Wonderush – Say no to FOMO bloggers day

I was lucky enough to be invited via the lovely #ldntheatre bloggers to the Wonderush bloggers day. Wonderush is a monthly subscription site (currently £29) that gives their members access to classes and experiences across London. What sets it apart from other subscription sites such as class pass is the sheer variety of classes/experience it offers. Looking at Saturday for example I could attend Chessboxing, an East End Tour, numerous types of Yoga (more about that later), a harmonica lesson, belly dancing, a street game, insanity class and several types of martial arts. Other days include Zumba, pole dancing, Tango, a pub crawl, singing, film festivals, african drumming… you get the idea!! I’m also guessing if you have found your way to my blog there is a high possibility you like theatre and yes Wonderush cater for theatre lovers- hence my invite to the event.

You can book up to 7 days in advance and within each month members are able to try as many classes/experiences on Wonderush as they want. You can however only book each activity only once per month (which is only fair – any more and you may as well sign up for just that class which isn’t the idea of the site).

This encourages you to try out as many different types of classes and experiences so their tag line – #SayNotToFOMO is perfect.

Wonderush Bloggers Day

Welcome to #saynotoFOMO

The Wonderush bloggers day was to give us just a little taste of the type of the classes you can attend as a member of Wonderush.

The day started with breakfast – croissants and muffins at the same time as getting to know my fellow bloggers. It makes me laugh at events like this how it’s one of the few places where it is socially acceptable to sit on social media whilst talking to others. I have never seen such a photographed plate of croissants & muffins!! (See right for my contribution)
We were then welcomed by one of the founders of Wonderush and thoroughly nice guy who told us about the company (in front of a rather funky wall). We were then whisked to salsa.

Salsa teacher selfie

I rather enjoy dancing and although I’m far from professional I’ve danced in a fair few am dram shows. I also always enjoy dance classes and this was no exception. We learnt a few basic steps and then we were partnered up. As all of us bloggers were girls (male bloggers where are you??) as always, us taller girls took the role of leader i.e. the man!! That being said I was used to demo with the teacher – at which point I could reclaim my femininity. The teacher cracked out some corking one liners such as “You can’t be sexy if you go too fast,” or “If you don’t like the man you are dancing with look over his head.”

My attempts!!

Next up was life drawing run by Life Drawing Society. I have not done art since school (far too many years ago) but my grandad was an artist so I was hoping that some of the artistic blood ran in my veins. Unfortunately it was not to be!! We were given 3 different poses each of which we had to sketch for increasing lengths of time and for the latter 2 we were given charcoal to use in addition to pencil. Our instructor advised us big lines were the way forward but I found it quite difficult to grasp (as you can see from the photos).

How life drawing should look v’s my reality

The model they used also gave a burlesque show which added an extra element to the class that I didn’t expect. Despite me being no Van Gough I did really enjoy the class, I found it really relaxing as focusing on the model and the piece of paper in front of me helped me block out other thoughts. This is something I would recommend trying if you are stressed no matter how hidden your artistic talents are.

Grubs Up

All this dancing and drawing is hungry work. Our delicious lunch was provided by Kothu Kothu which is Sri Lankan street food. Kothu Kothu means chop chop and we watched the chef do just that in preparing our lunch. I had a chicken kothu which was yummy and very filling.

We were also given the opportunity to grab some photos that had been printed out with their nifty instagram/twitter printer that printed out photos tagged with #saynotofomo….. how clever is that!

More Saying No to FOMO

Off we went to ukulele class which was run by a company called Antidote. I spend spare time singing in shows so I was hoping that this was of some use. The first thing that struck me is how cute the instrument is – all black, shiny and tiny…our teacher even has a pink ukuele. We are given 2 songs to play – first up is ‘I’m Yours,’ which is a song I love, followed by ‘All About The Bass’ which sounded like it was written to be played on the ukulele. It started off well until we got to a tricky chord but practice makes perfect!!! It is probably not something I would try again but some of the other girls loved it saying they want to buy one!

Next up was Yoga run by Creative Yoga. Although I would not bestow upon myself the title of yoga bunny I have done yoga a few times but never like this. They explained that they have a range of classes (some of which are on Wonderush) including ‘social yoga’ ‘yoga raves (!!) and ‘dynamic yoga.’ The class that they ran for Wonderush was a mix between the social yoga with partner work and breaking down barriers by getting us talking to other class members and the dynamic yoga with more focus on your traditional moves like your downward dog and planks. It was good fun and nice to do yoga with a bit of a twist although it was the first yoga class I’ve been to where we had phones by our mats – us bloggers really can’t switch off!!

Regressing to Childhood with Wonderush.

Last on the agenda was some games, once again with Antidote and their clown ‘Loose.’ We playing a variety of games from clapping games to traditional childhood games. I must add that slow and steady won the race for me in grandmothers footsteps!!

The day ended, as with many bloggers events, with a well deserved glass of wine!! Not only had I had a great time but I had met a lovely group of bloggers with a variety of blog focus!!

If these classes and many more appeal to you then I would recommend you check out Wonderush. I have a fab offer for my readers and if you quote the code MUSICAL upon signing up you get the first month for £1 only!! What have you got to loose for £1!!!!

I’m sure I’m going to be checking out many of their offerings so watch this space for more thoughts on their classes. Thanks to all at Wonderush for a thoroughly enjoyable day and also thanks to the the lovely Theatrebloggers for extending the invite to me.