Instructors Just Wanna Have Fun!

Every Monday at 2pm, the Hillside City Club fitness staff get together for their weekly meetings to talk about upcoming club events and various facility issues. This week I was invited to sit in on the meeting and get the inside scoop.

The meeting was similar to those we have at the clubs in the US - how to increase memberships/clients, how to promote classes, avoiding tardiness and limiting your subs, etc. I suppose one can find some comfort in knowing that we all deal with similar issues world wide. But at the same time, we shouldn't be surprised since much of the fitness programming is structured from ideas developed in the U.S. first.

After the meeting, the department head suggested I do a brief master class on the BOSU to show the staff a few ideas and answer various fitness questions (not that I would necessarily have the answers, let alone articulate them clearly in Turkish). Although I was happy to oblige, I was completely caught off guard since I hadn't prepared anything concrete (nor had I practiced cueing a BOSU class in Turkish - though I was pretty sure 'BOSU' in Turkish was called 'BOSU'). I simply thought I was there for a meet-and-greet.

I spent the next hour (struggling) coaching a room of 20 people through various exercises. (Talk about putting your teaching skills to the test!) I had to use more hand gestures than normal, depended a lot more on making visual cues, and incorporated more repetition in my class - but somehow I managed... But I can't imagine how silly I must have sounded "BOSU up, BOSU down, right of BOSU, now left of BOSU." LOL!

Also, on Tuesdays of every week, the instructors get together at 3pm to hang out and share ideas and choreography. They wanted to show me a sample of what they do, so I stopped by. Although the afternoon was very informal (and more of a random workout session than a time to share ideas), I still had a lot of fun (and had a great workout, too)! It was another opportunity to get to know the instructors better. (And get a picture of some of the instructors - this is only half of the staff).

One major observation I've made so far is that most people in the fitness industry here do both personal training and group exercise. Obviously this is not something new since we know that you can't make a living with teaching group ex alone. But it's also not easy to get around in this city. I can't imagine teaching at multiple clubs and for various companies, either. People stick to teaching at one place, full-time. This probably explains the close friendships among the staff and the community-centric culture you experience at the fitness clubs. (Something that unfortunately, we don't see a lot of at our clubs in the US - instructor loyalty and group camaraderie.)