You don’t need to be perfect - real instructors are where it’s at

Yep it’s always nice when you deliver that EPIC session when everything goes smoothly, you dance or coach like a dream and you finish feeling like a fitness guru. It’s great. But anyone who teaches knows that generally doesn’t happen week after week. 

The speakers at my school had a loose connection which meant that every time we got to about the 38 minute mark, the sound would drop off. I guess it got all hot and bothered, a bit like me teaching in the summer. They eventually fixed it but in the meantime we made it into a bit of banter. I’d sing the lyrics badly, they’d all join in to save their ears from my horrendous vocal talents, my hearing is shot in my left ear so I had to climb off the stage to hear where we in the music, they’d laugh and then all of a sudden the sound would come back on and we’d be good again. It brought everyone together - would it be funny every single week? Probably not, but did it make everyone laugh for the 3 weeks it was going on for? Yep. Now do they all take the piss out of my singing? absolutely. Does that join us all together in another level of connection? yes it bloody does. Now do they feel like they can bellow out the lyrics whenever they fancy, completely. 

I’ve got scoliosis. It goes through its own moods. Sometimes it can be a dick for a few weeks, other times it’s fine. I went through a period of regularly getting a muscle spasm mid class. It doesn’t stress me out anymore, I just tell them to keep giving it some welly and I’m going to have to mark it all. They help me out and leap around however much they want to, and I make it through the class somehow and then go and lie on my living room floor. Is it ideal? no, not in the slightest. But it does make them realise that everyone is working around something and that they can still do whatever they can despite perhaps not having the anatomy of an athlete - and I think that’s massively shaped how I work with my clients. 

The things you see as the ‘worst thing that could happen’ are usually the things that make people feel more comfortable. We spend so much time wanting to deliver the very best (which we absolutely should of course) that sometimes we forget that the occasional blips are what make us seem more relatable. Would I be as good at looking after my clients with injuries without having a spinal deformity I’m constantly working around? Possibly not. Our ‘imperfections’ are actually the things that make someone think ‘ah she’s the instructor I want to do this with, she gets me’. 

It’s a bit like friends. Some of the things I think are my worst qualities are the things my friends love the most about me, and vice versa. It’s the same with instructors. We might think we suck at something, or that our tech issue ruined the class, but our clients like us more because of how we responded to it. 

Believe me when I say I started to teach the class when I had a horrible virus (probably patient zero on the covid front) and I had to cue from a chair because I couldn't breathe. No word of a lie, 2 of my front row crew got up and demo’ed the whole class whilst I sat in the corner away from everyone cueing with my hands. It was rubbish from an instructor point of view, but they were bloody wonderful and everyone had a great time and kept whooping and cheering for their comrades who had taken over. They still remember it now. It made my soul happy at the time to see them rock it and it probably did theirs as well. 

So, in conclusion, enjoy being you. With whatever broken bits, brain fog or life stuff you’ve got going on. Your participants think you are great, and part of that is because they get to see some of the real you leaping around and brightening their week, in a way that only you can. 

Anna

Xx

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