"Phil & Zoe's Cinderella Story" is the fifteenth mission of The Home Front.
There's nothing Grimm about these exercises! Phil and Zoe give a classic a twist.
Exercises[]
Cast[]
Scenes[]
Horse Mice
You're locked into Phil on Radio Lock-In! Grab a yoga mat or a big towel for this one and start your warm with some dancing or stretching. Phil and Zoe have come up with a workout with a Cinderella twist!
Glass Slippers
Cinderella has been told she can't go to the ball, but luckily you're here to be fairy godmother - distributing fairy dust with Uppercuts! Feet shoulder-width apart, dominant foot at the back, knees slightly bent, fists up. Then rotate your body into the side facing forward and swing upwards with your back fist. Switch sides halfway through.
Imaginary Canapés
Cinderella arrives at the ball! But some ball-goers are bored and doing Wall Sits. Join them! Stand with your back facing a wall and lean back until your back touches it. Position your feet shoulder-width apart and a step-distance away from the wall. Then slide your back down the wall until your thighs and calves make a 90 degree angle. Your back, head and backside should all be touching the wall. Stay there for a minute then shake it out!
Homeward Bound
Cinderella is dancing tango with the prince and the clock strikes midnight! Time to make a run for it with some High-knees! Run in place as fast as you can bringing your knees right up. Cinderella makes it to the carriage and home, leaving only her glass slipper behind.
It Fits!
It's the next day and the prince is trying to track down Cinderella using her glass slipper! We're doing Knee Folds. Lie on your back, bend your knees and place the soles of your feet on the floor. Then lift one leg with the knee bent until your hip forms a 90 degree angle. At the same time, extend the other leg so it's parallel with the floor but not touching it. Then carefully switch legs. Concentrate on your form. Have a break after a minute then do some stretches to cool down.
Love and Zombies
And then they all lived happily ever after! Because fairytales are so simple you can make them your own. Retelling a classic story is comforting too - these stories have lasted us through hundreds of years through all kinds of difficulties.
Transcript[]
PHIL CHEESEMAN: Hello, ci-ti-zens, and welcome back to Radio Lock-In. I know last time it was Radio Phil, but since Zoe’s contributing via ROFFLEnet from the kennel where she’s riding out the zombie horde, this felt a bit more apt. Also less likely to end in my having to fend off an attack by a pack of trained murder cats. Not that that’s something I worry about late at night or anything. [laughs]
Anyway, it’s time to start your warm-ups. Running on the spot, bit of stretching, whatever floats your boat. Oh, um, and uh, grab a yoga mat or um, large towel. You’re going to be needing them. Because today, Radio Lock-In has a special treat: your very own Phil and Zoe-style fairy tale, with music breaks, Ministry workouts, and a few minor updates to one of Ye Olde classic tales.
Uh, why fairy tales, you may ask? Well, obviously Zoe’s a fan, what with all the talking cartoon animals in the Disney versions. But um, I just find them comforting. Have done since I was a kid. They’re simple. Good wins, evil is vanquished, love is eternal, and magic is real. Well, I don’t know about you, but all that sounds really good right now.
So without further ado, drum roll please! [taps hands rapidly on knees and makes a cymbal crash sound with his mouth] Cinderella! Or as Zoe calls it, the one with the posh outfits and the horse mice and in need of a rewrite from someone who has a better sense of women’s shoe sizes.
But before we get to that, we’ll start our story the way Cinderella starts hers: cleaning while wishing she was at a ball. Grab the nearest household item you can find and dance away while I play an appropriately jaunty tune. Ready? Dance!
PHIL CHEESEMAN: Wonderful! Now to catch you up, as our tale opens, everyone’s looking forward to a lavish royal ball in the kingdom of… whatever it’s called. But Cinderella can’t go. Instead of dancing, her stepmother forces her to constantly tidy up.
I’ll be honest, this sounds a lot like what I did as an excuse to get out of school discos. Well, at least until I learned a few slick dance moves from Daniel “Snake Leg” Simons. And uh, no, Zoe, I will not be showing you the patented Simons kick and slither. Luckily, Cinderella has her own snake legs: a fairy godmother who will whisk her away to the ball with some special fairy dust magic.
We’ll be helping the fairy godmother out by distributing magic dust of our own with a few uppercuts! Get into a magic stance. Boxing stance, really, but we’re in a story here. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, your knees slightly bent, fists up as if you’re holding tight to a handful of fairy dust. Now you’re ready for your magic uppercut. Rotate your body towards the arm in front and punch upwards with your back fist. Magic! Now rotate back to your starting position and you’re ready for your next uppercut of magic.
I’d say it’ll take about one minute to get Cinderella ready for the ball, so get to uppercutting. Start now. 15 seconds in. The dirty rags have transformed into a dress. Halfway there. The old pumpkin has become a magic carriage. Switch legs so that your other one is in front and keep the magic coming. Only 15 seconds left to go. The mice are horses now! All she needs are magic shoes! Let’s turn those everyday shoes into glass slippers.
All done! Time to admire your handiwork. Feel free to keep doing magic uppercuts during this song or just twirl around as you do your own imaginary transformation.
PHIL CHEESEMAN: Now fully transformed, Cinderella heads to the ball, which I’d call a glamorous spectacle of light and gold and at least four different types of hors-doeuvres, but Zoe considers to be probably pretty boring, what with all the ball gowns and lack of a proper DJ.
Yeah, I’m fairly sure our Zoe always spent a lot of her youth in roller discos and is probably holding our imaginary ball to unreasonably high standards. But in honor of her anti-ball sentiments, we’ll do some wall sits, just like the bored ball-goers.
For this, you’ll need a wall that you can stand in front of. Stand with your back to the wall and lean back until your back is pressed against it, but you’re still standing upright. Adjust your feet so that they’re shoulder-width apart and about a step in front of the wall, then slide your back down the wall until your thighs and calves make 90 degree angles with your back, head, and backside still against the wall.
We’re gonna stay like that for 60 seconds, if we can, starting now. 15 seconds in. Why Zolinda, so lovely to see you here this evening. Halfway done. I know, such a boring ball. I’m too tired to even eat these delicious cheese canapes. Just 15 seconds to go. At least the prince is looking well. Maybe he’ll meet his bride tonight, who decides to turn to a parliamentary system of rule! And done.
Stand back up and shake out those legs. A mysterious stranger has just entered the ballroom. Spoiler, it’s Cinderella. All right, Cinderellas, I’ll play an entrance song and you can do your best glass slippered red carpet walk, or another round of wall sits if you’d like. I’m gonna have some of those imaginary canapes. They imaginary sound imaginary delicious.
PHIL CHEESEMAN: And we’re back. Just in time. Cinderella is now in the middle of an exciting tango with the prince, who wants to know more about her. Uh, naturally, per Zoe, they take the opportunity to have an in-depth conversation about ruling a kingdom in a way that allows for the voice of the people to be heard, gender equality, and whether avocado is a fruit, all while dipping and sashaying.
But uh, just as Cinderella is coming up with the excellent idea to test avocados’ fruitiness by putting it on toast, the clock begins to strike midnight. [a bell chimes twice] Once it hits 12 AM, all of that fairy magic will disappear, so Cinderella has to make a run for it.
That means it’s time for high knees. Run in place, bringing your knees up with each step as if you’re running back to your carriage before the clock strikes midnight. Let’s go, starting now. 15 seconds in. You’ve made it out the front door of the palace, expertly dodging the guards. Halfway there. Uh, you’re at the top of the longest flight of stairs ever. Head to the bottom. Only 15 seconds left to go. You’ve made it down the stairs, leaving a glass slipper behind in the process. That’s okay, your carriage is just ahead. Made it! Now it’s time to head home and pretend you’ve been cleaning all night. Practice looking casual yet hard-working during this next song.
PHIL CHEESEMAN: We’re almost to the end of our tale. It’s the next day and no one suspects that Cinderella was the previous evening’s it girl, the talk of the town, the belle of the, well, ball. The prince, who Zoe notes foolishly left his glasses off while dancing and therefore couldn’t see the face of the woman he fell for, is searching for her by trying to fit the glass slipper on everyone he sees. Uh, according to Zoe, that is only the fifth worst way to pick a potential mate, but she says she will not reveal one through four except to say that one of them involves lime jelly and exactly 16 eels.
And with that somewhat discomforting thought, let’s help our prince out with some knee folds. They’re just like lifting your foot for a shoe fitting. More or less, anyway. Start by lying down on your back. Grab your yoga mat or towel to put underneath you so you’ve got something comfortable to lie on. Now bring your knees up so that they’re bent and the soles of your feet are flat on the floor and your toes are pointing straight forward. Your arms should be by your sides, your shoulders relaxed and chest open. [sighs] Relaxing right?
Now as you inhale, use your abdominal muscles to lift your right leg off the floor while keeping your hips against the ground. Keep your knees bent and lift your leg until your thigh is at a 90 degrees angle from your body and your lower leg is parallel with the floor. They call this table position because, well, it looks like your lower legs are the top of a table. Now exhale as you lower your leg back down to the floor. Now do the same with your left leg, and continue alternating for the next minute.
Go! These aren’t meant to be fast kicks. Keep the movement slow and controlled. Imagine someone trying endless shoes on your feet. 15 seconds in, but all the feet that the glass slipper has been tried on are too wide! Keep going. Halfway through, and now the feet are too narrow! Aw. 15 seconds of feet left to try. You’re almost there. Done. That’s it, that’s the one. You’ve found Cinderella! And now you deserve a break. Shoe fitting and storytelling are both hard work. I’ll put on a nice cooldown song so you can stretch out your muscles from all that fairy taling.
PHIL CHEESEMAN: And that’s the story of a very active Cinderella. Fun! I almost forgot we were exercising. And Zoe says it went off more or less without a hitch, even if I did leave off a detailed epilogue about Cinderella teaming up with the fairy godmother to create a magical haute couture fashion line. Uh, she says half the fun of fairy tales is that they’re so simple that you get to add your own spin to it, make the story your own. Works for me, as long as we still get to throw in a happily ever after. I miss those.
Anyway, let us know on ROFFLEnet if you like fairy tales as much as we do and we’ll put our heads together to come up with another. Maybe… Rapunzel. [laughs] I definitely feel like I can relate to someone who spends half her life trapped in a tower and is rapidly growing a very distressing amount of hair. Whatever we do pick and however we remix it, I have to say, there’s still something comforting about retelling a classic. These stories have lasted hundreds of years, through war and disease and love and zombies, and if they can keep going, so can we.
Codex[]
Letter[]
Hello Runner Five,
Thanks for tuning in today! I hope you didn’t mind the new format - Zoe and I have been trying to figure out ways of keeping these workouts entertaining for both our listeners and ourselves, and I’ve always had a soft spot for the classics. Putting that new spin on Cinderella made me wonder how these old stories might change after everything that’s happened. I know fairytales have evolved a lot since their inception, but it’s interesting to imagine how something like the zombie apocalypse might change them even more. Cinderella and Rapunzel might sound very different a hundred years from now, and be drawn to very different heroes. I imagine they’ll look less like knights in shining armour, or Prince Charmings, and... more like the people we know now. People who try their best to take care of each other, who work hard to make life better for their community. People who look out for the most vulnerable among us. That’s what I imagine, anyway. How about you, Runner Five? What sorts of stories do you think we might tell?
Phil
Supplies[]
The following supplies can be found in this mission.
(List may be incomplete.)
Board game
Candles
Cricket bat
Dress
Flashlight
Football
Makeup
Mobile Phone
Overcoat
Shirt
Shorts
Sports Bra
Trainers
Underwear
Whisky
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