Let's BollyX!

*Disclosure: This is a sponsored post, all opinions and images are my own. I was invited to attend a class free of charge to facilitate my review and experience BollyX.*

Sometimes life takes over and you just have to surrender, you have to do what it takes to keep you calm and collected through a little caos, because as the saying goes "this too shall pass".

On the very last day of  February we flew out of Costa Rica back home to California to start a new chapter in our life. Moving was the easy part, finding a new preschool with availability for our son, our new home, buy big ticket items wasn't. This lead me to being tired and overwhelmed with the long list of decisions waiting to be made each day and I felt that was enough for me to handle while continuing to be there for my family, so exercising wasn't my priority and neither was watching what we ate.

Finally, settled into our new life in June I began looking for ways get back on track with our usual exercise and healthier lifestyle. We began with baby steps, because we were recovering from all the commotion.  

That is when I received an email inviting me to try a class of BollyX, I began researching all I could on it. From what it is to watching videos about what it looks like. Immediately I began feeling excited, because I love to dance  and I love exercising without feeling like I actually am. BollyX was co-founded by Shahil Patel, Mayuri Bhandari and Minal Mehta in June 2013 and taught their first class in Boston.

I realize now by seeing how excited I was to exercise, that it would've kept me a little more calm, because exercising relaxes and makes me happy. In addition I feel so accomplished when I do exercise and my energy levels last me throughout the day without needing a break. 

The class was being taught by Tamara a fun, energetic and always smiling BollyX certified instructor. We began with warming up to Bollywood inspired music, Tamara noticed a familiar and new faces in her class and made us all feel welcomed. She greeted us and gave us a run down of the movements and most importantly she reminded us to have fun!

FUN!

Something I had forgotten about exercising is that it has to be fun and BollyX delivered so much fun. I confess that there were moment that I wanted to break out in salsa movements, but quickly would go back to moving and stretching my arms. BollyXFitness gave us all a great workout, during class I could feel my limbs stretch, my abdomen work and my biceps were burning.

The movements are easy to follow and of course Tamara would notice if we were having some sort of challenge keeping up, this is when she would smile at us and remind us that we got it and we are doing fantastic.

During the class we were also given the alternate to jumping or other movements that were challenging us.

The class is broken down to 3 different parts: warm up, high energy and cool down. In the middle of the hour we were at our peak level and I had forgotten I was in a class, I honestly felt I was at a celebration and got caught up in the moves. The 10 minutes before cool down were the most amazing in the class, we were divided into 2 groups for a "dance off" each group would get their chance to dance to the beat of the music and the other would respond with the same moves and it was amazing. The energy and vibes felt in the class at that moment can only be described as pure joy.

During the cool down I could feel the sweat dripping from my arms and face, while exercising I tend not to look at my calories burned and this time was no exception but as soon as I arrived at my car to go back home I checked it and there it was 505 calories burned in an hour of fun.

Of course when class ended I approached Tamara to thank her for the fantastic workout and great start to my day. She encouraged me to go back and I certainly can't wait to continue and enroll after today, I'm already following them on Twitter and Facebook to stay up to date on everything BollyX.

BollyX is taught in several cities: New York City, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Houston, San Francisco, Richmond, Westwood, Washington D.C., Phoenix, Atlanta and more coming soon and they have over 300 certified instructors and are adding more! They currently have 6 regional trainers -among them is Tamara-, that expand from coast to coast. You can visit their website to find a class near you.  

*Thank you BollyX for inviting me to try a class near me.*