"When in doubt, strut it out."

Time to practice more GIFs! And what better way to do so than with my favorite over-the-top gay fairy godmother, Gareth Walker of Ministry of Sound fame.

Let me tell you a bit about Gareth. He appears in only a couple Ministry of Sound* titles, but he's been the choreographer for all or almost all of them. He is a fag hag's dream, or at least that's the persona he smartly adopts for his MOS workouts, which are largely targeted toward the 18-35 club girl set. His early titles, like "Pump It Up Dancemix," are totally ridiculous in their non-functional short skirt insistence on SEXINESS AT ALL TIMES!!! and a lot of the choreography is just a jumble of hair flips, chest pumps and hip wiggles. Sometimes I don't feel interested in playing his game at all, but sometimes it makes me feel fun and free in a delusionoid-pyscho-girl way. Here's a gif (GIF? does it have to be capitalized? i wanna look correct.) to illustrate my feelings on this subject:

"When in doubt, strut it out." This applies to MOS workouts as well as life. Gareth speaks the language of the nubile, glitter-lotioned party girl, and all his choreography is presented through the lens of her holy temple, The Club. Dance moves are based around club rituals, which Gareth illustrates with instructions like these:

It's the most wonderful time of the year

So I'm maybe the only person in the United States who's excited about this, but THE NEW 'PUMP IT UP' IS ALMOST OUT! Check out the preview above.

It's glaringly (and probably creepily) obvious to anyone who's read this blog that I am a Big Fan of Ministry of Sound's "Pump It Up" series. I explained why, in detail, in this post. But to summarize:

- They're long (70-90 minutes), thorough and challenging. No half-assey "20-Minute Solutions!"

- They're entertaining and varied, drawing from dance, aerobics, kickboxing and pilates. To quote myself, again from that post I linked to above: "The workouts are basically structured, aerobicized sassy-dancing in a fantasyland of bright lights and hot bodies wearing impossible outfits."

- They use real music, which is like omgthankyouwhycan'tmorevideosdothis. Even if you don't like LMFAO's "Party rockin in the house tonight" song (I don't, but I can tolerate it) or club music in general, I maintain it's still better than 90% of the crappy muzak used in other videos.

- They are built for a lengthy shelf life. They better be, since they only release one of these suckers a year. Instead of spending gobs of time explaining each move and, in effect, pandering to the audience, the videos keep a swift, fluid pace. It's assumed that you may need to press pause a couple time on your first or second go-round to get the hang of some of the dancier steps, but then once you get it, you don't have to slow down again!

The 2012 installment features the debut of a new instructor, neither Deanne nor Gareth nor that annoying girl from the older ones! (I think I'll have to write about Gareth for my next post; he's too good to keep away from you any longer.) Two of this year's dancers were in prior videos and.... now I'm really starting to sound psychotic. Ok, stopping here! Here's a longer behind-the-scenes preview: