There's A Boot Camp In Brookdale Park

What? Did you say Bootie Camp?

Hey mets2008, no need to drive to Wayne anymore. Rise and shine!

Do they also hike out to the rifle range daily, and then, provided everybody qualifies that day, ride back?

Really, wouldn't it make a bit more sense to, say, join a local Reserve unit? We are paying for the lack of universal military service, I tell you, we are paying.

Do they walk with the Nordic sticks?

Hey Liz, are you shaking your booty in that picture? Or are you one of the late risers who shuffle down to the kitchen in your bunny slippers round about 11 am?

It also now occurs to me, if it in fact legal to run a private for-profit enterprise like this one in a public park?

The basic training I recall ("boot camp" being by and large a term properly reserved to the USMC), of course, ran 24-7 for about 12 weeks (and was followed straightaway by the even more wonderful experience known as AIT, thence foreign, often hostile shores). Why do I suspect that Michael Smith himself has never served in the armed forces? There is boot camp and then there is boot camp, after all.

I'm more impressed by the same 15 to 20 fitness geeks I see lined up at the entrance to the Montclair YMCA @ 4:55 AM.

Dedicated lot they are!

I know a few people who have done the boot camp at brookdale. They all say it is amazing, and is really a great workout. Everyone says the best part by far is the obstacle course

cathy, the boot camp people aren't using Brookdale Park as their office. Nothing on the Essex County Parks website addresses your concern about business. There is a permit schedule listed. The boot campers could be paying said fees. If you're the hard-boiled journalist that you pretend to be, mayhaps you should investigate this story angle further, ma'am.

Spots, how kind of you to reply. And in the daylight again. I can only assume that your pellagra is safely under control.

But old-fashioned me is simply curious as to how a for-profit private enterprise can use a public facility in the fashion described above. I'm sorry if this concept proved too much for you. But then, spot, you're far more likely to have attended obedience camp as opposed to boot camp in your own life, I'n guessing.

Ashley's Soccer camp, private tennis lessons--for-profit enterprises that have long used the park.

i'll hold out for coffee camp. 1-2-3 sip. open left eye...

How dare they use my park without telling me first. Signed Joe D.

Snark away but this camp and Michael W. are amazing and for all these women (commuters, full time working mothers--sometimes both of those things--full time stay at home mothers) this 5:30 a.m. time is the only way to fit in fitness.

Surely a hefty hangover is a good excuse.

I might actually do this! Thanks for posting it.

Strange how everyone in the picture is wearing black bottoms except the one lady in white spandex pants.

I needn't pay for someone to yell at me. My family does it for free. Never really understood the concept of exercise "boot camp", and quite frankly, exercise classes evoke the "5th grader in the library" giggles in me. Don't know why. Perhaps it is the collective suspension of any recognition that what we are doing looks downright goofy.

Indeed, I am one of those "gym geeks" - there at 5am M-Sat. However, my gym of choice is Platinum Fitness in Verona.

I haven't posted in a while, but I'm coming off the bench to say that I heartily agree with Catheter.

We certianly are "paying" for our "lack" of "universal" military service. We just don't have enough Marines to hand out gospel verses to unsuspecting Iraqis-- that's no way to run a crusade, er, I mean,fight a war. And we don't have enough troops to invade Iran, either! I'm not usually one for self-fulfilling prophecies, but come on. Jesus is going to be back any day now, and we just can't seem to do our part to advance the Apocalypse.

Hell yes, let's mobilize everyone. Those guys in the caves must be getting lonely, and we can't leave them sitting by the pool in Dubai, I mean up in the mountains, by themselves forever.

I think every terrorist sympathizer, I mean liberal, should get on board with UMS (Universal Military Service) because then we will all have healthcare (that is if you don't drop dead while waiting in line outside the VA)!

I have an ever better idea. Rather than bring as many people as possible into the military, why not just bring the military to us. Yeah, that's the ticket! We can pass out jack boots and armor to the local cops, send out the SWAT team over every lost briefcase and graffitoed desk, set up fenced-in "free speech" zones at political conventions, lock away more adults per capita than any other "free" society, taser the shit out of anyone who dares raise their voice, have a television channel devoted to the prowess and infalibility of said military and-- what's that? We already have all these things? Well, shoot I guess there is no such thing as an original idea. Maybe Catherter is right about me...

I almost forgot. Let's inject military terminology and slang into as many aspects of our daily lives as possible to acclimate ourselves to living in a Universal Military Society. We can start with using the term "boot camp" to describe everything from extreme beauty make-over shows, to private prisons for juveniles, to exercise classes for people with closets full of balck leather and riding crops at home. What? We're already doing that too? Damn.

You go, Guido.

I have taken this particular boot camp a few times and although the website portrays the instructor as a drill seargent, the class simply isn't that way. Mike is a great motivator and he does so in a positive, sometimes humerous, way. Perhaps you should take a class before you judge and make assumptions? Oh wait, this is baristanet.

There's a group of people that trot through Watsessing Park this time of year chanting militaristic sounding singy/song stuff. They all wear the same outfits and look reasonably fit.

They are a bit noisey, and have a somewhat startling effect when heard from a distance.