By Thomasina Larkin
A new type of exercise is kicking up a storm in Centretown.
Since tae bo arrived on Ottawa’s fitness scene about two months ago, hundreds have been kicking and punching their way to trimmer bodies.
World karate champion Billy Blanks created and patented tae bo, which is a mix of tae kwon do, karate, boxing and dance. The real tae bo is currently only offered on Blanks’ home video tapes and at a couple of fitness clubs in Ottawa and Toronto.
Target Zone on Sparks Street is one club taking a jab at the new fitness trend.
Martin Cummings, the club’s co-owner, says “aerobics is passe” and tae bo is attracting lots of members.
Target Zone began the program a month ago and now offers two, hour-long classes a week. Cummings says the demand has been so great they had to renovate and enlarge the fitness room.
“This is filling the void for most people. It actually accomplishes what it sets out to in a short period of time, whereas I’ve seen people for years who’ve done aerobics and they’ve never changed.”
Target Zone’s tae bo teacher, John Leroux, says the workout is “more aggressive” than regular class exercises and the challenge attracts customers who are “bored with what they’re already doing.”
Other local fitness centres have realized the demand and made up tae bo imitation classes. Most centres can’t offer the real tae bo because instructors must be taught and certified by Blanks himself. So centres create fitness programs integrating martial arts moves and promote them as “tae bo style.”
Leroux, one of the only two certified tae bo instructors in Canada, is upset with other centres “passing off” programs as tae bo.
“It’s basically a misuse of the word,” he says. “They’re making money off somebody else’s name and they’re also causing confusion in the marketplace with regards to who’s doing what.”
But prospective fitness students who shop around, won’t find it difficult to tell the difference between the real tae bo and the imitation.
Leroux leads steady, upbeat combinations of punches and kicks in his classes which are more martial arts intensive than the tae bo style exercises taught at The Citadel Squash and Fitness Club on Lyon Street. The Citadel club can’t call the program “tae bo” because it isn’t the real thing. Instead, it’s called “box aero skip.” The class integrates aerobics and skipping into a few basic boxing moves like jabs and uppercuts.
Citadel’s classroom has also been packed since it introduced the program two months ago. Citadel is the only club in Centretown to offer a tae bo style program right now, but the YMCA is planning to introduce a class in April.
Jennifer Sokol, Citadel’s class instructor, says the program appeals to beginners.
“Billy Blanks shows the most amazing and complicating moves (on his fitness videos). But to get to that point people have to start at point A and work themselves up.
“We took traditional boxing moves, modified them so they’re safe for a class setting and use them as group fitness.”
Sokol says the martial arts moves will eventually get more complicated and they’ll start using boxing equipment as people become more comfortable. For now, the new style offers a change from the regularly offered workouts.
“I’ve been an aerobics instructor for over nine years and I started getting in a bit of a rut,” says Camille Brule, who takes Sokol’s class. “Once I discovered tae bo it was such a refreshing change. It opened my eyes to different forms of exercise.”
Although Sokol gives Blanks credit for the increase in membership and hype surrounding the program, Leroux says non-certified classes “really don’t have it put together.”
Leroux will be on the home shopping channel Mar. 13 to tell how his real tae bo classes do have it together.