having said all that....

teaching did NOT come easily for me at first. In fact it's probably a miracle I'm still doing it. Let's rewind to when the small neighborhood step instructor told me I should teach. She was QUITE pregnant at the time and unbeknownst to me, she was doing some serious high pressure sales stuff *to* me because she was about ready to pop and really desperate to find somebody to take over her classes. Within a month I had an AFAA certification and when I called her up so happy with myself and excited to share the good news, she promptly dropped 2 step classes a week right into my lap. "Uh.......sure" I said not really knowing what I was getting myself into. Having a certification is one thing, knowing how to teach a good class is something completely different. She set me up to teach the warmup of the Saturday step class that weekend before I was supposed to start my Monday/Wednesday night classes.  However, it was  with a sub instructor that I didn't know very well.  Did she offer to loan me some music? Share some combinations with me? Meet with me for an hour to practice before the big day? No. Did I ask her for those things? Yes.

I was a nervous wreck. All week I was pouring through my easier step videos and frantically writing down choreography and practicing it in my living room. I don't think I slept 2 hours that Friday night. I wrote my stuff down in big letters with a sharpie pen on paper and thought I could just lay them on the floor near my step up front in case I got lost or something. In hindsight I was choosing stuff to teach that was way over my head even though to me it was a pretty easy step combination I had done in my living room over and over again. Knee on the corner, figure 8 to the back and front of the room and then building on from there.  All fine and dandy if you've seen it on video a million times. A complete disaster in the making showing this to 20 students who had never done a figure 8 off the bench before. When over 1/2 the class couldn't get it I panicked. I put them (got stuck in) a knee corner to corner pattern for WAY more than 128 counts and looked towards the back row where the sub instructor was, in an effort to say "please help me!" and she said in the harshest tone possible, and I quote:

*THIS* IS YOUR WARMUP  ??????????????

Nasty bitch. She killed me. I died. I literally died up front. I forgot what I was doing, I couldn't even READ the words I had written in the biggest letters possible on the paper in front of me and I probably couldn't have told you my name if you would have asked. With no help coming from the back row and with students starting to get really really frustrated I just bagged it. I asked everyone to march it out on the floor and we started some stretches. Then I handed the reins over to the sub instructor and disappeared to the back row to finish out the class. Afterwards I went home and cried for about 3 hours. I remember my husband telling me it was "okay" and that if it was so bad I didn't need to do it again. Why put myself through that? I seriously didn't want to teach....ever again. It preyed upon all of those deepest insecurities I'd had since I was a child. Being shy, rejection, embarrassment. Making a fool of myself. Somehow the dust settled that weekend and I pulled myself together before Monday. I decided to give it another try.

I got some of the best encouragement from my internet friend who was also just getting into this "fitness instructor" thing. She burned some music, about 4 CDs and sent them to me in the mail. She also emailed me some easier combinations to try and we chatted back and forth daily for awhile. We talked about being on the beat, about the 32 count phrase, and how to create and build combinations. I never did get any help from the resident instructor and in fact when she had her baby a few weeks later she handed the entire program over to me. Not only was I a new instructor but now I was the new program coordinator simply because I was certified and was a resident of the community. Luckily the program was *very* small. 9 classes a week and 3 instructors. 2 of those classes were mine and I had a very small but loyal following (2 people sometimes 4). To minimize how much step I would have to teach I changed my classes to a circuit format..a little step, a little weights, a little step, a little weights..and so on for an hour. Teaching squats, lunges, overhead presses, bicep curls? That was easy for me and it helped me build confidence about being up in front. The neighborhood club was a good place to get my feet wet and a good place to get all of my "kinks" worked out for the first year. No microphone, no mirrors, not a whole lot of pressure.

Coincidentally we're off to Seattle this weekend to meet up with our friends from Houston that bagged big city life to run a bed and breakfast in British Columbia. Would you believe that the wife is one of my original step students? From all those years ago? Reminds me...I need to thank her for being so loyal, so kind and so supportive of me. Even if I did leave her in a knee corner to corner holding pattern one time too many. :)