By day, law Professor Kragnes is in the classroom going over convicts’ law and defending people at the Supreme Court level. By night, she teaches kickboxing to BPM, beats per minute, music. 

Professor Kragnes is the newest addition to the Colorado Mesa University (CMU) criminal justice family. Two years ago she was living in her home state of Iowa when the job opportunity to work at CMU came up. 

Kragnes said when she applied,  “[It] sounded kind of cool and then when the plane landed, I went, ‘Yep, I’m home.’” 

While not in the classroom Kragnes is a licensed attorney in the state of Iowa for exclusively class A murder trials and jury trials in the summer while school’s out. But in the fall she heads back to Grand Junction to teach the courts and other legal-related classes in the criminal justice department. 

Before becoming a teacher here at CMU, Professor Kragnes was a powerlifter competitor for many years. 

She even “still holds some of the state records in Iowa, and two different Federation records.” 

The kickboxing class is in the CMU Hamilton Recreation Center every Tuesday in the evenings and Thursday at the crack of dawn. Kragnes also teaches a spin class off campus. 

The class starts with an intense warm-up to some tech/pop music with a fast BPM. It’s common in high intensity workouts to have accompanying music that’s fast paced to get the heart pumping. 

The warm up lasts for ten minutes and has the shadow forms of each move from upper cut to left hook, to practice the correct forms and movements before putting on the boxing gloves. 

After warming up the class moves on to punching bags in pairs with the gloves by doing reps of left and right hooks and an uppercut with each side arm and leg leading the way. The class also practices their uppercuts and high to low kicks on the punching bag for at least 15 minutes.

After class two of the class’s students had some insight into why they took the kick boxing class. 

After hearing about the class from their roommate, friends Kalyn Ohlrich, junior in pre-med biology, and Claire Wilson, junior nursing major,  joined the class last Thursday, loved the energy and came back again for the next class. 

“Especially as a nursing major riding my bike across campus, I feel a little more protected with some strength and know-how to defend myself,” said the nursing major. 

Ohlrich had to add that she’s “taken a self defense class, but I feel like I don’t practice self defense, so just kind of like, hey, if I get in a fight with somebody, I know what to do.”

When asked how the environments differ from classroom to gym, the professor had one answer, “Environment, it’s just a different– I don’t wanna say a different motivation, but it’s a different focus… In the classroom, over talking about academics, there are things that I can get very excited about. But here, you know, it’s just different. I don’t know if it’s a different vibe to challenge yourself and make yourself or help yourself get healthier.”

So come on down to the Hamilton Recreation Center at 6:15pm on Tuesdays and 6:15am on Thursday mornings to learn self defense with a champion in and out of the classroom.