Imperfections

Yesterday I was on top of things. I had the profile planned out, the playlist synced, and the ride printed up and ready to go.

Then I left the printed copy on the printer.

So I winged in (wung it?) and everyone got to see that I have no idea where Ohio is in relation to Indiana and the rest of the mid west.

Oops. Looking at that map, I'm still not really sure how I'm missing Missouri and Kansas to get to CO, but I guess that's the mystery of the interstate highway system.

On a related note, I've been doing a lot of thinking over the last few weeks, as my "classes left" count dwindles and I face massive upheaval in pretty nearly every aspect of my life. This last year and a half has been nothing short of miraculous for my self-esteem, and that's largely been due to the innumerable mistakes I've made while teaching.

In the beginning, it really bothered me to make mistakes...being off beat (I'm basically never on), miscounting reps on one side, skipping entire sets of exercises...I was out of breath 90% of the time because I was so nervous all the time. I made a VERY conscious effort to NOT point out the mistakes though (even that I wasn't perfect at) and guess what? 9 times out of 10, no one noticed. That one other time, we all laughed it off.

So as the months have gone on and as I've taught more and more, I've embraced my inability to keep a beat or keep count, and have either found ways to compensate for it or found ways to laugh it off. My confidence has grown, and with it I've gained a new comfort in my own skin that I never had before. I've stopped trying to be like other instructors (though I still take their classes for inspiration and motivation!) because let's face it - my regulars come to my classes because they like how I teach. I like to think my classes are tough  but conquerable, and that everyone leaves feeling happy, sore, and accomplished, even if it's just a little.

On that note, this is a friendly remind to all you gym bunnies out there: your instructors and trainers are people too, and no compliment goes unnoticed...even the simple act of asking who does a song you like is encouraging. If you enjoy a class or a song, tell the instructor...I guarantee it'll make his/her day.

Nail Biter

Google Images continues its magic streak. This came from "tell me shake".  I was looking for something more like this:

Anyway. 


So the grade became visible at midnight. I got an 87.5 at first, then saw that one of the questions hadn't given me the credit I should have gotten, so I ended up with an 89.1. I needed an 89.667 to guarantee an A. 

I'm 0.567 points shy of an A at this point. 

But then the professor announced something about getting ONE extra credit point for turning in assignments on time? So...I might be 0.443 above an A? I emailed the prof about it, and she said I'd know by the end of the day what my unofficial grade is. 

I'm dying here. I know it's only an A- if I don't get that extra point, but dammit...I took 6 classes in the last 12 weeks, worked full time, put in over 80 hours of PT observation, and got A's in 5 classes. An A- isn't the end of the world, but it just looks so much more impressive if I get straight A's. 


UPDATE: Long story short, after some minor drama about being 0.01 points shy of an A, I politely pointed out a couple of rounding errors and she gave me the A. :-)

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In other news, I have to teach spin again tonight at 6:45 and I'm thinking  about just going early and taking the strength class before it at 5:45. I realized last night how much I miss going right from work and just working my butt off until I'm too tired to move. 


I also realized last night that I'm doing ok. Bear with me on here, we're going down the rabbit hole a little. 


I know everyone has a fear of public speaking to some degree, and that's not something from which I am exempt. However, my fear of public stupidity FAR outweighs the general fear of talking to a group of people. The major source of anxiety for me when getting up in front of a group and doing something I haven't done before is fear of fraud - that everyone in the audience will suddenly realize I don't know what the heck I'm doing and either laugh or (worse) drop and shake their heads and leave, never to trust me or my judgement again. 


Yes, seriously. 

The funny thing is, I screw up in class all the time. I flub wording and mix up exercises and forget stuff completely, and in the end...no one walks out. No one laughs unless I make it funny, and there's yet to be a class that I didn't get some kind of thanks at the end. It turns out, I'm actually pretty good at this. I still don't know 100% what I'm doing, but I'm having fun and I'm becoming comfortable in my own skin a little more each day, and that rocks. 


And on that note, Rose, this one's for you: 

Between workouts, in the bathroom, sweaty and happy. Enjoy. :-D 

Disturbance in the Force

Playlists are kind of an artistic expression for me.  When I put them together, the method I use is sort of similar to how I put quilts together. There's sort of this intangible undercurrent that needs to flow smoothly between each song, and needs to stay laminar, or at least consistently turbulent.  I guess you could say the list needs to have harmony.  I think that's true of all art, which is why the piece we may view as peaceful and soothing today could be traumatic or at least obnoxious tomorrow - our definition of what's harmonious changes daily, since our experience of what the world is like changes daily.

That said, picking a list that's "harmonious" is a pretty vague way to put it.  The process is a little more concrete than that.  I put together my profile first, always.  The point of Spin is the exercise - the music is a means to an end.  The profile arrangement is another discussion entirely (and frankly, right now I do a lot of borrowing on those).  Once I have the profile decided, I pull songs that roughly match the lengths of the segments (for example, this week each hill is a 6-3-6-3, so I pulled a bunch of 3-, 4-, and 5-minute songs, thinking I could combine them in a way that they'd just about line up with cue changes).  I don't put them in order right away - I just skim my iTunes library and see what catches my eye.  Once I've either skimmed the whole list or hit a point where I feel like I have enough songs to grab from, I go to the playlist and start ordering.  I look primarily for song length, trying to line up song breaks with cues as best I can (that doesn't always happen smoothly, so it's not crucial).  I'll then play through the playlist, sampling the transitions (first and last 10 seconds of each song and how it flows into the next song). It's a pretty iterative process, and on occasion I'll hear one song and think of another that's not on the list, and pull it in too.   I move stuff around to make the transitions right, then listen to the whole list at least once or twice through before calling it good enough. I check for volume levels, making note of what songs might get loud fast (our gym requires headphones for Spin classes, so this is critical) and what songs might need bass/treble adjustments.  I usually also include a few songs that didn't quite make the cut but that gel with the rest of the playlist well enough, at the end of the list, just in case I feel like making changes during class. Finally, if I'm happy with it all, I export the list for later use, just in case iTunes does what it does...again.  :-)


All this to say, I had a playlist yesterday that had a lot of songs I liked, but that didn't play well together.  It would have been ok.  I like to have a profile and a playlist on hand every time I go to the gym, just in case...you never know when the bat symbol is gonna fly, right?  Kidding.  Seriously though, I always have a ride in the back of my mind, just in case.  Last night, if I'd needed to teach, I could have used this playlist (well, sort of...it turns out iTunes had kindly erased the whole thing on me, just because) but it wasn't...right.  It didn't feel good.  There was, as the title states, a Disturbance in the Force.  Fortunately, iTunes did what it does sometimes and deleted my playlist for me (I had it written down elsewhere, don't worry) so I started from scratch and came up with what I think is a winner.  Without further ado, I present to you the musical accompaniment for tonight's ride, "Just Two Hills":

See  you there!