← What a year 2010 has been….
This month, guest blogger Katie Ryan reviews the Just Jhoom! Instructor Trianing Course which she attended in November 2010.
Three batches of trainee instructors have attended Just Jhoom!’s first instructor training courses at Surrey Sports Park in Guildford. Ranging from backgrounds in dance and fitness, a total of 32 people have so far enrolled in the instructor programme. As one of the trainees from a South Asian dance background, I was interested to learn about teaching motivating classes that develop participants’ fitness levels.
Just Jhoom! incorporates aspects of South Asian dance such as hand gestures and folk dance steps with exercise to music (ETM) routines and yoga inspired stretches. The result is a very accessible dance-fitness style accredited by the Register for Exercise Professionals.
Over the smoothly-run, intensive course the Just Jhoom! team, director & dancer Shalini Bhalla, ETM instructor Beccy Matthews and yoga instructor & dancer Sarra Whicheloe, took participants through routines which are devised to provide an effective work-out within the structure of a Bollywood class. Trainee instructors were taught thirty-five basic steps and how to use these in routines to teach dance-fitness classes.
Instructors have a manual of moves to be set to Bollywood songs, with specific tempos that ensure the class will gradually raise participants’ heart rates and maintain them at a peak for the main work-out, before gradually lowering them in the cool-down. Provided with information on everything from the background of Bollywood dance to music licensing and marketing support, instructors are armed with the resources they need to start a class in a gym or community setting.
Crucially, for instructors with a dance background in any style, Bhalla has left room for creativity with the possibility for instructors to create half of the material they teach in their classes. Equally important is that the structure set by Just Jhoom! maintains a standard which means participants can identify the Just Jhoom! style and rely on it to provide safe, fun and effective fitness training, while instructors can rely on a brand with the potential to grow in recognition in both the dance and fitness sectors.