I felt an instant connection with Natalie from the first day.  She constantly made eye contact with me during our first class and encouraged me that I was doing a good job and to keep going.  She has consistently done this during every class.  I remember telling Natalie after the first class I took how scared I was of the pain.  To move my hips and twist and bounce was very scary to me.  I just wasn’t sure how much movement I could do. But my desire to get healthy was so strong that I wanted to push through no matter what it took.  She was so sweet and encouraging to me.  She was a life line God put into my path for a new beginning.  She has been a weekly lifeline for 5 whole weeks now.

We have met three other homeschool families from Asheville, NC in the Cardio Dance class.  Ellen has four kids, Linda has 8 kids, and Michele has 4 kids too.  All of them bring two or three of their kids into the class and some of their older kids play basketball in the gym too.   I hope to share some pictures of their families in upcoming stories soon and I have encouraged them to feel free to leave their progress in the comment section on these stories too.

Meeting other moms and homeschool families at the YMCA has helped me to feel comfortable, and increased my enjoyment using the facility.  There are several more moms who are not homeschoolers, who attend the class with their kids too.  There are many more individuals who attend the class without their children.  But the class has a good mix of everyone.  

Our class is multi-cultural too.  I love this.  There are folks from many different ethnicities: Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, Korean, Vietnamese, India, and more.  There are both males and females, a couple of pregnant ladies, kids, teens, and there are folks with special needs including Down Syndrome too.  Natalie is helping all of us and touching all our lives in a special way.

I am so blessed my children are getting to meet so many people from different walks of life in this class.  The family friendly YMCA classes are open to kids ages 7 and up.  The YMCA also provides child care for children 7 and under too.

While I walked, my son practiced punching the speed bag and kicking the heavy bag.  The speed bag helps with eye hand coordination.  The heavy bag helps with strength training.  Two fellahs running on the indoor track stopped to teach my son how to use the heavy bag.  This was great!  I am thankful folks are willing to help a young person learn how to do things.

Then we played basketball for 30 minutes.  We like to compete with each other and see who can get the most baskets.  The rule is 1 point per basket and you must dribble the ball in between shots.  This helps us get more exercise and builds coordination too.