Confessions of a Fitness Instructor

There are some decisions, that regardless of their insignificance to outside parties, are very difficult for those on the inside to make. 

I made one of those decisions today. 

One that will make no difference at all to literally billions of people, but for me making it breaks my heart.

Last winter/spring I taught a crazy number of classes each week – 19 to be exact – most of which were Zumba.  It wore me out.  I had no life outside of work and was unbelievably exhausted all of the time.  I knew then that I would cut back classes in the fall (over the summer I always teach fewer classes as many of my groups break for the summer) and planned to take on no more than 15 classes total.

Easier said then done.  After scheduling my regular classes I was already at 15 and then was reminded of an agreement I had made the previous fall for a 10 week session of classes this fall (it was for a non-profit group that had to submit a request early to obtain funding), and to round that out I ended up adding another class at a location nearby so that I could piggyback the classes (this is something i do for the classes that pay my by the hour.  I try to schedule them so I can do two while I’m in that area to make it more worthwhile).  Which brought me to 17 classes – better than 19/week but not much.

At first it was fine.  I was rested from the summer months and happy to be “back at it” but by mid-October it was starting to wear on me.  Now for the past month my life has consisted largely of work and sleep.  What is the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?  Wonder what the weather is like?  Think about what you’re going to have for breakfast?  Every morning I wake up and the first thing I do is calculate how many hours it will be before I can crawl back in bed and have a nap.  Once i know how long it will be I start giving myself a pep talk, “You can live through 3 hours, it’s not that bad, you can do it.”  And I do live, I can do it – but it is that bad.  I miss eating real meals, I miss having time to buy groceries, and most of all I miss J.  Many weeks go by with us only seeing each other for a couple hours even though we live in the same house, our working hours seem to always be at polar opposites.

I can’t do it anymore. 

Which brings me back to the title of this post: decisions.

I had already made some change to my schedule starting in the new year (and some sooner) but today in the light of an injury I’m nursing (a hip flexor injury – strictly an over use injury contracted last Thursday) I’ve had to make a decision I had hoped I wouldn’t have to make.

For the past four years I been teaching one or two morning classes at the university for largely the same group of participants, over that time many of which have become friends who I look forward to seeing each and every week.  I had already decided to cut back to one morning class at the University starting in January, but today I sent the email to the program coordinator to let her know that I won’t be able to teach my Thursday morning class for the winter/spring term.  I’ve been teaching five classes/day on Thursdays and just cannot continue to do that to my body on a weekly basis.  Four of those five classes are Zumba (the fifth is a seniors class which isn’t hard on my body at all) so it is a Zumba class hat had to go.  because the class at the university is the only one I don’t run myself (meaning I have no control over cancelling the class if weather/roads are bad), is the furthest away (it is a 30 minute drive from my house), and is the only one that will be replaced by another class/instructor in my absence so while I won’t be there to teach – somebody will.

While I am going to miss everybody terribly, you won’t be getting rid of me forever – I’ll be back in the spring/summer teaching one or two morning classes, and I will still be teaching my Monday evening and Tuesday noon classes. 

Like I said at the start of this post, this decision will make no different to most all of the people that read this post, but for those few who it does matter to, please know it took me well over a week to make my decision.  And I’m keeping my fingers crossed that you get a great instructor/class in that time slot,..