Talk About Exercise in English (Listening Practice)

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Let’s talk about workouts.

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Hi, Vickie Kelty here with another episode of the Language Learning Report Card Podcast.

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I’m going to tell you about workouts I did when I was younger and workouts I do now.

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Plus, some workouts

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I didn’t do when I was younger and some workouts that I don’t do now.

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Are you ready to start?

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Let’s go.

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When I was in high school, I played tennis for fun with one of my best friends.

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Nowadays, I don’t play tennis.

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I like tennis, but I never play.

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When I was in elementary school, I rode my bike to school, but I don’t like riding bikes.

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So I never ride bikes anymore.

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I prefer to walk.

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100%.

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When I was a teenager, I didn’t do yoga.

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Now that I’m an adult, I do yoga A lot.

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I am happy that I do yoga now.

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I really like doing yoga.

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Something else I don’t do now is to go running.

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I don’t go running.

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But when I was in high school and in college, and even a few years ago, I went running.

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I liked to go running, but now I prefer different workouts.

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In middle school, I played basketball.

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Playing basketball was fun.

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Sometimes I played basketball

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at home with my sister or my dad, and now I never play basketball.

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Another workout I don’t do is Pilates.

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I did Pilates a few times in the university.

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It was okay, but now I prefer to do yoga and other people can do Pilates.

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It’s not for me.

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I went swimming a lot as a child

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and a teen, and I swam in high school.

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Nowadays, I swim for fun in the summer sometimes, but going swimming isn’t a common workout for me.

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Don’t worry, I have some more workouts that I do.

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For example, I do aerobics or Zumba,

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Any type of dancing with very easy movements, not complicated choreography, I like.

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I also did Zumba and aerobics in high school and college.

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This is a workout I love.

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And my preferred workout for my whole life is to go walking.

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I remember going walking with my mom when I was younger.

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I still go walking with my mom even now.

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When possible, I always prefer to go walking.

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So those are different workouts I did when I was younger or didn’t do, and ones I do now, and some that I don’t do now.

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It’s your turn.

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Tell me about the workouts you did when you were younger, and which ones do you still do now?

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Thanks for listening, and remember, you can find more listening practice at vickiekelty.com.

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Well, that’s all from me.

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Bye.

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Workouts and the people who do them.

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Hi, this is Language Learning Report Card Podcast.

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I’m Vickie Kelty.

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I teach English online, mostly focused on speaking.

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And today we are talking about the types of people that do different workouts.

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I’m going to describe

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a couple of characteristics of some different types of people that I think match specific workouts.

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I have 9 workouts on my mind, and I wonder if you can think of what workout I’m describing with each of my characteristics.

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Are you ready?

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Well, let’s get started with the first workout.

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I think this workout is divine for people who really like to have something where they need to be persistent.

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So they are working hard to achieve a specific

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goal, but they also have to be very precise with how they do it.

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No, this is probably not me.

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So if you know some workouts that I like and dislike, that could help you.

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The second one.

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This is a workout that would be great for somebody who

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is coordinated, especially good hand-eye coordination.

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And if they were quick on their toes, that could definitely help.

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Any ideas?

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Our third one is a fabulous workout for people who are team-oriented and that they

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really cooperate well with others.

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So our social butterflies might love this workout.

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Our 4th workout is something that is

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really fabulous for just keeping steady, for people who like to pace themselves, and for us basic folks.

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Yeah, it’s my favorite.

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Another big hint.

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And I did call myself basic just now. Ha!

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Can you guess it?

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Our fifth workout,

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It helps if you are somebody who is very grounded or you like to do a workout that grounds you, helps you connect to what you’re doing, and allows you to be reflective.

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That’s it.

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That’s all I’m going to tell you.

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Our 6th workout is

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great for those people who really like monotony.

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They’re okay with repetition.

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Monotonous, monotonous, monotonous.

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That is their chant as they do this workout.

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And they also like solitude.

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Can you guess it?

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Our 7th workout is for

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the adventurous souls and the free-spirited ones.

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It’s a nice combination.

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You do sometimes have to be a bit more courageous to do this one.

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It’s not a workout that I do regularly.

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So if that helps you, maybe you can guess it.

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Our 8th workout

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is a former favorite of mine, and it is fabulous for the self-disciplined people.

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And it is something that you want to be really dedicated to.

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That helps you with this workout A lot.

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Okay.

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We are on to the last workout.

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Our 9th one is for those peppy, upbeat folks that have high energy.

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And yeah, if they’re expressive while doing the workout, it definitely makes it that much more fun.

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That’s it.

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That is

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all nine of the workouts.

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And yes, I know, some of them were a little trickier to guess based on the characteristics.

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You might have actually thought of multiple workouts that they could be.

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And it’s true that a lot of characteristics can be repeated in many workouts.

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So I would be very interested to hear

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what workout you think each of my descriptions matched.

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So be sure to let me know.

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And remember, you can find more listening practice at VickieKelty.com.

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That’s all from me.

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Bye-bye now.

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Pet peeves in connection to workouts.

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This is Vickie Kelty with the Language Learning Report Card Podcast.

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I teach English online, mostly focused on speaking, and today I will be speaking about pet peeves.

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I want to share my pet peeves about a few different workouts.

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9, to be specific, and take a listen.

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See what you think about my pet peeves.

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Maybe they will inspire you to come up with your own pet peeves for similar workouts.

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Let’s get started.

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My first pet peeve is the scoring system for tennis.

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It is absolute chaos.

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Who invented this?

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Okay, maybe I should have done some research before I started complaining about the scoring system for tennis because there probably was some smart plan behind it.

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Unfortunately, I don’t know what that plan was and math has never been my friend.

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So no, no thank you.

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I mean, it would be

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Let me just interrupt myself to say that all scoring systems for sports tend to be confusing when it’s not just 1 + 1, but the tennis scoring system, I mean, come on, it’s just chaotic, don’t you think?

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The only thing I like is that there’s love involved with it.

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I think that’s beautiful.

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Moving on, cyclists.

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Now, don’t attack me or run me over on the road for this one.

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But my thing that irks me about cyclists is when they think that they own the road; you know who you are if you’re one of them.

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And you can’t own both the road and the sidewalk.

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Pick a lane, people.

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I am obviously not a cyclist.

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You could probably tell based on my pet peeve, but sometimes, sometimes it’s difficult.

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I’m always on the lookout because I do not want to get in the way of any cyclist.

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So I do watch out for you.

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I try and stay in my lane.

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I definitely do.

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My next pet peeve is

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As lovely as yoga can be, does anybody else have a mind wandering problem when the yoga instructor, when the yoga instructor tells you, okay, be present, clear your mind, don’t think about anything, and you immediately think of every single thing that has ever happened to you in your life?

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And

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your mind does everything except for not think, because that’s me.

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That is my situation with yoga sometimes.

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Huge pet peeve.

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One of the reasons that I don’t go running anymore is because of so many dogs wanting to run with me.

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But it really felt like they were chasing me rather than running with me.

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So yeah, I go for walks now.

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And that just was

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Yeah, I’m gonna say it.

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was annoying for me to have dogs chasing after me.

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I want them to run free.

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I do.

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I want them to enjoy their time out in the field.

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I just don’t want them breathing on the back of my legs.

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Not gonna lie, made me nervous.

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Maybe if I got my own dog and went running with it, things would change.

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What do you think?

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My next pet peeve is

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Ball hogs.

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What, you ask?

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Yes, when you’re playing basketball and the other player doesn’t share the ball and they’re just, they steal the ball from the other team and they dribble it down the court and they could pass it to you.

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There are opportunities, but they choose not to because they have to get that basket themselves.

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Ball hogs.

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Super annoying.

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Come on, it’s a team sport.

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Be a team player, share the ball.

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Am I right or am I right?

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Those are your two options.

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Next, we have Pilates.

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Why on earth is Pilates so much shockingly harder than yoga?

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What is up with that?

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I mean,

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I have a hard enough time keeping my mind from thinking of a million different things.

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But with Pilates, they’re like, do this pose.

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It’s super easy.

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And then it is absolute torture and next to impossible to actually do.

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Pilates, you are my Everest.

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So difficult.

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Moving right along, we are already up to

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the 7th sport that I wanted to complain about.

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And that sport is swimming.

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And the thing that is my biggest pet peeve with swimming is sharks.

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Okay, granted, when you’re in a swimming pool, yeah, you don’t have as big a possibility of sharks appearing.

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Just kidding, there are no sharks in pools.

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I learned that when I was little after watching Jaws and swimming with my eyes open all the time because I was so worried a shark would come up through the drain.

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I guess my pet peeves should also be scary movies like Jaws.

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Don’t watch that when you’re a child.

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But my second annoyance with swimming when sharks are not around

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is water up my nose.

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Oh my gosh, how dreadful is it when you have a bunch of water go up your nose?

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This is why I avoided learning how to do that somersault off the wall.

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I finally mastered it when I was a teen.

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I don’t know if I could do it anymore because it’s been many, many a day since the last time

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that I did one of those spins off the walls.

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But yeah, I avoided it because of water up the nose.

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It burns.

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It’s just, oh, hate it.

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Next up with my pet peeves is when you do something like Zumba or an aerobics class, those kind of

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choreographed dancing classes, not dance class, but like the dance as a workout.

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Why do they, it’s not dance class.

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I know I said dance class, but it’s not dance class.

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Zumba is not dance class.

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It is just cardio.

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for people who are not dancers.

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In theory, so why are the moves so complicated?

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And when you do it at home, why do your cats try to run between your feet?

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Like, is this the way that, will this be your last Zumba class?

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Potentially, if you have cats, beware, because they might be trying to get you.

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I sometimes think that mine are definitely out to get me when I’m doing these classes.

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And they’re like, this is it.

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This is how we’re going to sneakily get rid of Vickie.

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So yeah, I don’t know why the moves are so complicated.

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And because they’re reversed, sometimes it’s impossible to know, am I moving the right?

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Am I moving the left?

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Oh my gosh.

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Yeah, I just do my own thing.

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which is why I love doing the Zumba class in the privacy of my own home when I’m not getting tripped by my cats, of course.

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Lastly, we have what you have probably come to know if you’ve listened to other recordings that I’ve done, that walking is my favorite workout these days.

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And my

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big pet peeve with walking is bugs.

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I don’t like flies in the like kind of summer, fall period.

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I don’t like the mosquitoes.

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Oh, mosquitoes are the worst.

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And then there’s like these little chiggers or I’m not sure exactly what kind of

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It’s not a gnat, but they just eat up the bottom half of your leg.

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So they must be something that are close to the ground, I imagine.

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But when I don’t spray some kind of repellent before I go for my walks, I can’t sleep at night because my legs are all itchy and covered with bug bites.

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So bugs are the absolute worst, especially in the summertime.

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And those are my top pet peeves to complain about.

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I hope you enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed complaining about them.

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And I want to know what your workout pet peeves are.

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Let’s see if we have anything in common.

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Or maybe you want to call me out on some of my pet peeves.

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I’m here for it.

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We can agree to disagree.

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I can’t wait to find out what you have to share.

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Remember, you can always find more listening practice at vickiekelty.com.

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That’s all from me.