The Booty Tribe

Every Time, all caps, no mercy, no maybe – it’s Saturday morning and badass rules here.

Head to Brickell Equinox and watch us endure Tarra Martinez’ Booty Blast class, designed to define the kind that defy definition. You’ve been warned.

The club describes the class as “dedicated to the bottom half – glutes, hips, thighs and abs.” I dedicate it to the bottomless.

This is so very beyond a class. A cult comes close. Ask Elderbrook, we dig him.

Tarra starts serving Cola, and yeah, that’s what we are coming for, and yeah, we can tell the difference. She extends a courtesy to the early adopters defining the work as a set of balancing moves meant to “strengthen everything that matters.” A force of gracious will, she steps in her zone – now ours- with an invitingly unabashed “What do you say?”

No ordinary methods to round, lift, tight, harden, reduce, increase, and everything else gluteus medium and minimums I have ever tried apply here. Just as I suspect no ordinary methods have ever applied to anything this tribe of fit women have faced. Or at least yours truly.

This is so very beyond the butt. A balancing act, the gravity of willpower.

Grab the toys – the weights, the bands, the ball, the gliders, the block. Yes, that zen-looking yoga block we used to love, until now. Here, the block is the obstacle we step one foot on, all strength on heel, while we bend the upper torso and lower body like an accordion, all on one compact move, plunging slowly to grab -or strangle- the lazy ball of shame laying on the ground waiting for our trembling everything to bring it up, only to bring it back down again.

Hello distant floor, can we talk?

Losing your balance has never been so redeeming. We kick ass when we start anew. Laura Walsh’s Cold Front “I don’t want to leave you know” is so à propos on the forgiving background.

“Keep your own pace”, “You are fighting nature!” Tarra howls and echoes, as we endure a dozen of hell-bents and squats, perched on faith, to the count of eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, and that famous Tarra branded “And Now Recoooooover!”  Hell, we do. Only to revisit tough love strapping the mother-torturer black loop bands on our thighs to squat the self, jump, and squat back again to the count of eternity.

“And now pulse, pulse, pulse, pulse, pulse.” No baby is coming out, but a resourceful woman who works on her strength.

And to think that I enlisted here in search of soothing leg isolations. My ass. My burning all. Sciatica, you better get it. Why on earth do I self-impose this ritual every Saturday morning? Because I choose what I  master. Up the ante. Every time.

Magalenha plays on. So do we.

No wonder this is one of Equinox busiest classes while one of its hardest – what we say we do, where we step we own, what we saddle, we lead. Girlie grit.

Filled to capacity, floored to endurance, enter at your own glorious risk. And if you do, don’t let the booty name fool you into expecting the conventional class and gals. We certainly look it, but tight ass doesn’t make it here, kick-ass is a pass.

What do you say?