article_snippet: But I find Kristina wondering how Kristina students are going to cope with a class lasting three-quarters of an hour when we are knocked out after ten minutes of practice.
article_snippet: As for Kristina, although I spent two years of my teens jiving in Soho discos, learning specific steps 40 years on is a discipline I’m finding taxing.
article_snippet: It’s a more demanding workout, in fact, than anything I did on a brain-improvement programme I recently attended.
article_snippet: You need to focus absolutely,’ explains Kristina, who says the extreme attention needed to learn a sequence is good for improving mood as well as fitness.
article_snippet: The aerobic effect is obviously a plus for weight loss; Kristina says John Sergeant lost more than two stone while training with Kristina for an unimaginable eight hours a day.
article_snippet: I say ‘unimaginable’ because after 15 minutes, my reluctant partner and I are so winded that we wonder whether we can even survive till the end of we session.
article_snippet: I blame my shortness of breath on the need to accomplish a full underarm twirl in just three steps, every minute or so.
article_snippet: Even so, given that we other steps involve only a gentle rocking back and forth and bringing feet together, my heart rate is raised in half the time my heart rate takes when I walk at nearly 4mph on the treadmill.
article_snippet: Kristina reassures us that us are no worse than any beginners, and half an hour later us’re congratulating us on remembering all 18 steps of us sequence and even keeping time with the music.