The Les Mills assessment process goes - do the module, team teach a minimum of 10 classes, then teach a full class. From there, you either, self evaluate and submit a filmed full class in to the Les Mills Agency for the region (in my case, LMNZ), or, request for an onsite assessor to come and witness a class on the spot.
For RPM, I filmed myself teaching a class and sent that in to LMNZ and got assessed that way. But, I was not comfortable with a DVD being in the possession of the agency - even though they were obliged to return the DVD to me, that doesn't mean that it could be copied, or that the assessor could watch the DVD with someone else present in the room.
Yes, this would be incredibly unprofessional of the assessors, but, and I'm not going to name who, I have heard about people who have done as such. I'm not going to say which agency or how I came across this information, but having that knowledge made me incredibly uncomfortable. I already had all this detailed knowledge floating around about me doing the Jam module in Wellington when I'd asked for complete privacy. The more I learned about the group fitness world, the less I liked, and the more my faith waned.
I wanted to make sure that I was absolutely rock solid for my certification.
However, because I'd had the car accident, I had to take some time off teaching to allow myself to recover. As if that wasn't bad enough, just when I had nearly healed, I attended the LMNZ Hamilton workshop and one of the bikes in the RPM studio broke while I was on it and I fell right off the saddle and landed on my tailbone, aggravating the injury sustained in the car crash. Teaching RPM was hard enough, though Jam was absolutely out of the question.
Just over three weeks later, I arranged to team teach at my sponsor club for the first time.
I had been team teaching so much with Rhys that really, it shouldn't have been a big deal. Teaching there though, it felt like teaching for the first time all over again - dry retching to the point where it was painful.
Every time I teach at a new gym I'm nervous. Things like the best route to take to get to the gym, how long it takes to get there, how the sound system works, what the members are like, where the water fountain is, where to park the car, etc. All of these things build up to a ball of nervousness.
My sponsor club though, I'd been there for a considerable amount of time. I knew the best route to take to get to the gym, how long it takes to get there, how the sound system works, what the members are like, where the water fountain is and where to park the car.
Why was I so nervous then?
Because of this. The first time I ever did anything 'instructory', it was shadowing the BODYJAM 52 launch at my sponsor club. The following evening, I got this comment on my blog.
Dear Raina, I am a member at [sponsor club], I read your blog from time to time and was surprised to see you shadowing with the Jam team... I don't mean to be rude... it's really cool that you know instructor friends... who can invite you on stage to shadow... but I and my friends all feel something.. that your appearance makes the Jam experience less appealing.. to be blunt.. the people on stage are supposedly the role models that we look up to.. but we don't wanna be like you... we don't wanna end up looking like you by doing Jam... we try hard to shed some pounds and lose fat... but seeing you up there is like telling us that we'll be gaining more by doing the class... we got really traumatised.... and some have even thought of dropping Jam...Clearly, I didn't listen to this moron. Heck, I've spent the last two years Not Listening to this moron. I reported it to the manager though, they were furious and went on the warpath.
sorry again to tell you this I know this is not pleasant to hear... but could you consider not doing it in the future? thank you...
[emphasis mine]
I was anxious that I was going to experience it again. I'd taught at that club since then without any similar remarks, but that was RPM. This was my first time onstage in front of the Jammers and it was right at the forefront of my thoughts.
Thankfully, the biggest problem I had was that the members rolled their eyes when I started teaching BODYJAM 57. While I had been recovering from the injury, the other trainee on the module from the same gym had taught BODYJAM 57 so much that the members were sick of it.
The plan was to have the release learned in its entirety before the module, so that after I passed all I should have been doing was refining the release and getting my certification done quickly.
For several weeks after that, I was scrambling to learn new choreography, too much of it, too quickly, simply because the instructors I was onstage with effectively banned me from teaching the release.
It didn't really feel fair. I'd put in months and months of work and then because of a stupid injury I now had to start all over again and learn new material? Why was *I* the one having to cram my head full of choreography and learn something new while the other trainee was pretty much free to teach the same release however many times as they damn well pleased.
As if I felt I hadn't been doing this thing long enough.
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