Mills Box for the first course which is called “The Trip”, formerly known as indoor cycling. Everybody sits down on their spinning bike with excitement and off we go, racing through far-away galaxies, leaning right and left, going up and down and beating vehicles which look like Batmobiles. 30-second or 1-minute sprints go by within the blink of an eye, climbing mountains is not a problem at all, even though I turn my resistance up even more than usual. At the end, I feel a bit dizzy but full of endorphins, it’s the best spinning class I ever attended.
Next up is “Bodycombat/Les Mills Grit”. The Les Mills community around me is super-excited, some of them travelled six hours to Berlin only for this event, some of them attend eight courses a day. Their excitement is definitely contagious. Entering the box for a second time, it’s a mixture of a slot machine and an old Atari game. I find myself kicking and punching avatars out of the way until the big final where a massive alien arrives on the screen, shooting with spaceships I have to “destroy” with upper cuts and side punches. 15 minutes later we have won and we enter “Les Mills Grit” where we do squats, lunges and burpees with and without weights in two teams while the clock is ticking. It’s the hardest workout I have ever done and I feel so tired but so good afterwards, it’s unbelievable.
Last course of the day is a big party. “Bodyjam” is a dance workout and our Les Mills trainer Isabelle is super-energetic: she is jumping, singing and cheering inside the box which feels like the inside of a disco ball, the beats of the ball throwing shapes at the screen we all move to. It’s a workout but doesn’t feel like one. Due to the darkness, nobody is thinking about how they look and we all have a great time. Straight after comes the relaxing part, “Bodybalance”. We do peaceful warriors in the sunset. Birds are flying around, taking us to New Zealand to a beautiful landscape before we sit down and watch the world get smaller and smaller, travelling through the solar system and forgetting that we are in one of the most crowded places right in Berlin city centre. After it finishes, all of us have a relaxed and blissful smile on our faces as we leave the little bubble we have just been in.
“The Project” is a great invention. It’s so much fun and the workouts are fantastic. If I could, I would travel to Amsterdam (10-12 September) and Paris (27-29 September) and do it again, attend even more courses. Being a part of this Les Mills community was amazing. I’m infected. Make sure you check out “The Project” when it comes to a place near you!
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