Welcome to a brand new dramatic mini-series that will be featured periodically in this blog – Confessions of a Freestyle Fitness Instructor or C.O.F.F.I. The title says it all. After teaching over 4000 group fitness classes (Pilates, yoga, spinning, yoga/Pilates, boot camps etc) I look froward to sharing the cool, the weird, the inebriated, and the totally crazy that I experience each day in this amazing profession! Let’s go…
“Hey, That’s MY spot!”
This happens to about 97% of those who attend my classes: wherever you place your mat the first time you come, that is where you will ALWAYS go in the future. No matter how much you try to avoid that “special spot”….look around the room….chat with your friends…check your yoga ninja socks…BAM!!! You are right back to that spot!! We are truly creatures of habit. Hey, I always go to the front but i’m the teacher darn it!! And people can find their spot within a half-inch of the last time. So, your mind can calculate (in a room full of 70 people) almost exactly the spot on the floor where you last did Spiderman Plank into Pulsing Camel with the certainty of Nasa landing on the moon. I want to outline someone’s mat with invisible ink and see just how close they are…like something on NCIS or CSI. I don’t actually watch those shows but it sounds like an appropriate reference.
I had a couple of ladies in Pilates at Gold’s Dr. Phillips (Globo Gym because it is ENORMOUS) that always wanted to be right in front of the stage and they were NASTY about getting those spots. They made other ladies cry if they got too close or looked at them the wrong way during the Hundred. I nicknamed them “the wolverines” (no relation to Michigan U.). Of course I never told them that because they would make ME cry and I only do that when watching the end of River Runs Through It”or Babe (talking pig movie). Wish they could have harnessed that energy into something positive like inventing vaccines or flying somewhere far away from class…like Madagascar. I can’t blame them for wanting to be close to me with my random capris, Got Core? shirts, and sweet smell of Axe, or on special occasions, Tag.
The great thing is once you are on your mat in my classes the health and fitness possibilities are endless. So, put your mat wherever you like as long as you are there and not on top of someone else. The most challenging part of getting fit and healthy is just showing up…and i’m always honored you came to my class 🙂
Sean Vigue
sean@seanviguefitness.com
seanviguefitness.com – own my Pilates for Men and (NEW) Yoga for Men workouts in my STORE!
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