WaterWorks - Diary of an Instructor

Having passed module training for WaterWorks I have now been unleashed on the pools of Eastbourne! I can't describe how chuffed I am when people ask about WaterWorks, what is it all about and how the course was, for me to be able to tell them that I trained on WaterWorks One and am one of the first 50 Instructors :D

The time to teach my first class has arrived, its a lunch time class, which consists mainly of ladies from the erm...older generation. Being very talented at ignoring the feelings of nerves I was surprised at just how nervous I was when it came to 5 to 12! I've been removed from my comfort zone of the Studio and placed on poolside. Prior to this class I have only practised the WaterWorks choreography in my bedroom so I would be lieing if I said that I felt prepared. To teach in such a hot room, with no mic, with an audience in the jacuzzi and seniors who have been doing aqua for years gawping at me from the pool was daunting to say the least, but the moment that Cher kicked in all my nerves disappeared to be replaced with my confident Instructor head.

Before doing WaterWorks I had never even participated in aqua aerobics before, perceiving it as a bit of a namby pamby workout, created for old people, and I am ashamed to say that I thought the Instructors I had seen teaching were lazy for not carrying out all of the moves with the participants. I can now admit just how wrong I was, there in no way in this life that you could perform all of the high impact choreography throughout the whole class...(try it out, see how long you can do spotty dogs for!)

The class went swimmingly :) It was great fun to teach, and was an amazing workout for not only my participants in the water, but also for me aswell. The ladies all kept up with the choreography easily and understood which direction to go at which point. They enjoyed the mix of track types such as conditioning and cardio, and commended the amount of options there are to raise or lower the intensity of the moves.

As standard procedure goes, I of course had to get in the water for track 5 :) Not only did it really help to control the class and what direction they had to go in, but it also woke the women up a bit, there were smiles all round, they all found it really quite amusing. Boy did I need to get in the pool to cool down buy that point too! (Top tip for female WaterWorks instructors teaching this track...don't wear a a normal bra under your top...wear a sports bra! Mine just soaked up all the water, and needed a lot of squeezing out...also to my participants amusement)

Overall the feedback from class number one was all positive
-Nice to do a different routine
-New moves they haven't done before in aqua
-Fresh Instructor (ie I still get excited when I get to teach classes, and apparently they can tell that!)
-Good having different tracks to do different things
-Working to the music helps the keep up as in other classes the music just seems to be on in the backround
-One lady in particular liked the punching in track 3 ALOT
-The use of dumbells was also enjoyed by the ladies, as the only equipment they normally use is woggles, it had been such a long time since the dumbells were used that I had to give the club notice so that they could get them out of storage!

The time in the class absolutely flew by! I loved it and the aqua ladies seemed to aswell!

For more info on WaterWorks click here.

Check in at the same time next week to hear all about my second class!