My recount of the Turbo Jam infomercial experience (long post)

[Guest guest]

Hi Turbo Jammers! Here is a recount of my time being

in the shoot for the Turbo Jam infomercial.

I flew in Monday evening at Wayne Airport, along

with , another Portland Turbo Jammer. We

shuttled to the Doubletree Spectrum hotel in Irvine

and tried to hook up with Mark Rodzinka from Rochester

at the hotel bar that night, but it wound up being

closed by 10:00! Gheesh!

The next day for me was spent largely just waiting

around. I wasn’t being picked up for my interview

until 2:45, so I slept in and dinked around on my

laptop. I also did a fair amount of pacing in the

hotel room because I was nervous. I mean, I can talk

about Turbo Kick (Turbo Jam) til the sun comes up with

friends, but for t.v. that’s a whole ‘nuther story and

as I practiced aloud I felt stupid.

When we arrived at the studio it was hustle and

bustle. I was whisked away to Makeup, and this was

the most fun part of the day for me! They took all my

makeup off, asking me if there was a reason I put on

so much bright lime green eye shadow. It was pretty

funny. Being a more tomboyish type, I have never been

much into makeup. My mother even forced me to go to

Wards as an adolescent to try and generate an

interest in wearing makeup in me! While my mom was

buying me all kinds of makeup in hopes that I’d wear

it, other girls at school were sneaking putting on

makeup in the bathroom, cursing their parents who

wouldn’t permit them wear makeup yet.

Anyway, this woman totally transformed my face. When

I looked in the mirror I jumped back a little – I

couldn’t believe it was me! I looked beautiful! I am

seriously considering taking makeup lessons now or

just paying more attention to those parts of fashion

magazines from now on. It’s amazing what makeup can

do! The makeup artist said it was mostly blending

different foundations and powders together, and she

recommended that I use eyelash curlers. Uh oh. That

is the one thing I will not do! I am frightened of

eyelash curlers, and I don’t like clogging my pores

with foundation unless I’m going on a hot first date

or something. Oh well, this was a once in a lifetime

opportunity and it was fun!

After that I went to Wardrobe where they found a

different top and junk jewelry for me to wear. I was

kind of disappointed in the wardrobe selection. It

was mostly cheap stuff from Target, and not even the

quality stuff from Target either - I love Target’s

clothes for the most part! They dressed me up in

clothes I would never in a million years wear, but

whatever, I wanted to look good for the camera. I

mostly just kept looking at my made up face,

indifferent to what they picked out for me.

For the testimonial I was in the stereotypical room

that you see on t.v. – it was small and black, with

white screens and bright lights glaring down on me

from all directions. I was to look at the producer,

Cort (sp?) and answer his questions.

They were the questions one would expect would be

posed, but I felt awkward in responding. I felt like

how my cats must feel at the vet, with the bright

lights and strangers poking and prodding me with

microphones and touching up my makeup.

I felt that the questions were contrived into making

you answer in a certain way so I didn’t feel natural

like I do when talking to strangers at the gym, trying

to persuade them to take my class. Even though another

producer beforehand said I could back up and take my

time and paraphrase my words if I needed to, that

wasn’t the case. They were running out of time, I

felt rushed, and I don’t think I did very well during

my testimonial. Oh well, again it was a good

experience, one that will most likely never happen

again in my lifetime, so it was really neat to see how

it all worked! They really do yell out things like

" cut! " , etc. and I did feel part of a big production.

I really hope they can at least use a sentence or two

of what I said that day!

The next part was a lot of fun, and that was getting

my still shots taken. I was first of all able to wear

the clothes that I brought, and the photographer and

others said I was photogenic, so that made me feel

better after the testimonial ordeal. I was

photographed doing my favorite Turbo Jam moves which

for me are hooks and roundhouses.

I also liked this time because while others were

getting their photos taken I was able to talk to some

folks at Beach Body. I am a home workout fanatic as

well as a Turbo Kick fanatic and asked them dozens of

questions about their products and about one woman’s

experience being in Kathy ’s Project You! test

group. It was really fascinating!

A bunch of us met up with the coordinator of the Turbo

Jam project later at the hotel where, okay I confess,

I got a little tipsy and was demonstrating Round 2’s

pushups around 6 vodka gimlets later. I met Mindy

Robison that night, Turbo Kick’s presenter for Dallas,

and she will also be one of the core five in the Turbo

Jam videos – way cool, and I can see why she was

picked.

Mindy is one of these women that is first of all,

stunningly beautiful. and very exotic looking, at

least to me. She has a deeper buttery voice, blue cat

eyes, and a hint of darker skin color. She is also

super funny, outgoing, and genuine, possessing many

key qualities that all Turbo Kick presenters seem to

inherently have. I like that she is very strong and

healthy looking!

On Wednesday I had nothing scheduled and neither did

Mark, so we took the free hotel shuttle to the

Spectrum Mall. During the day this was a mall like

any other and neither Mark nor me are mall rats, so we

were a little bored, but grateful to be outside and

walking around to kill time. I found a neat Japanese

anime store and found this messenger bag that I had to

have with a cat on it called Fruits Basket. Mark

found some Rock Star drinks at a gym called Bodies in

Motion, which he wanted because Rock Star isn’t sold

on the east coast.

That night, Wednesday night, was one of the events I

was waiting for the most. Cliff’s class at UC Irvine!

It was packed, with us out of towner instructors in

the middle whooping it up. Cliff made his own mix

that included sections of everyone’s favorite rounds.

The warmup had Round 6 for me and Round 17’s finale

per my request as well. It was so fun trying to guess

what would come next! During the finale we all paired

up with a partner and I got to duke it out with both

Mark Rodzinka and JD from San ! You guys really

motivated me! Cliff also did his own Godsmack abs,

which is " legal " and was really a riot because I’m so

not used to hearing hard rock for Turbo Kick! His

exercises and changes of totally matched the music

too. Cliff is an outstanding instructor, and most of

all I liked his warm smile that was there throughout

class and was never once " put on " . You could tell

Cliff was doing what he loved most, teaching Turbo

Kick!

Also taking this class was my friend from Pittsburgh,

Pamela McKensky and her friend who is a student

of hers. I was excited to meet Pam because we had

been corresponding off an on for several years since

the beginning of the creation of the Turbo Kick

Fanatics group (humongous hugs to you, Pam and !

I adore you both to pieces!!). Pam and gave me a

ride to Cliff’s class and back to my hotel, and I sat

by them later where about a dozen of us met up at the

Yardhouse at the Spectrum, a sports bar featuring 300

kinds of beer. I must say, the mall that I found

boring during the day was simply gorgeous at night!

The fountains were all lit up and even parts of the

walkway were also lit up. It was magical seeming,

sort of reminding me of how I feel at Disneyland at

night.

It was an evening of camraderie and a gathering of

Turbo Kick Fanatics, all gearing up to be part of the

Turbo Jam the next day.

Now many of you heard that the Beach Body shoot at

Universal was cancelled due to inclement weather, and

that is true. However, since so many people flew in

from other states to be a part of this they still

decided to film us for Turbo Jam at Gold’s gym, who

was extremely accommodating to us, as we were very

loud and pretty much trashed their gym with water

bottles and stuff. This was so damned exciting we

could hardly stand it! To me this was even better

than working out with 500 people outside. I would

MUCH rather work out with 40 Turbo Jam friends who are

dear to my heart than work out amidst a bunch of

strangers!

Zena arrived and I was able to get a hug from her and

small talk a bit. I hadn’t seen her in a couple of

years, and it was so great to see her again, like it

was to see Cliff again. She and Chalene both made me

feel like a superstar on my prior visits to Orange

County, welcoming me and pulling me up on stage..

After a couple of hours we were finally ready to roll

‘em. We were in line, pretending to be waiting to go

to class, water bottles in hand and chit chatting.

After that they lined us up in a scientific manner for

class.

I was yanked away from my spot in line to go to

Wardrobe – apparently I had too much black on, even

though this is what they had chosen for me. They

instead dressed me in a Turbo Jam tee shirt, which was

cool in that I was one of the few sporting the new

logo, but it made me look FAT. I looked like a cow

now next to these other very fit people! Why couldn’t

they have left me alone?? I was bummed about this in a

big way, but then Chalene came into the room and that

disappeared. As usual, I was struck by how short and

little she really is! In the video she seems to me to

be taller, but at 5’4 " I feel like a giant next to

her! She was her usual down-to-earth magical fairy

like self and lead us through some AWESOME

combinations!

People, Turbo Jam is going to be a HUGE success!

Beach Body spent the big bux to use original artists,

and most of what we did that day was material from

prior rounds. It was HOT! A lot of it were moves

from R24 and R23 without too many advanced layers, but

it was a TOUGH workout! Those who take Turbo Kick and

the gym and decide to purchase Turbo Jam from Beach

Body will not be disappointed!

The warmup was a new song, I’m guessing what will be

in R25. I don’t know the name of it, but it had the

usual high energy funky start! After that was section

2 from Round 24 but with different music. I was in a

daze being filmed and all and can’t remember what song

it was. Kicks were what I was featured in while I was

in the front row being filmed, and that was the

capoeira move from R23, with the turbo twist, back

kick front knee. Part b of something was something I

think Chalene sort of come up with off the cuff; we

started with jab cross up, speedbag back, then jab

cross up, pumping it back, jab cross up, howzit back,

then jab cross up, doing " da nasty " (new move!) back!

Turbo came and went a few times during the two hour

Turbo Jam session, and it was a combo of R24 and R23:

running it up, step knee punch back four times, then

from R24 zigzag 2x squats up (as opposed to the full

jacks in Turbo Kick) then the 8 " Jessie’s Girl " knees,

then lo high punches with a plyo jump in the middle,

which I personally went all out on because it just

felt right. After that I think was running it up and

that was it? But there were side jabs in there

someplace. It went by so fast, I was star struck by

Chalene, and with the filming crew there it all seemed

surreal to me. I only wish I could have known in

advance what we were going to do so I could have

practiced and looked better!

Apparently they will use some shots from this take in

addition to the rescheduled outdoor shoot coming up

soon. It is projected to be aired this summer

sometime. More than the shoots I was happy to be with

my friends again and to meet the Fanatics I’d been

longing to meet for so long. At the end of the shoot

Chalene said something to me that warmed my heart and

I still get misty eyed thinking about it! I love you

Chalene!

In short, this was an experience of a lifetime and I

am honored to have met so many golden hearted people!

Thank you so much for entering my life and sharing

this experience together!