Sunday, August 24, 2014

The Show Must Go On!

Today’s post comes from Judy Davenport, an Australian ZIN who had this very funny, go-with-the-flow, ah-ha moment when recently teaching an Aqua Zumba class.  Here it is in her words.
Currently Being Moderate

8.30am Sunday – a ZIN colleague sends me a text: “I’m really sorry for the early morning message, but I’ve got severe hip pain and can't move.  Any chance you could cover my 9.30am Aqua Zumba class?”

I jump out of bed and reply, “Yep.  Can do. I’ll get ready now”.

I’ve never taught at this club before, so we exchange a few more messages about which side of the pool I’m to set up on and where the speaker/PA system is stored and that I’ll need to supply my own iPod connection cable.  No problem. 

Then there’s this message: “A few weeks ago there was an issue with a cable that was snapped and lodged in the stereo … I hope they fixed it”.  Hmm.

9.00 am – I arrive at the health club and gradually find everything I need.  Sure enough, the metal jack is still firmly lodged in the speaker socket and there’s no way I can connect my iPod to it.  I race back home and grab an adaptor for the socket that requires a larger diameter jack.

9.20am – I'm back at the club and try the other connections (the other jack socket, even the USB port), but no luck.  Reception staff can't help me and time is marching on.

9.30am – I turn to the 15 or so expectant faces in the pool and say, “Good morning everyone.  My name is Judy and I’m covering for Milan who is out with a hip injury.  Now, we have a slight technical problem.  So we have a couple of options … we can regretfully cancel the class … or I can dash home and get my own stereo, but that will cause a 15-minute delay.” 

The class members come up with a 3rd option.  “No problem,” they say, “We’ll just do it without music!”

“Ok,” I say, “If you’re happy to give that a go, then so am I.”

I then add, “I tell you what, I’ll put the iPod on and have the music playing in my earphones so at least that way, we’ll keep to the beat.  How’s that?”  “Great!” they reply.  So off we go.

One or two songs in I think to myself, “Well, this can’t be all that motivating for the people in the class,” ... so I start SINGING the playlist (Tu Boca, Como Le Gusta A Tu Cuerpo, Guillao De Loko, El Baile Del Pirulino, La Nina Fresa).

As I’m going along, I realise that quite a few of the other songs are in English, so I get the class to sing along with me. 

We do: “Blame It On The Boogie”, “Great Balls of Fire”, “Delilah”, “Livin’ La Vida Loca” and cool down to “Quando, Quando, Quando”.  By the end of the class, they’re all singing, laughing, applauding and having a great time – as am I.

They were so gracious and lovely and said how much they enjoyed the class, that they really DID get a workout and how much they appreciated my efforts under very difficult circumstances.  Nobody complained directly about my off-key singing, which was very kind of them.  I can only imagine how torturous listening to that must have been!


Judy has since returned to the same class with back-up CDs, extra cables, and a lot of patience.  This story originally appeared in the ZIN Community Forum and is reposted here with Judy’s permission.

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