I was running late. So, I started jogging from the Village.

“I’m already warming up!” I thought. “I’m going to be at the top of my game for this class!”

I was headed to Yoga Sculpt, one of the free classes offered at the Sumers Recreation Center. I had been to kickboxing class before, but that was about it. I was going off the recommendation of a friend. She told me that if I was looking for traditional yoga, I should look elsewhere. This class is not about finding your breath. It’s more about losing it.

I walked in. The music was pumping, and everyone was already in downward dog position. The room was nearly full. I contemplated leaving when I couldn’t find a yoga mat in the closet, but then, I found a lonely one rolled up on the studio floor. Since there was no room to go next to anyone, I spread my mat out in the very back of the room— perpendicular to everyone else’s—so that when I laid down, I was facing the side wall instead of the front, where the instructor was.

Illustration by Josh Zucker

I was already headed in the wrong direction.

Then, I realized everyone else had weights by their side. I jumped up and went to the closet to get a couple, but all of the lighter weights were already taken. The only ones they had left were one 8-pounder and plenty of 10- and 12-pounders. I probably had tried working out with weights three times in my entire life.

“Welp,” I thought. “There’s no rule saying that you can’t mix and match, right?” I took the sole 8-pound weight and a 10-pound weight and went back to my mat with what turned out to be great timing, since everyone had just starting using the weights for the next routine. We were doing a move where we started off with both our arms in L shapes, raised to the height of our heads, lifting our arms straight up into the air before returning back to the L. The move seemed simple enough. I did about five and then was dead. The different size weights were just not working. Meanwhile, I was amazed by how in sync everyone else seemed with the instructor.

The music was at a pretty low level at this point. Although I didn’t know it then, this was still the warm-up.

After some more arm workouts that I, with my overweight weights, could not even dream of accomplishing, the song ended, and our instructor asked how we were feeling.

“Ummmm I’m pretty much done, thanks for asking,” I thought (but also probably said out loud to myself in the heat of my aggravation).

“Well, get ready to kick it up a notch!” she said, before turning the volume of the next EDM song to the max setting and skipping to the front of the room. She started demonstrating a new set of moves that involved doing four squat jumps forward on the mat, a burpee and a jump twist so that we were facing the opposite wall and were ready to start doing the squat jumps all over again while facing the other direction. It was like watching an endless butt-fat-burning cycle from hell.

Now, because my mat was perpendicular to everyone else’s and in the back of the room, whenever everyone twisted around to start squat jumping toward the direction of the back wall, all eyes were turned toward me. Or at least, that was how it felt. And let me tell you, after about five of those burpee cycles from hell, my body was really doing its own thing. And when I say doing its own thing, I don’t mean doing burpees. I’m pretty sure I was just jumping in the air before plummeting to the ground and staying there for two minutes, then somehow forcing myself to get vertical before plummeting again.

I thanked sweet Jesus Mary Mother of God when that combination FINALLY ended. “As long as I don’t have to do any more burpees,” I thought, “I can make it through the rest of this class.”

“Who’s ready for more burpees?!!!!!” Our instructor yelled before the next song came on, full blast. It was Justin Bieber’s “What do you Mean?” As the verse came on, she started to jump from side to side. Then, when the chorus began—“What do you mean?”— the class did a burpee. And then a second. And then a third. Every time the Biebs said “What do you Mean?” we did a burpee. Every. Single. Time.

You know when you use a song as your alarm in the morning and then whenever you hear it in a store or a restaurant, you automatically start cringing a little? Well, now, whenever I hear “What do you Mean,” I will probably burst into tears.

It’s difficult to express how happy I am to say that that was the climax of the workout and that things started to cool down a little—read: a little—after that.

We finished with some Shavasana, the part at the end of the yoga session where you get to lie flat on your back for a few minutes for relaxation purposes, aka the best part of the session. Talk about 100 to 0.

Overall, if you are looking for the kind of yoga where you find your center and reconnect with your body, this is not the class for you. If, however, you are looking for a workout that will kick you butt, and then kick it again, and then beat it repeatedly with a bat before tossing it off the side of a building, then Yoga Sculpt is the one you want!

Seriously though, this is a great workout for people who get high off of high-intensity reps. I recommend it to the burpee lovers among us!