I Didn't Die

Now that I've had some time to process, I wanted to fill you all in on my fun-filled weekend of Les Mills RPM Instructor Training.

I feel like the title is appropriate.

Guys, this was one intense weekend.

I showed up bright and early on Saturday morning, not knowing what to expect.  I found the cycling room and people started filing in.  I was so incredibly nervous!  I was worried that I would look like I had no idea what I was doing, or that I'd have the wrong body type, or that I wouldn't know how to set up a bike that's different from mine.  I was worried that I wouldn't be Les Mills material.

Men don't do this shit to themselves, do they?

As if I wasn't already feeling insecure, I quickly realized that many of the participants already knew one another.  We were a small group- 7 women and 2 men- and I think only three of us walked in knowing no one.  And to top it all off, I was the only one with no group fitness instructing experience.  Everyone else had years of experience teaching a ton of different types of classes, many of them Les Mills.

Oy.

The first item on the agenda for the day was a Master Class, taught by our instructor for the weekend.  We all hopped on our bikes and got ready to work.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but thank God I had received a video of the class two weeks prior, and had spent hours learning the music and choreography...because the English language was not our instructor's strong point.

I wish I could tell you how to even pronounce his name.  He described it as similar to Genghis Khan, only with a 'J' sound at the beginning?  Maybe?  All of us struggled so much to understand him, which was a very frustrating issue to have when we all really wanted to learn the material.

In any case, we were all familiar with the workout, so we worked hard and got it done.

That was hour 1 of about a million on the bike that weekend.

After our first workout, we moved onto the education portion of the morning.  We got out our notebooks and prepared to learn, waiting for some guidance as to where that would take place.

Cop a squat, pals, because the dirty floor of the cycling studio was the provided seating.

The teacher in me just cringes thinking that somebody really thought these were optimal learning conditions.  The oldster in me cringes remembering just how badly my lower back hurt after two days of sitting hunched over on a filthy floor.

And so the day went.  On the bike, on the floor, on the bike, on the floor.  We went through the workout together several times, taking turns presenting our pre-assigned tracks.  I was thoroughly exhausted by the end of day 1, especially considering the fact that I was so nervous that I hadn't really slept the night before.  Sleep came much easier that night.

Day 2 was much more of the same, only in addition to presenting our material several more times, we also had a fun "challenge" midday.  They like to call it the "RPM Ride of Truth."  What they should really call it is the "We'll Consider Letting You Instruct If You Can Survive These 30 Minutes" ride.  It was fun, guys.  I can't tell you how much I love pushing my body to the point of exhaustion, and then just for funsies, enduring a half hour of fitness torture.  But refer to my post title- I didn't die.

In the end, I passed.  And by the second day, I felt totally comfortable with my classmates, who were all wonderfully supportive of one another, and me in particular.  They called me Newbie (in the kindest way) and all cheered for me when the instructor announced that I'd passed.  We'd all bonded over extreme workouts, lack of appropriate seating, and straining to understand the spoken word.

Although the more seasoned instructors were highly disappointed in this training (for the obvious reasons), I left feeling pretty good.  Do I wish some of these issues weren't present?  Absolutely.  But as frustrating as they were, I left feeling encouraged and uplifted, and like this was something I could actually do, and maybe even be good at.  I credit my classmates for this.  I left itching to get into my gym and onto the instructor's bike.

Since then I've had the opportunity to co-teach with a wonderful instructor, and it was awesome.  I felt energized by the riders in front of me, and since we had drilled the routine a million and one times during training, I actually felt like I knew what I was doing.

I'm official now- as of press time, I'm teaching six classes in March.  Squee!  And for any of my local readers- should you decide to join me sometime, I promise you won't die, either.