Being immersed in the fitness industry provides me with a ton of different opportunities to experience different techniques, methodologies, and products. I recently had the privilege of a...
Yamuna Body Rolling – Better than Foam Rolling?
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STOMP – The Goof Review
Special effects seem to be at a the crux of human entertainment these days, doesn’t it? Every episode of almost every studio made episodic drama, situation comedy and major motion picture is loaded with some flavor of special effects. Even shows like, “Big Bang Theory” or “How I Met Your Mother” have increased their effects budget with effects of dream sequences, stunts or layered images to help draw in the audience.
Pop-culture does not seem to have room for TV shows, movies or even plays that have to completely depend on the integrity and talent of the performers.
This was evident as I walked into the Carol Marsoni Hall of the Straz Center for the opening night performance of STOMP last night.
The house was littered with empty seats. The mezzanine and balcony were completely empty.
All I can say is to the lovers of music and theatre that decided to skip out on this performance, it is your loss. The simplistic cohesiveness of this ensemble show is something that does not come around all that often.
STOMP is a percussive music, comedy and movement performance that is matched by nothing I have ever seen. This group of seven performers make music without the use of musical instruments as we would define them. They basically use junk you may find in a dumpster in New York City. Garbage can lids, plastic tubs, match boxes, zippo lighters, are just a few of the items these talented performers use to make a beat come alive in a way that I was not only riveted, but I couldn’t help but want to move my feet with the beat.
The use of the artifacts along with their feet and the movement was visually stimulating as well. Within the first few numbers, all I could think of, was this group is making music with everything except the kitchen sink, and of course in the very next number four of the performers came out with kitchen sinks strapped to their torsos. Water in the sinks plus, cups and utensils seemed to come alive as the ensemble mixed their sounds together in one cohesive unit.
There is no special effects, no extra special lighting, no words, no special costumes just the performers and their props. Simple entertainment at it’s finest and extremely riveting.
Percussion was not the only thing used for entertainment. There was many parts of each number where comedy was used to infiltrate the performance with the laughter of the audience. Comedy alone is not easy, but comedy without one audible word for the entire show is extremely difficult and this group pulled it off with precision and ease.
This was one of the most entertaining ninety minutes I have had in a long time. What made it even more fun was the ensemble incorporated the audience within the show. Patterns of clapping, foot stomping, and finger snapping made for an interactive experience that just compounded on the immense fun this show had to offer.
In simple terms, STOMP was outstanding and I highly recommend everyone take the opportunity to go see it.
STOMP is playing at the Straz Center of the Performing Arts April 30 – May 3. Please visit the Straz Center website for more information.
Goof Review: Radio City Christmas Spectacular
Can you feel the magic of Christmas in the air? With all the urgency of completing our shopping before that December 25th deadline sometimes we don’t slow down enough to enjoy just the simplicity of the holidays. I spent a majority of my life in the Midwest, so living here, in this snowless climate, I usually find myself missing the aura of the holiday season. Not this year, Baby. I was lucky enough to be an audience member for the opening of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular starring the Rockettes at the David A. Straz Center here in Tampa.
Out of all the time I spent in New York City, I never had the privilege of seeing the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. I’ve been missing out. Even this former performer was amazed with the synchronicity and precision of not only the dancing of the Rockettes themselves, but the remarkable coexistence with several different types of media.
The festivities started an hour before the audience was even allowed into their seats, with the Rockettes marching from the stage door to the red carpet outside Carol Morsani Hall. With pure elegance and grace each Rockette took an arm of an uniformed Tampa Police Officer and were escorted into the theater. It was a pure showing of honor to our civil servants that was so simple yet so powerful. I cannot begin to explain why. I imagine that is the limitations of my writing ability. The honor didn’t stop there. The Tampa Police Chief took an opportunity to read “Twas the Night Before Christmas”, on stage, to a group of children at the opening of the show. Again, it seemed like such an honor to the chief and our civil servants.
The night consisted of 12 different numbers lasting about 96 minutes including a 20 minute intermission, but it flew by so fast. The night was narrated by Santa Claus, who also sang with a booming baritone voice that projected proudly throughout the arena.
All of the numbers were not strictly performed by the Rockettes and Santa Clause. A few numbers included short plays that not only included singing and dancing, but also small life lessons as well.
One number had Santa and two young boys with a lesson on faith and believing, another was a brilliant combination of the Rockettes and the Radio City Singers about Christmas in New York City.
My personal favorite had to be a scaled down performance of the Nutcracker with a little girl playing Clara, that was an absolute phenomenal dancer, not to mention other incredible dancers in oversized animal costumes. I have no idea how the dance so gracefully with those huge heads.
This show was brilliant, funny, emotionally moving and just plain fun for the whole family. The Rockettes give a performance worth seeing in this wonderful holiday show.
I give it Five out of Five Goofs.
Carpe Viam!
The Radio CIty Christmas Specatacular plays at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, December 12th through the 29th Tues thru Sunday. See the Straz Center Website for details. http://www.strazcenter.org/Rockettes.aspx
Goof Review – Jaybird Sportsband Bluetooth Headset
When I am not running in a group, or during a race when I know the course is not the most scenic, I do enjoy running with my iPod. There is something pretty cool about zoning out and just letting the beat take over my feet.
The problem I face, is comfort in headphones. I have tried just about every headphone out there and my personal preference is not ear buds that are placed inside he canal. I keep going back to the earphones I received with my iPod, that just fit above the lobe where the speaker sits on the concha and faces the canal. Of course, they do not last, and the sound quality has a little to be desired. Not to mention, the inconvenience of those wires.
Enter Jaybird with their Sportsband Bluetooth Headset. Jaybird was nice enough to send me this model, which looks like the older headphones that fit over the head instead of around the back of the neck or just sitting in the ear. They are extremely light, which does not cause any neck pain or strain and due to the fact they are Bluetooth they are wireless. I ran the entire Sarasota Half Marathon without them sliding off my ears, or hear any hesitation or disconnect from my iPod.
The controls are located on the right ear and have nice size buttons that are easy to access and allow you to skip forward or back, pause and control the volume.
The sound quality is probably the best I have heard in a Bluetooth headset. The sound is rich, clear and responds well to the sound controls on my iPod. Needless to say I really enjoyed wearing this headset during the race. 
As, I was looking at the pics…well…the profile is pretty low, but they do look kinda goofy if your looking for them. It figures, look who is wearing them.
I did test them with two different phones as well. The Droid Razor Maxx and the Samsung Galaxy Note II and they responded quick and as expected to Pandora, Spotify, the built-in music apps and the phone.
A friend of mine, that didn’t know she was a part of this review, stated she thought I was using my handset. Most of the time she could tell, when I had a headset on, because the sound quality was usually pretty poor, but with the Jaybird Sportsband this was not the case at all. The sound was clear without static or hesitation.
The Jaybird Sportsband comes in two models, the original the S2 which includes the uSport universal Bluetooth adapter. Both models are compatible with any A2DP Bluetooth device to include iPhone, iPad, iPod(7th Gen), Android, windows devices, PC and Mac. Options include the iSport and universal Bluetooth adapters on the original and S2 models.
The company just so happened to send me apple red, but there are also a wide range of colors available.
I really enjoy running with this headset. It fits over my ear and not inside, which is more comfortable for and it still allows me to hear ambient noise around me which makes my music motivating not distracting.
I give this device 5 out of 5 Goofs.
Carpe Viam!!
Guest Goof Review – Flashdance:The Musical
I was courted to review Flashdance: The Musical at the Straz Center for their opening night on Tuesday, but other commitments kept me from attending. Rather than give up my tickets and sacrifice a review I sent volunteers, Mrs. Miranda Lessie, Mrs. Amy Eck and Bennett Eck in my place.
This is my first Guest Blog as it is written by Miranda Lessie.
Flashdance: The Musical – Straz Center for the Arts, Tampa Florida. 19 Feb 2013
Move over Las Vegas, there is a new party in town and it’s called Flashdance. Can you remember the iconic water works scene in the original movie? You won’t have to imagine it for long once you sit down for this new musical.
Flashdance The Musical
If you love the 80’s music, hair styles, dancing and most of all the legwarmers, you will be right at home with this production. Even if you don’t adore these things, you will find yourself moving to the live orchestra which sounding more like an 80’s hair band than an orchestra. Perfect for this play.
The play starts off with a running start and gets right into the story line. It was a fast start for me who prefers more of a background building and character development. Once all the characters were introduced throughout the play, the story line begun to come alive and I fell in love with each character. Kudos to the Casting director who found the perfect character for each performer whom seemed to have been born to play their particular part. The leading lady Emily Padgett was a dead ringer for the original movie character.
I found some characters had a shaky start with their first song but each ended with a bang. The singing in the play was equal to, if not better than, the dancing. All the performers were superb singers, dancers and actors.
The set and lighting was a plus for this play. I never questioned what location we were at in the play because there was a huge display at the top of the stage at every scene change. My only question about the set is “just how did they do that water dance scene?” It was so perfect.
Costumes were exquisite but not over the top. They were very believable for the time period. They were also just on the edge of being rated a little more than PG-13. The language was appropriate for this type of play and slang was kept a very minimum.
As I walked out of the playhouse, I wondered why I didn’t attend more productions. I absolutely fell in love with this medium and will be back soon. The actors made this play but the scene and music made the actors. ~ Miranda Lessie
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Goof Views and News #1
Hey there boys and girls, guys and gals. It’s the Goof comin’ at ya from Tampa, Florida to give you the first episode of what I hope to be one of many.
The Goof Views and News.
These will be personal perceptions made during specific times or events that may resonate some of you and news of events that have happened or will happen in the future. For instance, as I have posted on FB and Twitter, I have registered for the Chicago Marathon as I did in 2011 prior to the Florida Ironman. Ta da! The first news of the post.
The Views (Seeing through the eyes of the Goof)
I was at Disney World this weekend enjoying some rest and relaxation and I wouldn’t say it was an epiphany, but it was a clarification of sorts. I just happened to be in line at Buzz Lightyear in Tomorrow
Land when I saw a couple coming toward me. He was a larger man riding in one of those motorized carts, and she was walking beside him. She wasn’t a small person either. They obviously were not concerned about their conversation being overheard and I heard him swear at her for some reason. She yelled back at him, “Well if you would do something about it, you wouldn’t have to ride around in that thing.” He snapped back with, “You think it is that easy, well you try it.” She ended up retorting with, “I am! You <insert explicative here>! You don’t see me needing a <insert another explicative> wheelchair. Do Ya?” The large man pushed what I assumed to be the accelerator and moved ahead of her.
This is what I recall, it may not have been their exact words, but it did make me look around a bit more during my weekend visit. Without being completely rude I started focussing on the more obese adults and I noticed something. Ninety-five percent of the adults that were obese looked miserable. I am not including people that just had a few extra pounds on them, I am talking about adults that were obviously fat.
There was not one of them that looked like they were having any fun. Here we are in the happiest place on earth, with perfect weather, scents of food, and sweetness in the air, upbeat music, not a noticeable speck of negative energy in the place and these people are miserable. Why would anyone want to do that to themselves? Don’t get me wrong, I have never been that big. I have been fat where I needed to take some pounds off, but never obese, so I can only imagine how hard it is, but to willingly stay in misery, just sounds exhausting to me.
Later, I sought out children that were, let’s just say, were in need of some more activity, which took all of thirty seconds. While there were some that were running around, in my estimate, seventy to eighty percent of them were whining for somewhere to sit down. Sit? When there are rides, and new things to touch, smell and see? Of course, most of them had parents that were in the same condition. Go figure.
There are articles on articles explaining the epidemic we have in this country of obesity, but they are words on a page and maybe a picture. I was able to watch this before my very eyes and they burned with disgust, pity, and sadness. The next morning, I got up and ran six miles to clear the images from my head and come up with some kind of dream resolution. The next time you are at an event or a place where there are families and a lot of people become aware of this. (Athletes: the Gasparilla Distance Weekend coming up, would not be a good place for this kind of perception.)
After mulling this around for the last few days, my desire to help has increased. I know there are an abundance of people with this same desire and some of them more so if they have been able to overcome this obstacle for themselves, but I really want to help and the kids even more so. We need to bring this epidemic more into the open and encourage people to move around and do something for a minimum of 20 minutes a day.
On to the News
I have entered into a partnership with Brenton Ford from Effortless Swimming. He has a new program called Swimprove where a swimmer can log into a website and access an abundance of material to help them swim faster and more efficiently As I have stated in numerous posts before, I really need help on my swimming.
I will be accessing his website and will be following his advice to the letter and bringing you my results, epiphany’s and observations. This program of Brenton’s is not just for beginning swimmers, but for triathletes, open water swimmers and masters swimmers that would like to improve and become faster. Included is not freestyle but the butterfly, backstroke, and breaststroke as well. I am really excited to get started and document what I have learned.
Gasparilla is this weekend and I am taking on the Beck’s Lite Challenge, so I will be running the 15k and 5k on Saturday and the half marathon on Sunday.
Which races are you running?
I am currently coaching at FitNiche on Tuesday’s with a new program called the Technical Tune-up. I 
have a number of runners just looking to have a structured workout that includes warm-ups, and cooldowns and gives them access to a coach running with them paying close attention to their form in order to create more efficiency and keep them injury free. Most of my runners are return clients, but I do have some new clients that have joined the flock. I am really excited to be coaching again. The program goes for 8 weeks and then renews. I still have some slots available, so if you feel like you are getting injured a lot or just not making any progress, or just want a structured workout, come on out. Tuesday Nights starting at 6:30 pm at FitNiche in Hyde Park Village.
The owner and I are working on the marketing for a new course as well, but I will announce that later when the details are flushed out.
That is it for this episode of the Goof Views and News. Have an amazing week and train hard athletes, but also train smart.
Carpe Viam!!