Healthy and Beauty Sir Madam Love Work Out Health Sir Beauty Club

(Parental Discretion Advised: This post is rated PG-13 due to some mature themes)

I have officially paid people money in order to make friends. And save my lungs.

I.

Actually, that is not entirely true. I guess besides my entire college education, which cost thousands of dollars, I have never paid anyone to make friends. And, in a way, I haven’t paid anyone to be my friend now either. But I have paid money to join something that may able me to make friends. So, indirectly, I guess you could say that I paid someone money in order to make friends. Is this making sense? Who knows.

Anyway, because I was concerned for my safety and health while running around outside in the dangerous and pollution-filled roads of China, I thought it best to find another suitable place to work out. Plus, it apparently gets quite cold here during the winter months and because of the cold thick air, the pollution and dirtiness become an even greater threat. Not that I don’t like going for a run and having to cough madly in order to breath every few minutes or so, because I do. But it would be nice to work out, breath heavily, and not have cigarette smoke enter your lungs and wreak havoc on your sinuses every few strides.

Solution: The Strong and Handsome Beauty Sir Club!

Also known as the greatest ‘health club’ in my general are of Xuzhou, “The Strong and Handsome Beauty Sir Club” will cater to all my needs as a workout fiend. They have a large assortment of classes that are running throughout the day, including running! (get it?!) They also have yoga, and hot yoga, which sounds like so much more fun than regular yoga, and I am sure my yogar readers will be quick to point out that this type of yoga is called vikram yoga (so many yoga’s in one run-on sentence). Apparently, they crank the heat up to nearly uncomfortable levels and then you get in all of your complicated downward dog and warrior poses and sweat your little heart out. Frankly, this sounds fantastic to me and when my apartment’s temperature is at a high of 55 degrees during the winter because of our buildings rumored heating problem, I am sure you will be able to find me warming up during yoga hen la (very hot!). Not only do they have yoga classes, but they also have perennial favorites such as street dancing, belly dancing, and, my favorite, pole dancing.

That’s right, ladies and gentleman, you too can be just like all the classical ladies we see in our 18th century time period films (think Jane Austen) and truly learn to become a classy lady by taking The Strong and Handsome Beauty Sir Club’s Pole Dancing Class. Offered twice a day, every day, there are plenty of opportunities to get your pole-dancing groove on and live out your dream of being a lady-of-the-night!

I remember reading in National Geographic on the plane ride over that pole dancing is actually becoming a very popular form of exercise in China and that a lot of women are partaking in its seemingly wholesome fun. Apparently, it is not seen in such poor light here as it is seen in the USA, because there are not a lot of ‘pole dancers’, in the traditional meaning of the phrase, in China. So, there ya go. Now you can exercise around a pole just as you would exercise in any other way. Just think of it as that long, frayed rope hanging from the ceiling that you had to climb in your sixth grade gym class. Except instead of a swinging, oscillating rope, it is a rigid, unyielding, and cold metal pole.

One thing that is interesting about China, is that gender differences aren’t as clearly defined here as they are in the States. Of course, there is some crossover in the States, but generally things such as yoga, dance, and spinning classes are greatly attended by females, and not so much males. Upon my first, initial visit, when I was there to check out the equipment and hours, there was a dance class going on, and by the look of it I assumed it was either of the ‘street’ or ‘belly’ kind. Just as I thought, most of the people partaking in the class were women. Except: the leader.

Standing in front of the class was a tall, scrawny man with a bandanna on his head and sweat pouring from his face. He had his feet staggered and was yelling instructions at the mirror in front of him in high pitched tones, as the rest of the class tried to mirror his very explicit, and somewhat inappropriate, hip thrusting movements. He attacked his dance moves with the tenacity of a linebacker. His shirt was pulled up, baring his belly, and tied into a knot to make sure that it didn’t fall down during class. It was a sight I never expected to see in China. But here it was, and I had to give it to the emaciated little guy; he sure could dance.

The best class that is offered at the Handsome Beauty Sir Love Pole Club, or whatever it is called, is definitely cycling, or what we would know as ‘spinning’ in the United States.

When I returned this past Monday to sign up and begin to lift weights and work out, a ‘spinning’ class was going on, and just as I did not predict, it was full of men, instead of the usual women. The class was in a separate room and the blinds were pulled so you could only see in through a small door they left open. All the lights were turned off and the only illumination came from the red and blue disco-ball like lights that lined the ceiling. Popular mid-90’s American songs set to pounding techno music poured out of the room and flooded the entire building with eardrum shattering goodness. Over a super loudspeaker a leader was yelling out instructions to the rest of the riders in the room. Because the music itself was so loud, the leader’s microphone was jacked up to what I hoped was it’s maximum level, and from anywhere in the workout room you could hear the leader yelling:

“Yi! Er! San!” (One! Two! Three!) and then some word that I didn’t know that probably meant something like: “Put your bikes on the hardest gear possible, bend your chest over the bar, pump those legs like it’s the last thing you do, and let your sweat fly all over the place so as to form a puddle and possibly make an unassuming American slip and fall outside the door!” (some Chinese words have very long meanings)

And then, through the small door, you can see the riders rise their rear ends from their seats and pump furiously, just as the music pumps out it’s bass-thumping crescendo. The disco balls spin and sweat drips and flies from every biker in the room. Basically, ‘spinning’ in China is just a few glow sticks shy of an all out rave (don’t get me wrong, there are some glow sticks). It was awesome.

But, for the first visit, I just lifted weights and ran on the treadmill for a short while. But trust me, next time, I will either be tying my shirt into a knot and thrusting my hips, or doing the robot while holding sparklers during the cycling class. I can’t go wrong either way.

Note: The Strong and Handsome Beauty Sir Club is the place’s actual name, and it’s mascot is a duck with very large muscles and a very small sailors cap. I really need to take pictures… So possibly look for those in a later update!