The Future Starts Now: Rounding it up

I think the last post I wrote in my series to becoming a certified instructor was about how I slept in for a team teach. At that time, we had just launched RPM 47. Not long after that, the manager of the gym pulled the plug on my team teaching with the other instructors, so it became an agonising amount of time in between classes. I understand the reasoning - it was so that there was true ownership of the classes and no ambiguity over who taught what class, but that didn't make it all the more gutting for me.

There were entire months that I didn't teach in any capacity, and it also hurt to see other instructors who already had a plethora of classes on the timetable be given the opportunity to cover classes ahead of me. I didn't understand it, since all of the feedback I'd been given was positive.

While Hamish was away for work, I finally got a long stretch of teaching - six weeks in a row. I was that excited that about a month in advance, I planned each mix and scripted each class. I listened to how the tracks flowed, whether there was contrast between the speed tracks and the strength tracks, and whether there was cohesiveness in the choreography that I could draw on when I taught.

For the final class I taught, I was asked to have a trainee up with me and I was excited to be able to pay forward the assistance that I'd been given when I was beginning my training.

Let's just say that that really blew up in my face. I was hauled in for a meeting with a few members of the management and was given a few choice words. Quite frankly, I would've preferred a slap in the face. I was told that I didn't work hard, and that the participants didn't like my classes, plus, that I had no right to be giving feedback as I was new to teaching myself.

I remember leaving the gym that day bawling my eyes out and wondering if there was any point. At the back of my mind I wondered if the phrase 'They don't like you because you're fat' was on the tip of management's tongue.

I had some travel scheduled to London, Paris and Amsterdam and thought I could take that time while I was away to decide whether pursuing group fitness was worthwhile. However, the majority of time while I was away, I was on my own, and what kept me through was listening to BODYJAM 54 and RPM 48, knowing that I'd hopefully get to teach both when I got back home.

Shortly after I came back, my RPM certificate arrived. Management again wanted to meet with me to air some things before giving it to me.

I sat there absolutely lost for words when I was told 'You don't have the right personality to teach RPM, and should consider giving it up and teaching something else.' I walked out of there with my RPM certificate in my hands, but a hollow feeling in my heart.

It says on the certificate 'This is to verify that Raina Singh has been trained and assessed against international standards as a Les Mills RPM instructor'. That didn't feel like it carried any weight at that moment. Sure Les Mills might think that I am qualified RPM instructor, but it's the managers in the gyms that give the classes. If they don't like you, you're going to be up against it, and the reason why they don't like you doesn't even have to have any logic to it.

That moment was about a year ago. I still didn't have a class then, and was still being denied cover.

It all felt quite futile until finally, I got a break. One of the instructors at my gym was leaving to go and live in a different country, and she had two classes on the RPM timetable which needed to be filled. She was on a roster for her work, so only did her classes once every second week, and that was good enough for me. I took on one of her classes, though again, I was warned that the class expected a tough instructor and they didn't feel that I was the best fit for the timeslot.

The first time I taught the class, I was a bit stunned from what I saw from the members. Very few of them could execute even the basics of riding properly. The majority of them were free spinning with barely any resistance at all. I know for a fact that the instructor before me liked adding in strength track and removing speed tracks, as well as changing the choreography.

Ever since then, I have made it my aim to work on those participants and educate them on how to get the most out of the program in the way that it is intended to be delivered. Given that the attendance has been good and the feedback from the members has been amazing, I'd say it's worked. There's always ways I can continue to inform them of how they can leverage the program to its maximum, so I'm going to continue doing that with them.

One thing I recall Hamish telling me when I was unhappy about the way teaching had gone was him saying, "I'm not going to beat around the bush, it's going to take time. You'll know when you've nailed it, and it's such a good feeling." I didn't experience that feeling until late March of this year, almost 1 year to the day of doing the module. Even now, there are some classes I teach where I don't experience that 'nailed it' feeling and I walk away knowing I have things to work on.

The journey doesn't end, but I don't think I'm going to be wanting to stop for quite a while.

I hope you'll join me on my ride :)