For three days (THREE FULL
DAYS), a dozen of us occupied the big group fitmess studio at the Reh-fit and
were put through our paces by a deceptively nice BTS trainer, who came all the
way from Massachusetts and had exactly 72 hours to whip us into shape
(literally).
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| Our trainer, Laura |
It was probably one of the hardest and funnest things that I have ever done. I am used to taking the Group Power class twice a week and on Friday alone, I did it 3 full times *plus* coaching exercises. In a nutshell, here’s how the weekend played out:
Friday: Of the 16 people
signed up for the class, I knew (or at least recognized) about half. I was
mostly excited to see my fave spin instructor, KK, amongst the faces in the
room. I’m used to her kicking my ass in the mornings, so I knew that I could
count on her to keep me going when the going got tough. (Or at least be there
to gossip with me at lunch.)
After a full day (12 – 8:30)
of lifting, learning and listening, we had homework: learn a whole track to
teach to the class first thing on Saturday. I was given “shoulders” and spent
about 2 hours working on it in the living room, between wolfing down dinner and
hitting the sack. Unfortunately (or not), the mascot didn’t want to learn it
with me and left me to it.
Saturday: We started right at
9am with a nerve-addled run-through. Nerve_addled because not only were we
teaching, but we were being videotaped for review. Gah! I think I did ok,
considering that I had never taught a fitness class EVER, but after seeing
myself on the tape, I knew that I had a lot to work on. Of course, there was
plenty of time for that later because we were going to be taped AGAIN later in
the day.
The rest of the day went
well… lots of book-learnin’ and technique practice. Again, we ran through the
whole class 3 times (or, roughly what I would do in 1.5 weeks). The group was
really beginning to get to know each other, though, and that provided all sorts
of fodder for KK and I. Like I said, it was hard, but it was fun. ;-) Before we
went home, we did another group-taught class and video review. We were all
relieved to see big improvements all-around.
I had a little dinner party
to go to in the evening, which gave me a nice break, but I had another song to
learn for Sunday morning, so I was right back at it on the way home.
(Interesting fact: it takes exactly 2.5 “Jessie’s Girl”s to drive from River
Park South to my house.) Thankfully, Saturday’s homework went much faster than
Friday’s and I went to bed with a much clearer mind.
Sunday: When they said
“bright and early”, they meant it. We started at 7:30am and got right to it. We
did another full run-through and video review and then spent the rest of the
morning and early afternoon doing both book work and technique “refinement”.
Our instructor had to be out of the facility by 3pm, so we had to cram a lot of
info into a very short day. There were a few things that we ran though quickly
because, god forbid, we should miss the chance to do “team training”.
For the uninitiated, team
training is training (with me so far?) that is done in (you know it) teams of
two. It started with a 12 minute run or walk (I ran), followed by lifting
super-duper heavy weights in 12 minute sets, each team alternating between
“doer” and “spotter”. We did chest press, dead rows, clean & press, lunges,
bicep curls and tricep extensions. With the exception of the very last few
curls and extensions, I think I personal-bested just about everything. By that
time, though, I was congratulating myself for still being alive and I cut
myself some slack. But just a little.
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| My GPeeps - Reh-fit Centre - Nov 6, 2011 |
My attitude throughout the entire weekend was less “let’s get this over with” and more “let’s do this!” I knew that it would be hard work, so I showed up to work hard. There were a few people in my group who seemed to be surprised at how much we had to do, but I think that by the end of the three days we were all on the same page. Now all we have to do is practice, practice, practice and teach as much as possible to get ready for our certification videos. I’ll be interested to see how many of us take it all the way to the end. I’ll be back with updates as they happen…
...and
funny that my last post was about cake and this one is about working out. ;-)
