Jamming it all in: Part 1

As much as I am enjoying teaching RPM, it wasn't the program that I had intended to train on first. It was basically a pathway that was formed for me, though it wasn't the pathway that I had consciously chosen.

BODYJAM was what I had intended to train on, and it for me, was the overriding reason why I wanted to instruct.

I felt a pang in my heart of envy whenever I saw good friends onstage teaching Jam together. Not jealousy or hatred or resentment of any kind... just a desire to be up there with them.

I came back from a trip over to London, Paris and Amsterdam to the news that there was a BODYJAM module scheduled for the weekend of my arrival back into the country. Due to low numbers, it is not often that Jam modules get to go ahead in Auckland. There's a perception that because Auckland is the home of Les Mills, that there's always a constant stream of training sessions and high demand for classes and instructors. That's not the case at all. In fact, group fitness is incredibly small in New Zealand.

I asked for one more day off work after coming back so that I could do the module. Naturally though, after just having three weeks off, my workplace were hesitant to approve one more day. To add to it, another colleague had applied for leave for religious reasons for that day, leaving the number of personnel in the office lower than normal. If I had been given leave, there would have been one member of our team left on their own.

I looked up the next module training and there was one in Wellington not too long after. It was a multiprogramme module, where it was BODYJAM, BODYSTEP and BODYCOMBAT. Just from the names of the programs, I knew that Sarah Robinson would be the trainer - being the first choice Jam, Step and Combat trainer in New Zealand.

Like RPM, I didn't want anyone to know about the fact that I was doing the module. I wanted the ability to focus and completely immerse myself in the module activities that I didn't want any social distractions.

I did, however, have one other distraction.

Three days before the module, I did a class at the gym and then went into work to have a shower before starting my day in the office. Someone had left a small piece of soap on the shower floor. Of course, I stood on it, slipped, went flying, and landed on the floor. My left hip took most of the impact, and heck, it was SORE. It took me about 30 minutes before I found the ability to stand up.

The first thing that went through my mind was "No no no NO this cannot happen NOW! I have a Jam module this weekend!" Heh... good to see that my priorities are in the right place, huh?

I had to take three days off from work as even sitting at my desk was very painful. I went to the doctor and he prescribed me some painkillers. I asked him for his opinion as to whether I would be able to do the module that weekend. His response was the polite equivalent of 'Are You Out Of Your Mind?' He told me I needed at least two weeks before I should even think about doing any form of exercise.

Did I listen to him? Nope.

When I arrived in Wellington, I didn't tell Sarah about the injury. Maybe this was a mistake. Even during the theory parts of the weekend, I was struggling to stay seated because of the discomfort.

With the multiprogramme modules, we had a lot of downtime where Sarah went through the technique for the other two programs. I had a mirror in my room of the apartments where I was staying, which was perfect for me to review my technique during the weekend.

Unfortunately, my body wasn't used to all of the anti-inflammatory medication that I'd been prescribed, and the night before the technique intensive and the first presentation, my stomach went absolutely bonkers. Again, I didn't tell anyone about this, and again, that was a mistake.

During the technique session, it didn't appear like I needed any extra help than the other two Jammers who were there. Sarah was pretty hard on all of us, especially when it came to pushing our physical intensity levels. Some of the moves particularly in the tracks I was presenting were particularly uncomfortable in the bruised area (and by this time, the majority of my left buttock and down the outside of my left thigh were ridiculously purple), so I was expecting more grief from Sarah because of it. That extra grief never came though, to my relief.

Throughout the weekend it was tough, and while I tried to push the injury out of my mind, it did everything possible to remind me that it was there.

When it came to the final feedback, we all sat around together and one by one we were called over by Sarah to have our result delivered to us. Several people were called over before me, and each of them were absolutely delighted with their pass.

When I got called over, I initially had less anxiety than when I got called in by Chris at the end of the RPM module. After all, Jam was what I'd been doing. It was the program that everyone told me I'd be good at, it was the one that instructors everywhere had been saying "Why aren't you teaching this?" "Shouldn't you be teaching this?" "You should be teaching this!" With RPM I didn't have that guidance, and I passed it.

Sarah began talking to me about how proud of me she was and how I've come so far. That she definitely saw Jam in my future, and that she saw me teaching it well down the line.

My heart began to sink. She wasn't saying the right things. She was talking about the distant future. She wasn't talking about the present moment.

She turned to the assessment page for the BODYJAM technique and in every move, the requirements had a big X marked in each one. I was mortified as I looked down the page... I hadn't executed a single move correctly. How could I not have realised this throughout the weekend? Was I just simply that oblivious to how bad I was?

She said, "There were times when I looked at you and I just..." and she clutched at her hair and made a 'pulling it out' motion. I wanted to disappear. My technique was that bad that it made Sarah want to pull her hair out? Clearly I'd been living in a fools paradise.

At this stage, Sarah had been talking for a good five minutes and I stopped paying attention. Her words started sounding less articulate and more like whap whap whap whap whap whap - I was staring at her, her mouth was moving, but all I heard was generic sounds.

I started thinking to myself, 'Just put me out of my misery. Tell me I failed. Just tell me. Hurry up.'

It finally took a pause in her speech for me to say, "So what was my outcome for the weekend?" She immediately responded with "A withheld for now." She continued on with some other stuff, but I didn't listen to it. She didn't need to say anything else after that.

To clarify things, in other agencies I believe there is a 'Pass Withheld'. In LMNZ, there is no 'Pass Withheld'. There is a Pass, Withheld and a Resit. A Pass means that you are passed as a trainee and can begin team teaching straight away. A Resit means that you failed on two or more of the three key elements required for initial training and have to redo the module again.

A Withheld means that you failed on one of the three key elements required for initial training. For other agencies, I have heard that to transition from Withheld to Pass, you can either send in a DVD of yourself teaching three tracks to the agency for their assessor to 'Pass' you, or that a GFM can approve you for a Pass after observing you shadow.

A Withheld in LMNZ means that you need to resit the third day of initial training. But, you need to pay for the module again, and are strongly encouraged to do all three days of the training again.

So I have to pay for the module again... and am almost expected to do all three days again... How is this different from a Resit? My heart didn't know any different... and heck, how much of a fool did I feel like, investing so much time and money flying down to another city to do the training.

I didn't want to cry in front of the others who were on the module. They had all been so awesome and I was so happy that they'd all done so well. They were thrilled and delighted with their results and I did not want to turn it into a Poor Me situation.

It was about half an hour later when I got into the showers that I finally broke down.

This was not how the story was supposed to go.