Joanna Soh, the Mood Goddess
By: Tooth Truth Roopa Vikesh
Tags: Health, Diversity, Fitness, Parenting, Nonfiction

Joanna Soh, the Mood Goddess

Thank God for YouTube’s barefoot recommendations

Photo from the walking 3 km workout by Joanna Soh on YouTube.

Walking is one of the most underrated exercises. Trainers like Leslie Sansone, Jessica Smith and Joanna Soh use arm and leg movements to change our moods, close the step goal and change our bodies.

I haven’t had a great week at home. Still, I knew from experience that working out to a basic walking workout would fix this. The experience with this bright trainer was so great, I went from blah to glowing. One of her workouts is done entirely on a chair, along with her mother.

Photo from the walking 3 km workout by Joanna Soh on YouTube.

Googling a barefoot sunset walk led me to this

I was too lazy to even put my shoes on, so I looked for Jessica Smith’s barefoot sunset walk on YouTube, which I have done before and love, but this young Malaysian trainer came up instead with her 3km walking workout.

She’s so young I was afraid she might be underage. Joanna Soh is actually 31, but looks seventeen.

Photo from the walking 3 km workout by Joanna Soh on YouTube.

She hits the ground running. I mean, marching.

Her workout starts with a smiling march, even as she lists out the moves we’ll be doing in the next 15 minutes.

The steps are challenging enough, and easy enough. I was able to complete 3500 steps during the workout.

Photo from the walking 3 km workout by Joanna Soh on YouTube.

Each move lasts forty seconds, followed by twenty minutes to rest or transition into the next move. If you just look at her instead of looking at the clock, you can merrily coast along on her energy to finish the workout.

Do one circuit or both. I’m kidding, do both. It is 39 minutes!

The workout is done in two circuits, in which there is nary a squat or a lunge. I simply hate doing squats and lunges all days of the week, so this workout suited me well. In the second circuit, you can either amp it up with her or stay slow, using the slower and also tougher movements.

I found that a slow knee raise is tougher than a quick one, where you’re using momentum to bounce up the knee. Similarly, if you let the knee drop to gravity, you’re allowing gravity to do your job for you, when your purpose is to fight gravity, and thereby aging!

Photo of Joanna Soh and her mother in the seated workout by Joanna Soh on YouTube.

Bad day? The next day was worse, but I foraged for another workout by the peppy girl and found this

Her mother joins her in a workout I did the next day, when I was feeling literally too low to get out of a chair. I pulled up a chair and did this workout.

It is seated, not easy! Photo from the seated workout by Joanna Soh on YouTube.

Yes it is seated, but it isn’t easy-peasy

The workout wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be, but neither was it too challenging to finish.

Some of the moves were too tough to do, like when she asks you to pull both knees to your chest, you need to have abs good enough to be able to do that! So in reality the standing workout is easier than the sitting workout, even though the seated workout progressed my step goal by 500 in half an hour.

Photo of workout list from the seated workout by Joanna Soh on YouTube.

Workout lists for the fearful

The list helps look at what’s coming up, but doesn’t stay on long enough for you to worry about it.

You need dumbbells for the seated workout by Joanna Soh on YouTube.

Tough enough, but not too tough, and 4 million views

I’ve seen 2013 workouts by this trainer, and she’s gone from tougher to easier. She’s learnt that easier workouts get done oftener, and that is what changes the mood.

Giving up half-way through a workout, or pausing over and over again while your heartbeat slows down, is no fun. These workouts are just tough enough, and the small changes in her accent, like how she pronounces “continuously” – somehow she stuffs in an extra “u” sound there! – made me love her.

Her post-workout stretches are very relaxing. She seems to be relaxing herself as well, and the feeling that she needs to let go of some thoughts is a nice one, because what could this pretty lady have to worry about, eh?

Got WiFi? Do your Workout

With YouTube available, the only ordinary reason you shouldn’t do these workouts is — if you don’t have WiFi!