Jamming it all in: Part 6

The shadowing gave me a bit of time to slowly refine learning the Hip Hop from BJ55. However, I was a bit frustrated with the slow progress.

When I started training for RPM, I was teaching between 2 and 3 times a week. I had only taught a couple of times for Jam, and it had been a month or so after the module had finished.

Relying on the one class to shadow with Rhys... I soon figured that it wasn't enough. I had been attending Hamish's BODYJAM at on a Wednesday night, and Rhys taught a class on a Wednesday night which I was welcome to come and team teach in.

Instead of going to take part in a class, it made more sense to go and do a class onstage, get some more teaching under my belt, and get more feedback.

Only problem was that this particular gym was a good 50 kilometres outside of Auckland's city centre. So it was a pretty decent effort travelling down to the gym, teaching the class, and coming back in. It was quite a massive time investment.

That being said, I was in complete awe of the committment Rhys had to teaching the program. I won't disclose it online, but the payment that he got for teaching that class barely covered the expense to travel down to the gym. Never mind that as a talented Jammer, it ruled him out of covering Jam classes at six, maybe seven other gyms where he could charge a higher rate and would no doubt take him far less time and expense to get there. Who was I to complain?

I would shadow with Rhys on the Monday at the gym after teaching RPM, and afterwards we'd decide on what I was to teach on Wedensday, and what my focus should be.

Rhys's style of training was very much a 'throw you in the deep end and see how your perform'. Before you think "OH MY GOD HOW EVIL", that's *exactly* how he was trained. I certainly wouldn't appreciate it at the time, but it was such an amazing way to grow not only my confidence with Jam, but across all programs that I would ever teach.

After learning the Hip Hop block from BJ55, we shifted attention to the Salsa 2010 block from the same release. We had a mirror session the night before teaching it, and heck, for a block that lasted less than 20 minutes, I was absolutely smashed. I only integrated basic coaching and could barely get the words out. I thought the shadowing was supposed to improve my fitness?! Rhys assured me that it's something I would just have to work on, and I wasn't the first person to experience it. I was fit for one program, but that didn't make me automatically fit for every other program. Each program is its own discipline, and it shouldn't be so startling to recognise that RPM requires its own type of fitness, Step requires its own type of fitness, and so on and so forth.

For my first time teaching the BJ55 block, I did something quite foreign to me. I chose not to script. I started doing it, but given the experience from the previous times teaching, I decided to take a gamble and not do it.

I'd say it 'sort of worked'. This time because I wasn't so desperately trying to remember what I'd written down, I could focus on the technique, and I could focus on the members to see if they were getting it. I had some grip over what I wanted to say, but as I was struggling with the cardio as it was, I couldn't quite get all of the words out.

I found myself apologising to Rhys repeatedly before he could even give me any feedback. I know that he was taking a risk every time he had me up onstage with him, and having me there at two clubs was potentially jeapordising half of the classes he taught. If the members complained about me, it was on his head - especially as I was a 'trainee' who hadn't passed the module.

I really wanted to improve. Not so much for myself anymore, but to honour the risk he was taking.