Reinventing Yourself - Again Part 3
By Mark
Grevelding
This is a three part series based on
Mark’s original 2002 article, Reinventing Yourself. Mark has written a 2009 update that includes
a wide range of tips and ideas for recreating excitement in your classes and
renewing passion in your instruction.
Part 1: Includes an excerpt from the original article,
as well as Mark’s own journey of reinvention and the introduction of his 2009
Guide to Reinventing Yourself with a look at choreography websites.
Part 2: Includes tips for reinventing your classes
and your approach to instruction with choreography DVDs, equipment usage,
documenting routines and attending other instructor’s classes.
Part 3: Concludes with more tips for renewing your
passion, including attending workshops & conferences, learning new formats
and exploring new career dimensions.
Mark’s 2009 Guide to Re-inventing
Yourself
Workshops
Certified
fitness professionals must accrue continuing education credits (CECs) to
maintain their certifications. There are
a variety of ways to obtain these CECs, including home study programs, online
courses and magazine quizzes. However, I
firmly believe that attending workshops is by far the best way to refresh your
practical skills and your passion for teaching.
After attending my first step workshop two years after getting certified
in 1995, I walked away from the experience a completely changed instructor, not
to mention a very humbled instructor.
That workshop opened my eyes and made me realize how much better my step
classes could be. I soon became a
workshop junkie. Honestly, attending workshops
was the primary factor in the development of my teaching skills. I had zero background in choreography, dance
or music and I had to learn everything from the ground up. Attending workshops wasn’t so much about
picking up new moves as it was learning new teaching techniques and absorbing
the amazing personalities of the presenters that I admired and learned from. Attending workshops is still my main
motivator and primary source of fresh programming concepts. Whenever I leave a good workshop, I always
feel recharged and excited to revamp my classes with the new ideas I learned.
AEA
introduced three new workshops in 2008. The
workshops launched a new series called Class Construction and the programs were
exclusively designed by AEA’s Education Director Julie See and her team of
training specialists. The workshops
include the most up to date theory and practical applications and they include,
Cardio Programming and Leadership, Successful Senior Strategies and Core
Training and Stretch Techniques. Be sure
to always check the AEA Weekend Event calendar to see if there are AEA
workshops coming to a location near you.
To access the calendar, either click on the following link below or
paste it in your browser.
http://www.aeawave.com/PublicPages/CALENDARS/WeekendEvents/tabid/191/Default.aspx
New Formats
Attending
workshops, buying new music and watching DVDs are great ways to reinvent your
classes, but occasionally we need more.
Sometimes we need to learn and teach new formats to stave off
boredom. I can honestly say that I would
not still be teaching fitness if I had not branched out from instructing just
step aerobics in the 90’s. At one time,
I was teaching 8 step classes a week and was seriously getting burned out, not
to mention experiencing painful problems with my lower extremities. The first new format I diversified into was
kickboxing, followed by stability ball.
Eventually, I was recruited to teach aquatic kickboxing, thus
reinventing myself with aqua and a whole new frontier for teaching. Aquatic kickboxing classes led to regular
shallow water classes, which led to deep water classes, which led to more
specialized aquatic classes including strength, yoga and Pilates. At one point I even got certified to teach
water cycling, which lasted all of three weeks when I quickly discovered that
there were few choreography options for cycling classes. My water cycling students chased me out of
the pool when I tried teaching mambo cha chas with the pedals.
Along the
way, learning new formats has kept me passionate and excited about teaching. If you are looking to reinvent yourself with
a new format and haven’t crossed over to mind/body yet, I would highly
recommend doing so. Teaching yoga,
Pilates, Ai Chi and other similar formats has once again provided me with a
whole new frontier for learning. The
mind & body formats have also provided my body with much needed relief! AEA has been offering Dr. Mary Wykle’s Aqua
PiYoChi program at conferences and weekend events this past year and the
response has been extremely favorable.
The course has been designed to allow you to immediately implement yoga
,Pilates and Ai Chi moves into your regular aqua classes, thus allowing you to
reinvent your cool downs, muscle conditioning, ab training and stretch
segments. If you can’t attend the program, consider
purchasing the Aqua PiYoChi manual or DVD which are both available in the AKWA
Shop.
New Career Dimensions
Another
strategy that I used over the years for combating burn out and staying fresh
was to diversify my talents and job duties.
For anyone interested in building a career in fitness and maintaining
longevity in the industry, it will become evident rather quickly that you are
more marketable if your talents & skills are multi-dimensional. For me, personal training was my main income,
however, teaching group fitness opened doors to clubs that I never would have
been able to train in if I did not also teach group fitness. Currently, I relish the fact that I get to
combine my group fitness talents with writing and marketing skills, providing
me with a broad range of daily job duties and challenges. (Yes, I graduated from college with a degree
in journalism!)
If you are
interested in expanding your fitness career by exploring aquatic one on one or
small group training, you will definitely want to check out AEA’s brand new
education program, Personal Pool. This
day long course was developed by Angie Proctor and is jam packed with
everything you need to know to develop and offer successful individual or small
group training in the pool. Mixing up
your fitness income with personal training clients and group fitness classes is
a great way to stay motivated and avoid burnout. To find out more about Personal Pool and all
of AEA’s Educational Programs, click on the link below or paste it in your
browser.
http://www.aeawave.com/PublicPages/Education/AEAEducation/tabid/112/Default.aspx
Conferences
The ultimate
reinvention is the IAFC experience.
AEA’s International Aquatic Fitness Conference (IAFC) is held every May
and veteran attendees will tell you that the conference can supply you with an
entire year’s worth of ideas and class material. Sessions run morning thru evening for five
days and you can participate in a mixture of aquatic offerings that include
choreography, strength training, deep water, personal training, special
populations, alternative programming, as well as select land fitness sessions
and informative lectures. IAFC also is
the annual showcase for the debut of the latest equipment, research findings
and more. Let’s not forget the IAFC
Shopping Plaza where you can re-invent yourself with the latest music and some
snazzy new outfits!
You definitely
do not want to miss out on IAFC 2009. AEA
is celebrating their 25th anniversary in 2009 and IAFC is the
official birthday celebration! The
ultimate birthday pool party features matchless education presented by the
world’s best instructors, along with five days of sun drenched socialization
and spa-like relaxation at the Wyndham International Resort in Orlando, Florida. Be sure to register early this year as
sessions will fill up quickly due to AEA’s 25th birthday
celebrations.
>
Registration Link for Online IAFC Registration <
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January, 2002
Edited Excerpt from the article
“Reinventing Yourself”
Clearly,
there are many ways to reinvent yourself and bring a fresh and innovative
approach to your classes. Personally, I
have found the greatest source of renewal to be from my students and my commitment
to them. In our industry, it is easy to
get carried away with the “performance,” putting too much emphasis on the choreography,
the music and our own popularity. Anyone
can reinvent a routine, but the real challenge is learning how to renew your
passion.
For all the
times I felt slighted because my students didn’t clap loud enough or they
didn’t seem as impressed with the routine as I was, I prayed for guidance. Given my penchant for ego and competition, I
tried to rely on my faith to guide me as an instructor. I learned that I am at my best when I stay
focused on my students’ needs, their health and their bodies. I am at my worst when I focus on my talent,
my reputation and my popularity.
Our best
hope for reinvention is our own passion for teaching and for making a difference. If you really want to reinvent yourself, ask
yourself this, “What can I do to improve my students’ fitness level this
year?” The actions you take and the
changes you make to accomplish this goal will make you the “The Instructor of
the Year” in the eyes of your students.
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January 2009
Looking
back, I clearly see an instructor who learned from mistakes and matured from
less than stellar behavior. In life, many
of us open doors that probably should have stayed shut. However, we become more enlightened and
colorful people because we dared to open those doors.
It is like
that with teaching fitness. You have to
make mistakes to get good. You have to
have a few Diva tantrums in order to appreciate the beauty of humility. You have to experience the pain of a really
small class in order to cherish the value of each individual student. You have to feel unappreciated and annoyed
when your students act like zombies in order to appreciate those devoted class
members who faithfully show up each week.
You have to be disliked by someone in order to get over your fear of being
disliked. You have to experience people
walking out of your class as a reminder that you can’t please everyone. You have to fail spectacularly in order to
make an amazing come back. And you have
to burn out if you want to re-ignite.
We can
continuously recreate the excitement in our classes with all of the tips
mentioned above, but to renew our passion for teaching we must be able to look
into the eyes of our students and realize that this is as good as it gets. Right here, right now, the passion is all
about being blessed with the honor to serve and the opportunity to inspire
others to greater health and a more joyful life.
There is a
New Year ahead, with new goals to set, new lesson plans to create and new
students to welcome to the water. Let’s
get busy!
Wishing you a healthy and happy New
Year filled with exciting classes!
Mark Grevelding is an AEA training specialist and
serves as AEA’s Promotions Coordinator.
He is a continuing education provider for AEA, AFAA and ACE and is the
founder of Fit Motivation, a fitness education company based in Rochester,
NY. Mark is the creator of Visual
Choreography Notes, choreography DVDs for aquatic fitness professionals. Check out Marks DVDs by visiting www.fitmotivation.com