Happy Halloween! For fun, we decided to share some group exercise teaching horror stories instead of watching horror movies. Can you identify with any of the following? Feel free to comment and share yours as well!
Doris Wong (Boston BollyX Instructor):
I was covering a class at a studio on campus that I hadn’t taught in before so I made sure I got there early to set everything up. Luckily, I bumped into a student on my way there and he guided me to the studio space. I would have gotten lost if it wasn’t for him! The studio was probably a 3-5 minute walk from the front desk. Once there, I had to unlock the sound system using the combination code the group ex manager had provided. It didn’t work! 10 minutes go by and students are trickling in with 5 min left to spare. I even asked students to try themselves. One student ran to the front desk to ask for help but since they were short staffed, we had to wait another 10-15 minutes before anyone arrived to help. Turns out the first two numbers of the code was swapped. Everyone was understandably accommodating but boy was I stressed out!
Richa Jauhari (LA BollyX Instructor and Regional Trainer):
My group exercise horror story is from the very first time I taught a fitness class. I had done my first ever fitness certification a couple of months back and after two months of preparing, I walked into a class packed with people. I was full of anxiety. Not only did I not sleep the night before, but I got there half an hour early and sat in the bathroom stall the whole time trying to simultaneously calm myself down and do a mental pep-talk. Luckily, I didn’t have any audio trouble but I did have an experienced dancer who put me through the ringer as soon as I opened my mouth to introduce myself. Right away she said that she couldn’t hear me and I should let her know what count I’m following so she can count along. Now I didn’t have any formal dance training and I didn’t actually pay attention to the count while practicing; I was just ‘feeling the music’. I soooo wasn’t prepared for this question, so I beamed at her, mustered my most positive tone and said not to worry about counting and just enjoy the music! She gave me a very puzzled look and no amount of smiling on my part changed that expression. Throughout the whole class, I was focused on only her, what she must be thinking and how badly I must have bombed in her eyes. This was probably the most scary thing I had done up until that point but I’m so glad I walked out of that bathroom stall!
Anita Patel (Boston BollyX Instructor):
My teaching nightmare is falling on my face. I feel like this is one of the few things that can happen during class that you can’t really recover gracefully from. As part of my quick intro speech before class, I always tell the participants that “if I fall on my face, please carry on and keep the momentum going!” I say this partly as a joke to get people to smile and relax before class, but I know there is always a chance it will actually happen. After 4 years of teaching group exercise, it finally happened while teaching BollyX for a PE class. I was in the middle of the Dum Dum performance when my left foot decided to move faster than my right foot through the grapevine causing me to step on myself and go tumbling to the floor. I yelled from the ground for the class to “keep going!”… and they did! I was very proud of them. No bruising occurred….other than my ego.
Clara Ma (NYC BollyX Instructor and Regional Trainer):
I had one nightmarish occurrence teaching BollyX and it was right in the dead of summer. The summer heat had been climbing and I could tell some of my participants were unwillingly coming to the gym just to escape the heat and have an hour or two of air conditioning. Doing a BollyX workout was just an added cherry on top. As we progressed through the warm up, I noticed the mirrors fogging up, the windows covered with steam, and yes it was hot, but why were we all drenched by song 2?? I noticed participants starting to slide around on the floor and unable to hold their balance. I paused the playlist *gasp* and ran upstairs to figure out what had happened. Turns out, the gym’s air conditioning was out and the gym was suffering from some sweltering heat! I ran back down to let the class know and some people sighed with relief realizing that what they were experiencing wasn’t normal. For the rest of class, I told everyone that they were welcome to leave and get a refund for today’s class since it was definitely a less than ideal situation, but for the troopers that stuck around, we mopped up the floor, modified the movements to lessen the slip ‘n slide, and ended class with a bang!
Dalia Debs (Boston BollyX Instructor and Regional Trainer):
I love teaching BollyX. I love water skiing. The two, however, do NOT go together in a gym studio setting. A few months ago, while going through my pre-class ritual of chatting, signing people in, and turning on the AC, I notice the thermostat had the AC and heat on at the same time and the temperature of the room was set at 68. It wouldn’t respond to me no matter what I pressed so I shrugged, thinking it was odd but not a big deal. It felt pretty comfortable at that time so I didn’t bother trying to lower the temperature. Later I would learn that a previous instructor apparently wanted to work out in an ice rink and lowered the AC temperature to 45 degrees…which broke the unit. Ten minutes into my class, I started noticing my students fanning their faces and wilting from the heat in the room. People were repeatedly running to the thermostat to try to lower the temperature in the studio without success. I apologize for the issue and we plow through. It wasn’t until we got to the LBS song that I realized I was in trouble because water was collecting on the floor. Maintaining one’s low, wide squat in Panga is hard enough without adding 1-2 inches of water to the mix! We were slipping and sliding all over the place! In theory – it sounds like a blast! All those movies that depict people dancing in water, looking sexy in slow motion, spinning artfully – it sounds like something epic from a Bollywood movie, right? I was so wrong. Try dancing in your own little puddle of water, trying desperately to stay upright, after the person next to you whips their arm out in Sadi Gali, flicking sweat into your eyes – it’s a decidedly unpleasant experience. When the room had steamed up so much that we could not see ourselves in the mirror, half my class walked out shaking their heads. I was mortified but I tried to sell my remaining die-hards on the epic Bollywood movie water scene for the final performance even though we would have to keep it all somewhat in place so that no one falls and breaks something. I can only be thankful that the mirrors were so steamed up that we couldn’t see how ridiculous we looked!
Laina Van Dyke (Chicago BollyX Instructor):
I was teaching at a gym awhile back where the group fitness room was HUGE and if no class was going on, people could walk in and use the room. Sometimes people didn’t know this and would walk in mid-class and I would have to tell them they couldn’t be in there. Usually people would be fine about it but I hated how I would have to stop class and tell them.
One day my class was off to a strange start. I had about five participants, and one girl was doing completely different choreography. It wasn’t like modifications, it was like she was listening to a different song in a different tempo and different genre. Her movements were so dramatically different than the rest of ours, that other participants were getting distracted. I did my best to hold my own and just keep teaching, but what I really wanted to do was crack up.
About midway through, she literally danced out of the room and never came back. Sometimes participants would leave to get water, and come back a moment later so I didn’t think anything about it when the door opened a few minutes later. It wasn’t the same girl, but a guy who walked in, picked up some weights, and started pumping iron in front of the mirror.
“Hi,” I said walking up. “We’re having a class and you can’t be in here until it’s over.”
He glared at me. “Are you %#*% kidding?”
“Um, no,” I blinked. “I’m sorry but those are the rules. There’s a sign on the door.”
“That’s *^%#* stupid,” he said and threw the weights down and walked out.
Needless to say, that was the weirdest and worst class I ever taught.