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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