Water Aerobics

I mentioned that we (my meetup group) started a weekly water aerobics class, but it was such an interesting experience that I think it warranted it's own entry.
I arrived early (as I always do) and stood in line to make sure that we could actually take the class we wanted.  There was a man in front of me trying to pay for summer camp for his daughter. It is April, and all of the spots, except for 5 were taken for a camp in JULY.  Wow...early planning!
Eventually the other three ladies arrived and we all paid and headed to the locker room.  As always, I forgot to take my classes off until I hit the shower and realized they were still on.  They have those lockers that require you to put in 50 cents (they were only 25 when I was a kid!) in every time you open the door, so we all shared a locker.
There was a little question as to which of the 5 pool sections we were supposed to be in.  The pool is huge, and we were confused by the three classes starting concurrently.  The first thing that happened to us in the pool was an older man (70's) coming up to us and telling us "on Mondays we wear gloves!" We were a little confused, but they are these webbed gloves that cause more resistance when you are in the water.  It wasn't the end of the world that we didn't have them, but he was perfectly happy to tell us several times what they were, where to get them and when to wear them!
I didn't know beforehand that our teacher was apparently a drill Sargent in a past life.  "Water walk! Faster people! Faster! Get that blood flowing" She yells over the splash of 30 people sloshing through 5 foot deep water.  We walked so fast that you could lift your feet up and be carried along the current, that is until you hit a corner and went careening off into a wall.
We walked for a couple of minutes to get the blood flowing and started marching, jumping, hopping, scooping from one end of the pool to the other. The drill Sgt. turned out to be a very nice lady who kindly showed us most of the moves, since everyone in the class were apparently regulars and she merely just had to yell the move at them.   Some classes have teachers standing on the edge yelling out the different moves, but she was in the water with us, actually doing most of the exercises with us.
The bunny jumping with wavey hands from one end of the pool to enough was fun enough, but then she added in water dumbbells.  The teacher told us that the blue ones were the hardest resistance, and she "didn't want to see ANY dumbbells above the water!"
Threat in hand we moved onto doing bicep curls, back curls and a myriad of other bends.  Then...we had to put the dumbbell between our legs. As my friend Kiki says "It is every day that you are working out and they tell you to put a dumbbell between your legs!"  From that position, those of us that didn't immediately flip backwards, or have it pop out, (umm...me?) were able do some ab exercises.  Next time I'm going to get a tougher dumbbell. I have pretty strong muscles from working out before I moved here, but I didn't want to hurt too much the next day.
After class we hung out in the hot tub for a bit, and then headed over to kikiverde's to play with her puppy and eat the most amazing salad.
I wasn't sore after class, or the next day and it didn't hurt my back at all.  I was however incredibly ravenous and exhausted.  I had a great time and hope to try the deep water class next week with Mona.
Have you ever taken a water class? What was it, and how much did you love it?