Ties That Bind

As you may or may not know, I have recently become a Fitness Professional. I teach two classes- one called H2O Bootcamp, which I became certified to do back in December, and one called BodyFlow, which I am still actually in the process of being certified to instruct. Part of the certification process is to submit a video of myself teaching a class- a video which will be assessed and either passed or failed by people higher up the Les Mills foodchain than myself. It I pass, then I'm certified for life, and can teach people anywhere in the country- techincally anywhere in the world- to do BodyFlow. If I fail... well, I'm not going to fail, so it doesn't matter. I do my first taping on the twentieth.

One of the most interesting things about this little Life Development of mine is that it rather unexpectedly has given my brother and I a little more Common Ground. You see, he, too, is an instructor(almost-fully-certified). Of course, he is working towards being a SERE instructor, which is just a tiddly bit more of a big deal than being a BodyFlow instructor, but still. He, too, is being watched like a hawk at the moment, to make certain he is saying all the proper "key words" and showing more-than-perfect form in everthing. So we get to talk about what a pain in the ass that is.

But we also get to talk about how much we love teaching. Tonight we were talking about the particular thrill we get when someone finally gets what we have been trying to teach them- that magic moment when showing actually does become teaching, and they learn. We are both very enthusiastic about what we teach, and to see another person become infected with that enthusiasm, to take it and reflect it back to us, twofold... well. That's just good stuff, that is. So much the better that we are teaching them things that will make a positive impact on their quality of life (or, in his case, actually save it).

The other very amusing point my brother made is that we are both teaching people who are, at the very least, physically uncomfortable- and often flat-out miserable (his moreso than mine, of course, although I doubt mine would find that fact to be much solace when I'm demanding that they drop their hips, damn it!). So we're dealing with a bunch of people who probably resent us as much as they respect us... But who have signed up to do what we say, anyway!

(I wonder if sadism is a genetic thing?)