1. Take a look through the original post and consider how you can apply the suggestions to your style of teaching.
2. Join a professional organization to provide you with authoritative and thorough information on a regular basis. For a broad group fitness resource, you might consider joining IDEA. For more concentrated information about your specific genre, start with your certifying body or find communities dedicated to your class style. For example, AFAA membership includes a subscription to their magazine: American Fitness.
3. Find your message. Knowing your purpose in teaching and bringing your message to the forefront of your classes can revitalize both you and your students!
4. Find new ways to say the same old things. It is incredibly challenging but rewarding to sit down and work on finding new words to motivate yourself and your students. Shake up your vocabulary and reinspire yourself and your students.
5. This one is on the other list, but it cannot be repeated enough: Take as many other classes as you can, especially in the style that you teach, with the goal of learning something new.
6. Express gratitude for your students.
7. Here’s another that bears repeating: Get feedback, either through member surveys or having someone critique your teaching. Then, incorporate it, whether you agree with it or not. In other words, try it someone else’s way. You’ll learn more from that than you can possibly realize.
8. Get repetitive. In Spinning, the Master Instructors are encouraged to ride in the exact same position for an hour or more in order to learn everything about that position: how it feels when you are totally fatigued, where form suffers first or the most when you are wearing out, etc. This knowledge makes coaching these positions more intuitive. Similarly, martial artists will perform the same movement hundreds of times before mastering it. This concept can be applied across the board. Whatever style you teach, practice it!!! Practice it over and over until it is *in* you. Once you free yourself from having to think about it, you can be more receptive to your students and more easily adapt to whatever could happen during class.
9. Check out a podcast. iTunes has a great listing of podcasts covering a seemingly infinite variety of topics. Try one in your genre, or maybe just listen to a motivational speaker or a class style you want to try that isn’t offered in your area. There are so many possibilities here! I subscribe to the ICI/PRO feed, Zig Ziglar’s Words of Motivation, and the yogajournal.com podcast (although this one hasn’t been updated since March) plus a dozen others in topics I find interesting. There is one here for you too!

It should go without saying that you don’t have to attempt to tackle all 20 things on these two lists at one time. Set a goal for yourself to have improved your teaching in some measurable way by a specific date. Then, use these suggestions as a springboard for getting there!

Cheers! To the amzing teacher you are and you are becoming! Never stop learning!!!!

I’ve compiled a quick list of ways you can kick start your inspiration and get back on top of the world again. While this list has specific inspirations for indoor cycling and Spinning instructors, the advice can certainly be adapted for any type of fitness instructor or personal trainer. But don’t worry, I’ve already started a list for group fitness instructors, which will be posted in a day or two.

1. Go back and review the Three things every instructor should do. Then start working on those three things!
2. Read one or both Jennifer Sage’s ebooks: Keep It Real in your indoor cycling classesand 10 Ways to Stay Motivated as an Indoor Cycle Instructor. (Bonus! 10 Ways to Stay Motivated is free when you claim your Subscription to ICI/PRO!!!
3. Speaking of ICI/PRO, you really should claim your subscription now and start filling your noggin with knowledge. I haven’t even combed the entire site, and I’ve already got a years worth of ideas just waiting to be implemented!!! The best part to me are the Audio PROfiles — you learn how a Master Instructor constructs and coaches a class. It’s worth several times more than what you pay for it, but even so, they give you a trial week for $1 just to show you.
4. Ride alone as often as you can. Use this time to explore what it is that makes you uniquely qualified to empower others through indoor cycling. Use the time to listen to music that is outside your comfort zone and try out new profiles. It’s an investement in yourself that pays back HUGE dividends!
5. Call Mad Dogg Athletics and find out who the Master Instructors in your area are and where they teach classes. Contact that gym for their schedule and commit to taking a class from them as soon as you possibly can. If you have to travel to get there, you should try to contact the MI to let them know when you will be coming, that way you can find out if they are actually teaching that day (MIs need subs occasionally too!) (**Side note — lots of the Spinning MIs share their knowledge at pedal-on.com. You can seek them out there too!) And of course, if you are certified to Schwinn or another group, you can contact them too, I just happen to love the Spinning MIs I know!
6. Set aside some quiet time to do something refreshing for yourself, like getting a massage, spending time in prayer or meditation, or reading an inspiring book (If you are into motivational books, I recommend Matthew Kelly’s book Perfectly Yourself: 9 Lessons for Enduring Happiness.)
7. Sign up for the next continuing education workshop or conference that will be in your vicinity. Do a little research on the presenters and take classes from the ones you determine have the most to offer you, not just those that will offer you something of entertainment value.
8. Make some lists!!! Make a list of all of the reasons you started teaching. Make a list of all the reasons you continue to teach. Make a list of all of the reasons you are a good teacher and a list of all of the ways you want to be a better teacher. You’ll be amazed at what seeing it written down on paper can do!
9. Call a friend or another instructor you trust who will be honest with you and arrange for them to come to your class. Ask them to be brutally honest about what they think were the best aspects of your coaching and which areas need improvement.
10. Take more classes. Take any kind of class, it doesn’t just have to be IDC. Take yoga, take kickboxing, photography, Physics. Take anything that shakes you up and challenges you to take another look at the world. While you are there, you might learn something new and absorb a new cue, and new concept, something you can incorporate into your own classes.
11. Take a break. Get your classes subbed out for the next 2 or 3 weeks and recharge your batteries. You can’t give what you don’t have, so use the time away to feed yourself. It’ll give you lots of time to do all of the other things on this list!
12. Plan a special event at your club. It can be a fundraising ride or a journey ride or a race day or a threshold test or anything that is different and unique and brings people together for something special. Put extra effort into creating the atmosphere of something valuable and one-of-a-kind. Bonus points for giving back to your community in some way!!

There are tons more ways to kick start your inspiration, but these are the ones that I have tried and that were instrumental in bring me to this high point where I am at now! I’d love to hear your experiences, your suggestions, and how you are doing in your personal journey! Leave a comment. The boxes don’t bite!

I listened to a student.

All she did was ask if we could do “Classic Step” again. She was tired of all the fancy turns and zig zagging all over the step and just expressed how she missed “the good ‘ole days.” At first I was a little repulsed by the thought of going back to Over the Tops and L-Steps. But after really considering what my students were getting from all the Advanced stuff I’ve been pushing on them lately (and yes, the operative term there is “push”) I thought it might be good to just have a “Back to Basics” class. It was great. And if you are feeling like you are in a rut, or you are running out of ideas for what to do in your next class, or you feel like you have exhausted all of the fancy moves there are, taking a few steps back and simplifying can be a really refreshing way to reconnect with your students.

You’ll find the choreography I used here. Even though they know all of these moves, I went all the way back and broke them down, even Karate Knee. It wasn’t because they needed to relearn a Karate Knee, but it was more for the joy of experiencing complete and total success after learning a move. It can be frustrating to be taught an advanced combo and never really get it. I wanted them to remember that feeling, and it worked. They were loving it. It’s been a while since these ladies have been full of the “Woooooos” as in “Wooooo, I got that!” It felt really good.

Combo 1

Part 1, Reverses:

Knee off the end (4)
Charleston on the side (4)
Across the board (4)
Karate Knee on the side (8)
Karate L-Step, beginning from the side (8)
Mambo Cha cha (4)

Part 2, Does not reverse:

2 Indecisions (16)
Curbwalk (8)
Knees Corner-to-Corner (8)

Combo 2

Part 1, Does not reverse:
2 V Steps (8)
2 knee repeater (4), 4 marches or a spin to the front of the step (4)
2 knee repeater (4), straddle(2), stomp (2)
Double stomp (5) Single Stomp (3) (Could be a stomp across, but remember, this was a “Basics” class!!)

Part 2, Reverses:
3-knee Repeater (8)
Mambo cha cha x2 (8)
2 Basics (8) (I threw in a Basic 360 for the first one when they were comfy…)
2 Over the tops (8)

Many many thanks to Frances, for contributing Part 2 of combo one to our Saturday class — you’re doing great girl! And additional thanks to StepJunkie. Part of why I don’t post much Step Choreo is because I steal all of hers….

Have a wonderful week!

I’ve been researching various workshops and conferences to attend before the end of next year, and I wanted to share the fruits of my labor. I’ve decided to attend the DCAC Fitness Convention in Alexandria, VA August 4-8, 2010. I’ve not been to DCAC before, so this will be interesting. The last conference I attended was Florida MANIA, which did not earn me any STAR Points for Spinning. But at DCAC I’ll be getting NASM, AFAA and Spinning CEU’s, so it is one-stop shopping for me!

If you are interested in DCAC, it will be in Alexandria, VA August 4-8. If you want to know more about DCAC or other major conferences, here is a compilation of what I considered before deciding to go to DC this year!

IDEA Health and Fitness Association

• IDEA World Fitness Convention™ August 4-8, 2010 in Los Angeles, CA
• Inner IDEA

Inner IDEA Conference Sept. 23-26, 2010 in Palm Springs, CA

• IDEA Personal Trainer Institute™ was held in Alexandria, VA (Washington DC) in February 2010. Look for it in late Winter 2011
• IDEA Fitness Fusion Conference™ was held in Rosemont, IL (Chicago) in April 2010. Look for it again in Spring 2011.

ECA World Fitness

• ECA/THRIVE Sports Training, Fitness and Wellness Conference Nov 11 -14 ,2010 Miami Beach, FL
• ECA/NYC 2010 OBOW (One Body One World) Show was held in NYC, NY in March 2010. Look for it again Spring 2011.

SCW Fitness/Sarah City Workout

They have so many, I can’t even post them all!!! Visit their conventions page for dates and details for available cities. I really enjoyed this convention in 2008 and recommend it to anyone who doesn’t need STAR points…. Visit the list of SCW Fitness MANIAs The cities include: Philadelphia PA, Burlingame CA, Orlando FL, Atlanta GA, Rosemont IL, Boston MA

DCAC Fitness

• DCAC Fitness Convention in Alexandria, VA August 4-8, 2010
• DCAC Fitness Convention was held in Houston, TX April 2010. Look for it Spring 2011.

Can Fit Pro

Can Fit Pro has many conferences all over Canada. Rather than list them all, I’m going to send you to their conferences page. Their cities include: Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, St. John’s, Saskatoon, Moncton, Calgary, Vancouver, Winnipeg.

IHRSA

• IHRSA – 29th Annual International Convention & Trade Show in San Francisco, CA March 16-19, 2011

National Athletic Trainers Association (NATA)

• 61st NATA Annual Meeting & Trade Show, June 23-25, 2010 in Philadelphia, PA

  

1. Attending major conferences is a big pain for me, not just because of the cost and taking the time off work, but I am a terrible traveler. If I have to get on a plane, count me out. This type of offering gives me access to the presenters I’m missing by not heading out to these events.
2. The cost ($129 for non-members) is a pretty good deal for the number of CECs/CEUs that can be earned by completing the course. Who doesn’t want to save on CEUs?
3. I can absorb these workshops on my schedule and take time to work through the concepts, rewind to catch the things I might miss. This is a great benefit! When you attend a conference, you tend to get mental overload from all of the sessions and information presented. This way, I can learn it instead of just get glazed over by it.

There is a downside. I notice that AFAA is not among the listed CEUs available for this course. I have no doubt that I could petition for them, but that would be an extra $30 or so. If you are certified with AFAA, as I am or through another not-listed program, you will also have this headache.

Check it out and let me know what you think of the concept. I plan to register and give it whirl. I’ll let you know how it goes when I am done!

Atlanta, GA
Boston, MA
Charleston, SC
Chicago, IL
Columbia, SC
Dallas, TX
Denver, CO
Ft. Lauderdale / South FL
Kansas City, KS
Las Vegas, NV
Los Angeles, CA
Nashville, TN
New York, NY
Orlando, FL
Phoenix, AZ
Raleigh, NC / Chapel Hill
Richmond, VA
Sacramento, CA
San Antonio, TX
San Jose, CA / Bay Area
Washington, D.C. Maryland

They have a couple of early-bird specials posted on the site — if you register before December 31, 2009, you can get discounts on training materials and some of their other courses. See you in Charleston!

AFAA APEX