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Stacy's Boot Camp

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Stacy's Boot Camp (via Stacy)

I am not a soldier, I don’t ever want to join anyone’s platoon, and Jillian Michaels makes me shiver. When you say boot camp, I think: Please, no. But boot camps are hot, and someone has to check these things out. So, I went to Stacy’s Bootcamp. And it was awesome.

Stacy offers three-week camps all around the city, all throughout the year. So there’s always one coming up. (Just FYI....) She teaches about 15 of the sessions herself. Trainer Mauricio Genore teaches most of the rest. I spent mornings with each of them, one session in Battery Park and another in Central Park at Bethesda Fountain. They were equally awesome. Both Stacy and Mauricio are the sort of people you actually want to wake up and start your day with. Not too perky, but very awake and in control.

There’s no yelling at Stacy’s Bootcamp. I had nightmare visions of Drill Sergeants’ with whistles. Nope. Stacy is all about straightforward, positive, though killer, encouragement to squat deeper, lift higher, and run faster. This sounds weird, but I felt a little like I was in The Horse Whisperer (with me as the horse, Stacy as Robert Redford). Stacy whispered what to do, and even though it was 6:30 in the morning and I was cold and grouchy, I did it, and it felt...majestic. That sounds over the top, but there's definitely an epic feeling that comes with pushing yourself. 

Stacy’s Yoga Fusion Bootcamp session was especially terrific. It was just like her regular boot camp, but at the end of the hour, when you’re shaking and exhausted from sprinting and bear crawling and squat-thrusting, rather than vulnerably skulking off into your day, you get to pull yourself back together with a half hour of basic yoga. It was an athletic flow, but after everything we’d done, it felt totally restorative. 

Bottom line, I am a person with a massive collection of pilates DVDs and an unlimited yoga pass, and not a lover of jumping jacks and walking lunges. But I could actually see making Stacy’s Bootcamp a regular habit. If you can fit it into your schedule — and what else are you doing at 6:30 A.M. — there is something to these bootcamps.

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