Someone gave me a burned Turbo Jam DVD back in 2009 right after I graduated high school. I remember following along to the workout and thinking, "I could do this." As in, I could teach a workout class. It looked really fun to me. Fast forward a year or so, I was in college, and I was majoring in Exercise Physiology. One of the required classes was Aerobic Teaching Techniques. The curriculum followed along with the AFAA manual. We learned what was acceptable (back then) in a warm up, safe movements for a group setting, etc. We learned how to identify and move to the beat of the workout music, which most often has a slight change in the music coming every 32 counts.
At one point, my roommates wanted to go to one of the student lead group fitness classes on campus and invited me to come along. These were in the evenings, and they were free. Instructors did not get paid. We went to a class called Turbo Kick. When the workout started, I realized it was the same workout as Turbo Jam. I got excited and talked to the instructor after class about how she came to teach this class. She explained how the certification process worked and I realized it was something that I could actually do, although I didn't decide to do it quite yet. I had it in my mind that I would be like ATT class instructor, who choreographed her own workouts.
One of the ATT class requirements was choreographing 10 minutes of aerobics and then teaching it to our classmates. We would give each other feedback after we took our turns teaching. I drew on all of the workout videos I had followed along with in the past year or two for inspiration. It took me three hours to come up with ten minutes of choreography! I couldn't believe it took me that long. After that day I changed my mind about wanting to choreograph my own workouts, and I looked into getting certified to teach Turbo Kick.
I found a training happening in Utah and that was the beginning of what would be over 10 years of teaching group fitness. The following semester, I started teaching Turbo Kick on campus. They were strict about which music we were allowed to use, nothing that mentioned drinking or sex, so that made it difficult to put a class together. But I was hooked. I learned that there were two other group ex formats by the same company, and I became certified in those as well.
One thing about teaching classes, it's one of those things that you just have to be really bad at it, at first. You just jump in and start doing it, and you learn as you go. I was lucky to have the opportunity to teach for free and gain that experience. On another note, I'm certain there were pictures taken during some of these classes I taught in college, but I'd have to go way back in the archives for those.
I was doing the fast-track at this time, attending three semesters each year. But I wanted to go home for the spring semester and complete an internship at Studio 90 in Quincy. I also took a couple of online classes. While I was at Studio 90, they allowed me to try to get some classes going at different spots on the schedule. The only one that really took was a 5:00am PiYo class. Those ladies were dedicated. But I HATED waking up that early. I was so excited to start doing that class because they wanted me there, but by the end of the summer I was so over it. I felt guilty about it, because those ladies were so kind to me. At the end of the summer they even gave me a little going away gift.
I also did some personal training at Studio 90, but I wasn't certified. The gym owner said it would be okay, that I just needed to let people know I wasn't certified and that we could offer a discounted rate. I trained a total of two clients. One of them was an old lady, who was awesome and worked really hard. She mostly just wanted the accountability of having a trainer. The other was a woman who was in her 20s or 30s I think. She had no experience working out. And our first session together, I gave her a total body workout, doing three sets of every exercise, each set to failure! This was so dumb. She told me that she was so incredibly sore that night that she had to take ibuprofen in order to sleep. She only came to one other session and then I never saw her again. I do not blame her, I had no idea what I was doing. I just wish I could apologize!
My last semester of college, I took an internship at the Gold's Gym in Blackfoot. I was taking 20 credits during that semester, as well as traveling twice a week for the internship, so I chose to quit teaching the classes on campus. I was teaching a Hip Hop class at the gym in Blackfoot, and hoping to start teaching Turbo Kick and PiYo there as well. There was another girl doing the internship with me, and we would carpool down to Blackfoot together twice a week. We were heading up the 12 week challenge at the gym, taking measurements and the before/after photos. We also lead a kid's exercise class together. She and I became good friends during that time. We were both graduating that spring, and we lost touch after we parted ways, but we had a lot of fun together and I'm glad we were paired up.
I got married a week after graduation, and moved to Pocatello. I continued to work in Blackfoot, teaching the one Hip Hop class, but it wasn't doing great. At this time I was also looking into furthering my education. ISU had a sports medicine program, I was just missing two pre-requisites in order to apply for it. Then I found out I was pregnant, so I let that idea go. I taught a few months into my pregnancy, before the class finally died. I'd also obtained my personal trainer certification through NASM, so I was doing some personal training. I really didn't love personal training though, and looking back, I really didn't know what I was doing.
I worked in Blackfoot until a few weeks before I had my baby. When she was 6 or 7 weeks old, Kelly and I signed up for a membership at the Gold's in Pocatello. I wanted to be able to workout and get back in shape after having a baby. I started attended the gym regularly, taking advantage of the childcare. I think Quinn was around a year old when I decided to apply to become an instructor. My application got a little lost, as they were in the process of hiring a new GGX manager, but I eventually had an interview and an audition. I started teaching PiYo one day a week at 6:15am. I did not want to teach an early morning class, but I was willing to take whatever was offered to me.
I eventually started teaching during the day. And by this time, I had been able to attend many of the Les Mills classes offered at this gym. The manager let me know that they were interested in bringing a new format from Les Mills, and I wanted to certify in it. There was a training coming up in a nearby location, so myself and one other instructor, LaChelle, were planning on going. That training got canceled for some reason. But, we found another one happening in Phoenix around the same time. Kelly was supportive of me flying there for the weekend in order to attend the two-day certification for BODYATTACK. LaChelle and I split a hotel room, and we flew south.
The training was fun and challenging, but I was sad to leave 14 month old Quinn for the first time. When I got back, she acted like she didn't even know me. Part of the certification process with Les Mills includes filming yourself teaching a class and submitting it for assessment. The first time I watched myself teach on film was the worst! It's just so weird to see yourself and hear your voice on video. I taped twice, and sent in the second video for evaluation. I barely passed, it used to be much harder to pass compared to now. I've been out of the game for a few years, so I don't even know what it's like now. But it definitely got easier over the years I was involved.
We launched the program at the gym two months after we went to the training. Launches were so fun back in those days! The whole gym supported the events, and so many members would show up.
I remember feeling like I was going to die during some of the peak tracks. It was so intense! But I loved it, and an evening class was put on the schedule, I think it was twice a week? Maybe once. I got to work learning new choreography and trying to build my library. I became pregnant early in the fall, and continued to teach while pregnant. But then Kelly was offered a promotion at his work, and we moved to Boardman, Oregon.
The decision felt right to both of us, but it was a really hard time. I missed the gym and the community I had gotten to know. Kelly knew I was struggling, and he encouraged me to go talk to the people at the Gold's locations in Tri-Cities. I thought it seemed silly at first, driving an hour each way just to be able to teach group fitness, but I eventually took him up on it.
I called one of the clubs and found out who the GGX manager was. Then I looked up the class schedule and found out when she would be teaching. I printed out a resume, and Quinn and I showed up at the gym right before her class would be getting out. (Is it weird that I still remember the outfit Quinn had on that day)? I asked someone to point her out to me, and then when she came out of the studio, I introduced myself. I gave her my resume and told her that I just wanted to be on her radar for after the baby came.
Shortly after Jameson was born, there was a Grit training held at the club in Richland, and she emailed me asking if I was interested in attending. While I wasn't able to leave baby Jameson for that long, I at least knew that she remembered who I was! When he was 7 weeks old, I drove in to the Kennewick location and signed up for a membership. My plan was to drive in 2-3 times per week. I was so excited to attend classes again.
Looking back, I can't believe how great Quinn and Jameson were about driving an hour and then being in the kid's club for an hour. They were so good. Jameson fussed a little in the car, but I could just reach back and put his binky in his mouth and he'd settle. Quinn was always a good traveler. And then the wonderful ladies who worked in the kid's club there took such good care of them. One of them could always get Jameson to sleep in the swing. She'd bunch a blanket up around his ears and he'd go to sleep. Same with any other babies. She was gifted. I'll always be grateful to the many kid's club workers who cared so well for my children. There were others who did not care so well, but that's another story.
I started getting asked to sub here and there and I was always excited to do it. When Jameson was about six months old, another instructor and I were given a class to team teach. She was brand new to teaching. We had a lot of fun teaching together. We each eventually got our own classes but we were both happy for the opportunity.
This is one of the instructors I would sub for and team teach with occasionally.
When Jameson was around 13 months old, there was a local body combat training happening. I loved combat, and Kelly was supportive of me attending this two day training. I was still nursing Jameson, so Kelly brought him to me on my lunch break. Jameson refused to nurse so that was painful. But the training was great. Combat is definitely more complex than attack, pulling from many different martial arts disciplines. I had to learn new language, and it felt like I was drowning a little. The trainer told us that it takes a year of teaching a new format to get good and comfortable with it. I'd say that was accurate. I dove in to combat, learning new releases as often as I could. Within a few months, I had a regular class on the schedule. With two classes on the schedule, I was able to get Kelly a free membership.
I know there are more pictures of me teaching combat somewhere out there on the internet, but I can't find them. I got to teach some packed combat classes, and I had the best time. There was a popular instructor who taught a mid-morning class, and he had a work conflict come up so I took over. I was newer, and a lot of the members didn't know me. I remember the first day taking over his class, they just stared at me like... "who are you?" I eventually won them over, or at least I think I did. He and I got to do a lot of launches together, and we also had a great time team teaching.
I look shredded but unhinged here.
I think Jameson was about two years old when my manager asked me if I would be interested in attending an upcoming Grit training in Seattle. They needed more instructors (coaches), and wondered if I might be willing to go over there. Kelly was once again supportive of me leaving for a weekend and going to a training! I felt bad leaving that time and being away from the kids. I went though, and had a good time, as usual. Although the trainer who ran that training really phoned it in and did the bare minimum. It was easy to see she was checked out.
I started teaching Grit pretty quickly after I went to this training. It wasn't my favorite to lead, but I think I was good at it. And Kelly would even come! The only class format he was comfortable attending.
When I'd first started my Les Mills journey, someone had told me that you can't be great more than 2-3 formats. So I figured I was done after I attended Grit. But there was a local Bodyflow training happening, and Kelly was once again okay with me going. So I attended my fourth training. Bodyflow was a challenge for me. It was just so much slower than anything I'd done before. And new language, new yoga positions to learn. I filmed and submitted my training video right before we left for Thanksgiving in Arizona. Then, the day after we got back, I taught a Grit class and felt like I couldn't breathe. I took a pregnancy test, and found out I was pregnant!
Paige was in my belly here. At the time that I became pregnant with her, I was teaching seven classes per week. I had also gotten a few raises over the years so I was making about $500/month! I taught attack until I was 25 weeks, and combat until 28 weeks. I quit coaching Grit pretty quickly after becoming pregnant. It was just hard and I didn't have the mental capacity or desire to do it. So I really only coached Grit for one year. I taught Flow for longer... maybe 34 weeks? I also have no pictures of me teaching flow, I never launched it.
Coaching Grit here, Kelly in the background :D
We'd often right the moves of the Grit workout on this white board, making it easier to remember the workout!
After Paige was born, I was eager to get back to teaching. I wanted my classes back on the schedule. But Paige was such a needy baby. She nursed all the time, and she was fussy when she wasn't nursing. She refused a pacifier. And she would scream in the car. It was hard to get her to nap. There was one Kid's club worker, Heidi, who went above and beyond for me and Paige. She figured out that if she swung Paige in the baby swing super fast, Paige would eventually fall asleep. But taking Paige was stressful, and it felt like my milk was always letting down in my tight sports bras, and I struggled with mastitis a few times.
In fact, one day I woke up at 3:00 am and realized I had mastitis coming on. I was supposed to teach combat at 10:00 that morning. I texted every instructor asking if they could sub, but no one was available. I ended up taking a bunch of ibuprofen and heading in to teach. It was so painful to be bouncing around and running in place. I almost cried when I walked into the gym that day and almost cried again when I walked out.
Paige was seven months old when the whole world shut down. The first week or two it felt like a relief, not having to run around everywhere, not having any schedules. But of course, that quickly changed and where I'd once felt relief I now felt rage. I did my best to stay in shape at home. Kelly ordered a small barbell for me to keep doing Les Mills workouts. We rode our bikes almost every day. That fall, the gym opened up temporarily as a "wellness center" or some other loophole. My manager called me and asked if I would be willing to teach. I told her I wouldn't teach with a mask on, because that was insane and I didn't want people to pass out. She told me to just wear it around my neck and then if someone official happened to come by then I could pull it up. I agreed to come in.
It wasn't the same. Many members were too afraid to come in, or had purchased their own equipment at home to use. Other members screamed at each other over masks. Some felt like I did, that they were stupid, and others felt strongly that we should all have them over our noses at all times. I remember being on stage and seeing one lady, who was a staunch mask wearer, pulling her K95 mask away from her face at times just to try and catch her breath and then putting it back and continuing on. It was nice to be back but sad. At least the kids weren't required to wear them in the kid's club, so they were happy to get out and socialize with other kids again.
Around this same time of things sort of opening up, shutting down, and opening up again, Kelly started working in Idaho. He did this for five months, coming home on the weekends. We knew it was likely he'd be offered an official position, and he was by March of 2021. After a year in Washington during covid times, we were so happy to be leaving. But it was also really sad, we'd had an amazing community around us after four years there. Everyone was so friendly and willing to help. I knew so many at the gym, at church, around our neighborhood. I was also newly pregnant with Morgan.
I taught classes until the week before we left. I think I was 7 weeks along. I emailed my old manager from the Pocatello Gold's Gym, letting her know I was coning back. I had such fond memories of the gym here. The launches were amazing, so well attended and so much fun. The whole gym would put effort into making them a hit. She was happy to have me, but she didn't know I was pregnant. I had also gained about 30 pounds since I'd left Idaho. That pregnancy was a bit of a turning point for me, health wise. I was heavier, but I did still get to sub occasionally.
A few months after getting here, my manager offered me an evening bodyflow class, but it wouldn't start until I was 34 weeks along. So, it wasn't that much time to get it established before maternity leave. I also had to cancel a class at 37 weeks because I'd been having prodromal labor and was exhausted. I heard later that a lot of people were there that night, disappointed to have a canceled class. Someone was willing to cover the class for six weeks after the baby was born, but then again, one of the subs forgot to show up one night. So another canceled class hurt the attendance as well.
The members here were friendly when I would sub a combat class, but when I would sub a yoga class they acted annoyed that I was there. No one wanted the music on at a level that I could even hear it. It's the worst when members act rude to a sub, because if it wasn't for me showing up that day, they wouldn't have a class at all.
I was eager to come back again. I wanted to prove to myself and others that I was a great instructor. I came back to that evening yoga class when I was seven weeks postpartum. I still had a huge belly and it was getting in the way during the workout. I'd never experienced this before, even though it wasn't my first baby, I'd never gotten so big. The weight wasn't coming off like I did with my previous babies either. I was weak but I kept trying, however, the class struggled. And Morgan struggled even worse. With the class being at 7:30 at night, she needed me. The first class back, I took her to the kid's club. She screamed the whole time pretty much, and when I came back to get her, she was red and sweaty from crying. The poor worker in there held her and unzipped her jammies to try and cool her down. I cried on the way home.
After that, I left her with Kelly. She screamed almost every time I taught. I would spend the whole day leading up to the time that I would teach trying to set things up perfectly. Making sure she'd get a good nap, and nurse at the right time so that she hopefully wouldn't want me while I was gone for 90 minutes. It didn't really work. Kelly was still supportive of me teaching, but it was just rough on all of us. I felt so bad. I did get a sub once or twice just so I could be with her. It was just so much harder than it had been when I was doing it when Jameson was a baby. Paige and Morgan were more needy, and then having the class be in the evening made it worse. The attendance wasn't great, and it was decided to take it off the schedule eventually. The day of my last class, I had over 10 people. Why did they not show up until then? And why wouldn't they give me more time to build a class? There were frequent schedule changes at this club. And no one cared about the launch events anymore. It was disappointing.
It was hard just getting to attend a class. I would drive around for awhile, hoping she'd fall asleep in the carseat and then bring her in. Only sometimes I'd get there, and they'd tell me the kid's club was full. This wasn't a thing in Tri-Cities. I couldn't believe it. The work I'd put in to get everyone ready and to make sure that she'd be happy for a little while so I could work out, and then to be turned away. It was infuriating. It also cost me some class attendance a few times.
I pushed on, and was eventually given a combat class. I still struggled to lose any weight. And when I would teach combat I felt like my legs were stuck in buckets of cement. I never got that adrenaline rush that would allow me to push myself to the next level. I struggled through every class, except one time when I drank a bunch of caffeine right before but then I couldn't sleep that night. I enjoyed it but couldn't figure out why I was dragging. After I would teach, I'd feel like I needed to go home and nap for five hours. I was completely burned out. My hair was falling out like crazy during this time, and it never stopped until I was halfway through my next pregnancy.
Attendance was low when I took over the class, and it stayed low. I had about three to four members consistently. When I would sign up to teach the rotating Saturday class, I had two people. I wondered if my part of the problem was the way that I looked now. My body was so different from what it had been. And I wondered if members could tell how much I struggled to get through a class. It just continued to feel like the members and the staff didn't care that I was there, and like my body couldn't take it. Eventually the class was taken off the schedule, and I was offered a spot teaching aqua aerobics. I'd never done this, but I figured it was worth it to keep the free membership.
So, I got on YouTube and watched a bunch of videos of water aerobic classes. I decided at first that it would be fun to choreograph the class, so I did. I choreographed a 50 minute class. It was so much work and then doing the whole workout on the cement next to the pool was so exhausting. The members didn't mind it but didn't seem to like it. So I changed things up pretty quickly, and I made more of a circuit style class. I heard good feedback and just tried to make the most of it. But then I became pregnant again, unexpectedly. This last pregnancy drained me more than I knew was possible. It was no longer worth it to keep coming in to a gym that was indifferent to me. Not worth it to try and get in to a kid's club that may or not have room for my kids. I could workout at home. It felt like a long time coming but I let my manager know that I wanted to quit. She asked if I would wait until they found someone to replace me. It took over a month I think, but they finally did. And I left and I haven't been back.
And I can't believe that that's what happened. If you'd told the me from five years ago that I would willingly walk away from teaching, I wouldn't have believed it. But that was one good thing about the covid times, I learned that I didn't need to be an instructor. That sounds dumb, and while it still meant a lot to me, I knew I could be okay without it if I had to be.
In January of this year, a girl who owns a fitness studio reached out to me and asked if I wanted to join their new year challenge. I would be able to attend as many classes as I wanted for a month, and have access to their childcare. I took her up on the offer, because I'd been missing the group fitness environment and it felt like divine intervention. Well, their childcare was a tiny closet stuffed with toys and a small couch and TV. There was probably 8 sq ft of floor space. And my three kids seemed to take up the whole thing. The closet was stuffed full of kids since it was January, and there was a window on the door, so Brooks would see me taking the class and start crying. I also had a hard time getting a reservation for the childcare. And while I had so much fun being in a class again, I just knew the childcare situation wouldn't work out. I went to two classes and that was it.
I miss it. There were times that I felt invincible on that stage. The moves and the music and the energy of the class all combining to create a bit of magic. I don't know if I'll ever get to do it again, but I will always be grateful that I had the chance.
