A success for Nicki

Yesterday, my daughter whupped my butt in our exercise session.  I was encouraging her to wake up earlier in the day (a college student, she sometimes sleeps till noon, bless her!) and as a reward, I let her plan our workout.  As many of you know, she's been working with her baby fat since we got down here to L.A.  Anyone with a teenaged daughter who has a few extra pounds knows that you have to approach this gingerly: she can't associate her self-worth with the weight, or feel that her discipline or success here have anything to do with my love or regard for her.  Simultaneously, I needed to motivate her, because I KNEW what kind of body she wanted.  Just by looking at the hot guys she has posters of in her room, I knew that she wasnted to be a woman who is just as desirable on a physical level.  One should live up to one's own standards!  So it's been a push, and I figured that the best thing would be for me to go on any eating plan right with her, and coach and exercise with her, and help her get to yoga class.
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I've implied that a break-through has occurred in my understanding of certain fitness elements.  I'll go into it at greater depth later, but lets just say that I've devised an exercise routine which, in 45 minutes, seems equivilent to 90 minutes of Bikram Yoga--you know, the hot room stuff?  Very interesting.  A mixture of Warrior Wellness, the "Eclipse" exercises devised by Coach Sonnon (they will be available on DVD soon.  I'm still testing them, but I think he has done a brilliant job of synthesizing a system almost as deep as yoga or Tai Chi, but learnable in two hours!  Man oh man, I love Scott. For those who don't know, he's at www.rmax.tv) and kettlebells.  When I combined these three things, the quality of my workouts seemed to shift drastically, but I still need more testing.  Believe me, if I continue to be impressed by the results, I'll share everything, and as fast as I can.
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Anyway, Nicki's been doing great.  She has accepted a higher level of physical discipline, and loves the feeling of her clothes getting loose on her (even though sometimes the scale doesn't change!)  so yesterday, I let her choose the workout.  She wanted to play Cards with me.  That's the protocol where you shuffle a deck of cards and then designate a different exercise for each suit or color.  Flip the cards one at a time, and do that number of that exercise.  If you choose exercises carefully, you can get one monster of a workout, and it can be a rediculous amount of evil fun.
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Well, she chose Hindu Squats for the red cards, Hindu Pushups for the black cards, and Eclipse for the Face Cards.  Sounded interesting. We began, with Warrior Wellness (as always), and then began Cards, aiming for 30 minutes.    Good Lord.  Now, we were doing this side by side, but Nicki modifies her exercises to make them easier (an easier version of Eclipse, and Hindu Pushups from her knees.)  All I'll say is that the combined sensation was completely unexpected.  My gym was cold, and we were dripping sweat within minutes, every muscle in our bodies screaming for mercy.  But oddly, we were laughing, exercising to good music, making jokes about our suffering.  At 25 minutes Nicki called "quit" and I was grateful.  Yeah, I could have gutted it out, or made my versions easier, but I was hurtin'.  In a good way.
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All day long I felt the "buzz" of the effect, and couldn't believe how powerful that short little workout had been.  But the cream came last night, when my daughter ran into the room to show us...her abs.  There, beneath a thinning wall of fat, was the beginning of a six-pack.  For the very first time in her life, Nicki is beginning to touch the far edge of her true, mature body.  She was thrilled.  I was thrilled.  All this and straight A's too.  Daddy is just so proud.  Oh, and by the way...Tananarive and I watched her perform a scene from "As You Like It" in her "Acting Shakespeare" class Tuesday.  She was wonderful, and we taped it for her to send up to her Mom Toni this weekend.
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Life is just exceptionally good right now.