Posts from — August 2007

A whole lot of good can come from being over-prepared.  You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t posted a new Spinning profile for a while…  has it been months?  The explanation is because I haven’t needed to make a new one.  August and September are typically two of the busiest months for me due to travel and back to school schedule changes.  This year, I got it together early.  Starting in May I started creating a backup collection of rides that worked and I made a new profile nearly every class (2-3/week).  I hoarded them.  I experimented with Cadence Revolution.  I joined pedal-on.com and found a plethora of great ideas.  I participated in a CD Tree and obtained 10 CDs of new profiles and options….  Long story short is that after two months of hard work to build up a collection of 20 excellent rides, I can sit back and repeat to my hearts content.  My classes won’t hear the same song for close to three months if I play it right.  So now that things are hectic, I don’t have to stress about putting a ride together late at night in a panic.  It is working out so well, that I am going to adopt this process when these rides get worn out and it is time for new ones. 

Since it worked so well for me, I want to share it with you, on the off chance that you are not remarkably organized, as I typically am not.  Here are some guidelines to building up your library:

1. Pick unusual music that your students aren’t already sick of.  When creating a new ride, try to choose timeless songs that will not seem annoying when played back 6 months from now.  You don’t have to exclude Top 40 hits from your playlists, but try to pick the popular songs that aren’t played every ten minutes on the radio. (Hint:  If you have ever heard it on one radio station, switched stations and heard it there too, do not put it on your list).  This is why many instructors rely so heavily on electronica, tribal, world, etc styles of music.  If your students haven’t heard it, there is less for them to complain about!

2.  Two for the price of one.  When I create a new ride, I typically end up with more songs than I can use at one time, or I find myself torn between two or more songs for the same segment of class.  Instead of making one ride at a time, create two.  You can even use the same profile and just create two rides for it with different music.  Your class will probably never even notice.  You can save a lot of time just by getting the maximum number of profiles out of that time you’ve carved out to think specifically about music and riding.  The time saved just from overcoming creative inertia more than once is incredible for me!

 3.  Borrow profiles and music when you can.  As mentioned earlier, I love the pedal-on community and I am getting a lot of mileage from Cadence Revolution.  The best part about using music from Cadence Revolution is that the uniqueness of the songs allows them to be played more frequently with less noticeability.  Take advantage of CD-swapping arrangements with folks from your club, or from pedal on, or wherever you can find them.

4.  Keep track of what you played and where.  I keep a note on the liners of my profiles about where and when it was used so that I cut down on repeating too soon or frequently.  I don’t want to accidentally bore a single class by overplaying a CD that happens to get rotated into their time slot over and over.

I look back and see that this is all pretty common sense stuff.  And yet, I sense that there must be more people like the me I was before this summer.  I used to procrastinate, then scramble at the last minute to pull a ride together.  The beauty of organization is definitely being able to sit back after all the work is done and simply reap the benefits!

I am a strong believer in the idea that to keep improving as a teacher you must constantly seek out opportunities to be a student.  I find that the most cost-effective way to pick up new ideas and see first-hand the “how-not-tos” of our profession is to take group fitness classes.  Recently, I attended a “Pilates” class that got me thinking about how honest we are when we name and describe our classes.

What’s your name?

First off, think about the classes that you teach or take.  Have you checked out your gym’s schedule to read the description of what they are telling people to expect in your class?  If a substitute came in to teach the class for you based solely on the description, what are the chances it would turn out similar to the class you teach?

Now before you get all excited and tell me that you have to give wildly interesting names and descriptions so that members will want to try your classes, know that I understand that side of group fitness.  There is some marketing and advertising that has to go into the development of the class description to attract folks to try them.  But are you being honest when you craft that message? 

For instance, that Pilates class I mentioned….  On the schedule it said, “PILATES – A mat class of movements designed to stretch, strengthen, and balance the body.”  That sounded pretty standard, based on all that I have known about Pilates since I started practicing in 2001 and teaching in 2005.  However, the class that I took was not a Pilates class at all!  At best, it was a sculpting class which incorporated the stability ball and balance exercises for more of a functional fitness workout.  Now, I can make excuses for the teacher and forgive her for things like being tasked with filling in this time slot with the best she could do on short notice, or for evolving her class away from traditional mat exercises to using small apparatus for a little more interesting workout.  But there was nothing even remotely resembling the Pilates created by Mr. Joseph Pilates 100 years ago to be found in this class!  So I had to wonder….  Why were they calling this class “Pilates” when it so obviously wasn’t?  Was it because of the brand value of a name like Pilates?  Was it just an oversight that had never been corrected?  No.  A short discussion with the teacher revealed that she was a personal trainer with certifications in functional fitness and that “Pilates” was a class meant to train your core, which she had done.

Hmmm….

I’m not here to bash that teacher or to exculpate her.   I am certain she had no malicious intent nor was she out to dupe her students.  I simply want to use this story as an example of why honesty is just better.  Not only so that we help our members choose the classes that are appropriate and interesting to them, but so we don’t inadvertently lie to them.  The better job we do explaining what to expect, the more they will trust us and want to be in our classes.

There are many other examples of where we go wrong in our descriptions:  Making a sculpting class sound like a pure cardio class because of the cardio effect weight lifting can have when done with little rest; promising a gentle or a beginner’s class, but then getting carried away with our need to push and prod our students; or, using a licensed, proprietary name for a class when the instructor is not certified to teach it, such as Spinning© or Tae Bo©.  Even if our intentions are good, we should make the effort to deliver what we have promised.  If you still aren’t convinced, take this simple analogy:  How unhappy would you be if you bought a Timbaland CD but a U2 disc was in the jewel case? U2 is arguably a decent band with some good music, but is it what you ordered? 

What’s the Solution?

The easiest way to know if you are being honest about what you teach is to read the schedule and ask yourself if it fits.  If there is even the slightest discrepancy, you should do one of two things:  Change the format or change the name/description.  If you really aren’t sure, ask a trusted friend, mentor or your director to shop your class (great way to get other valuable feedback, by the way!) and tell you whether or not you need to tweak.  Try taking other classes that have the same or similar name from your own gym or other gyms in the area and make a comparison.  Every time a new schedule comes out, reread your description and check that it still applies.  Sometimes the director will change things on you and you won’t know unless you look!  Don’t be afraid to be completely honest about whether or not you are delivering what is promised and to make the corrections that need to be made.  Your students will appreciate that you took the time to tell them the truth when you named your class.

Yesterday, using Cadence Revolution Show 20, my early morning class did a Pyramid Ride.  Usually a pyramid ride means that you start with a basic movement then start adding movements to build a chain that you repeat every time you add a movement.  There are an infinite number of ways that you can do a Pyramid; I opted for the “Member’s Choice”/Rolling Build option today.  The “Member’s Choice” means that I had each rider choose a movement to add to the sequence.  The Rolling Build means that we will only repeat a few of the segments before dropping the one at the beginning of the sequence to add another to the end.  This method allows every person in the room to contribute without running out of time, even when the room is full.

In a 40-minute ride minus 10 minutes for warm-up and cool down, there are 30 1-minute segments.  We divided those segments up for a class of 9 attendees and 1 instructor, telling us to only have three segments in the chain at a time.  For our Rolling Build, the segments get added on in this manner:

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It used to be that the only choice you had for playing music in your fitness classes was to use the cassette player. You could purchase a fitness tape, although selection was limited, or mix your own pretty easily. Even when CD players were the rage and everyone had one, they took a while to grab hold in aerobics rooms. You may not remember when, but there was a time when the idea of burning a CD in the convenience of your home using your latest iMusic purchases was inconceivable! Now that we’ve come so far, you really have to improve your technical skills if you want your room to rock during class without having to spend a mint on produced CDs. Even if you do spend a mint, you rarely get a mix that comes perfect as-is or sounds as compelling as the preview did. This is kick-off post for a new category I’ll be adding to GroupFitPower. Today, we’ll just take a look at current available methods for obtaining music you can play in your classes.

No Effort

1. 1. Buy a CD from a 32-beats-style producer.
2. 2. Insert CD into CD player at gym.
3. 3. Use the CD player’s ability to pitch the music to the correct speed for your class.
4. 4. Smile through the songs you don’t like or try to ignore them altogether.

PROS:

• Super easy!
• Increasing number of choices on the internet for purchases.
• No pauses in the music, keeping energy high throughout class.
• The more varied your library, the more expensive it will be.

CONS:

• Limited to what tracks are on your CD.
• Limited to merchants on the Internet or by catalog or at tradeshows. (Unless you can share a brick and mortart aerobics instructor store somewhere!!)

Minimal Effort

1. 1. Subscribe to a music service.
2. 2. Create a playlist that matches your class plan or profile.
3. 3. Download the playlist to your iPod or mp3 player.
4. 4. Plug in the player and jam away.

PROS:

• Also very simple.
• Relatively low cost, although you do not “keep” permanent copies of the songs you use without purchasing them separately.
• Allows you to play a different playlist as frequently as you want or simply trade songs in a playlist that works.

CONS:

• Costs a regular monthly membership fee to access the service’s full library.
• Must teach at a gym with the ability to plug in your player (I use an old cassette car converter that came with my XM radio).
• Music will pause between songs.

Small Effort

Just like the above, only you obtain mp3s of the songs you want in your playlist and burn them to a CD to play in class.

PROS:

• You can usually opt to burn without the 2-second pause between songs so music will seem more continuous play.
• A new playlist as often as you want to burn one or purchase new music.
• Allows you to “remix” the CDs you purchased in Method #1.

CONS:

• Requires CD burner, blank CDs and mp3s that you purchase online or rip from your CD collection.
• If your burner settings are off, you can burn CDs that won’t play in all CD players.

Most Effort

1. 1. Get some music mixing software. I use Sony Acid Music XMC (costs $60). There are others that I have heard of. There are others that are probably free. However, this is the only one I have ever tried, since it worked so well and was so easy for me to learn.
2. 2. Add your mp3s to your music project.
3. 3. Edit out foul language, extra beats, change the tempo, add sound effects and blend the songs together for continuous play.
4. 4. Burn your project to CD.
5. 5. Receive rave reviews for your amazing work!

PROS:

• You have complete control over the music in your class — you can finally have it all!

CONS:

• Requires learning a new software and putting effort into creating each CD. (It does get easier with practice!)
• If you tend toward OCD or perfectionism (I’m not naming any names here, but…) this may suck up all of your spare time and your family could wonder why you care more about your music than their dinner.

Have fun playing that funky music!

What’s your message?

I am a huge fan of Spinning, and since I began my journey as a Spinning instructor in 2003, I have been unable to explain why the bike has such a strong grip on me.  I could never understand why it was so fulfilling even though it could be so grueling.  I could explain in “personal trainer’s” terms all of the reasons why I SHOULD be there and what was happening as a result of Spinning.  But those reasons are the same reasons I could have chosen running, Step, Tae Bo and often did.  While I still run and teach Step and Tae Bo from time to time, I pick the bike whenever the choice exists. 

Last night, I was given a marvelous gift.  Master Spin Instructor Luciana Marcial-Vincion, who I am priviliged to work with, presented her “Message Ride” from WSSC to our club.  She adapted the format and the messages to speak to group of students and members, but still spoke to the instructors in the room.  She spoke in a way that truly opened my eyes to what I get from Spinning and more importantly what I give.  This 90-minute ride was so refreshing, I walked away feeling as though I had awakened from a perfect sleep ready to greet the day and share the good news with everyone around me.  And guess what?  I’m starting with you.

No matter what genre of class we teach, we are held to a higher standard.  But what makes a Spinning instructor so special is their ability to help their students recognize their own inner strength and make positive changes in their lives.  That’s not to say that Step instructors don’t do it in some way too, but let’s consider the dialogue.  In a Step class, this is what you’ll here 90% of the time:

“Basic Right.  Turn Step. Mambo Cha cha.  How’s everybody doing?  Don’t forget to breathe!  If you get confused, just come back to a basic.  Woo!  You can do it!”

Lots of directions, few opportunities to truly inspire.  That’s not to say you aren’t motivating, but most of the words are about cueing.  Same with sculpting classes – mostly form descriptions.  And don’t get me started on Tae Bo…  (Hush, now.  I am a Tae Bo teacher too!)

Here’s what I heard last night:

“Spinning is about what’s in here [pointing to chest] and here [pointing to the head].” 
“Allow yourself to feel connected to your breath.” 
“Your muscles don’t move on their own; your breath moves them.” 
“Don’t ask for an easier hill.  Ask to be a better climber.” 

Now some of that is paraphrased or my interpreted version of what she said, but the message in Spinning is clear:  You have a purpose.  You have special gifts.  Your body WANTS to be fit and you come to class because you WANT to satisfy that desire.  On the bike, you are free to do what needs to be done in your own terms and in your own time. 

I have a long soapbox speech for the people who come to any class to be entertained are missing out on something far more profound and beautiful.  It’s even longer for the instructors who treat indoor cycling like aerobics on a stationary cycle.  I’ll save it for another time.  Right now, I just want to share with you the reason why Spinning is so important to me, and why I think it is the most popular form of group fitness out there.  As Luciana pointed out to me, Spinning is pure.  It breaks us down so that we can be rebuilt into stronger, better versions of ourselves.  When we let go of our judgements and fears, the bike can teach us about ourselves in a way no other experience can.  It is, as Johnny G says, what it is.  And that purity is what keeps me coming back.

Spin On!