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What is this post about? High Enough to Dream? Ok. I’ll fess up. ‘High Enough to Dream’ is the name of the warm up track on Body Attack 58. That’s right. A song from a gym class.
Which should warn you: it’s time for the quarterly launch…
Those of you familiar with the world of gyms and Les Mills programs will know that every three months we get new music and new choreography. In other words, the participants get fresh, new classes. What does this mean to us instructors? Hours of preparation for each program you teach: learning the moves by heart, perfecting your cues, your technique and your performance. For me, who’s been instructing since the dark ages, this is soooo much better than how teaching group fitness classes used to be: buying music and making up your own routines.
However, every three months this now means you have two frantic weeks before the ‘launch’ day where you’re cramming new chorrie (choreography) into your already intellectually challenged head space and wondering why the hell you do this to yourself. If you’ve got a full-time job or school and other commitments, it’s damn stressful. Multiply that by three when you’ve got bushwork the week before the launch and by 100 if you’re also trying to finish a PhD.
Tomorrow I’m off to Hermannsburg for a joint management planning workshop (the West MacDonnell National Park joint management plan). I’ll be staying overnight at Palm Valley. The bonus is that I get to see Gary for an extra day and we get to have fun with the fantastic rangers of Finke Gorge NP (and visit the infamous Maggot Bar). However, this means I have to fit in:
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practicing Body Attack choreography
- learning the rest of the Body Balance choreography
- getting the mandatory three-pages-per-day-or-die of my thesis written
Here’s what usually happens during a trip to Finke Gorge (Palm Valley):
We drink a lot, laugh a lot and hold up the Maggot Bar. (Why is the rangers’ social club at Finke Gorge called the ‘Maggot Bar’? Two reasons: first, you go there to get maggotted; second, the Dreaming Story associated with place relates to maggots)
Anyway, here’s how I’m planning to manage everything I have to do:
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I will annoy the hell out of Jonathan (planning colleague) by practicing Body Attack in the car on the way out to Hermannsburg (I might make all the Traditional Owners practice with me, too!)
- I will make everyone at Leanne’s house help me learn the remaining Balance choreography tomorrow night (can’t wait to see Gary & Stretch doing this!)
- I will get up really early (for me this means 5.30) and bash out three pages on my thesis
Time management and planning in practice?
No, madness. Absolute madness. And I promise you some photos of the gym launch on Saturday as proof.
