Communication lessons learned from the world of fitness

When I am not communicating by day, I am communicating with lots of people another way in the evenings. Two out of five work days a week I am a Zumba fitness instructor and I love it.

One of the things I love about teaching Zumba classes the most is the influence the class can have on people. It can as simple as broadening their knowledge of international rhythms, or making an even bigger difference in their lives -which any Zumba instructor can tell you happens often. People are always willing to share the positive effects this workout has made in their life, physically, mentally and emotionally.

One of the things I love is having a person who has never tried Zumba, come to a class. Sometimes they're nervous, shy, excited, or all three. Sometimes they feel obligated to tell me they're uncoordinated. None of that matters - what I love is testing myself with these participants. I do not have a fitness background, therefore the "instructing" part scared me when I first started. I have learned so much since then. One of the most fascinating things to me is the rhetoric of visualization in fitness instruction.Providing participants with visual cues is crucial to the Zumba fitness program; and doing it well takes a lot of learning, practice, and even more practice. 

The way I test myself, is by watching how the participants move and how precise they are in mimicking my moves and transitions. When I sneak in a nose scratch, or throw in an accidental extra arm manoeuvre, and they do the same - I know they are watching me well. I know they're relying on my visual cues and I feed off of that;  in return I get even more energized and the adrenaline really gets flowing, which is then passed on the the class.

The creator of Zumba, Beto Perez, didn't speak a lot of English when he invented Zumba and first starting teaching it in Miami back the late 90's. Therefore, he relied heavily on visual cueing, and that become a part of the Zumba brand it is today.

If you don't know what Zumba is, or want to see an example of an instructor relying only on visual cueing, click here. It is an older video from 2006, and the people at the back were likely trying Zumba for the first time. The instructor is Tanya Beardsley, a Zumba Education Specialist who has become one of the faces of Zumba, and she is great to watch, I have learned so much from watching her on DVD's.

Worst week to not have cable...or not?

The week of Monday April 25 to Monday May 2nd, I was without cable at home. It was without a doubt, what I remember as being the worst week not to have cable.

I was fine without it for a few days, I got an extra run in that week, I went to a book sale and picked up all my summer reading. Then Thursday came. Game 7 of the NHL playoffs of the Habs and Bruins series was apparently crucial to watch, since Montreal is my boyfriend's favorite team and we ended up at the bar across the street to watch it.

Then, on Friday morning, I missed the Royal Wedding. Shucks. I did not plan on getting up any earlier than usual, but I did want to catch some of the highlights on the morning shows afterwards. I missed it all. I missed the wedding of the century.

Then came Sunday night, May 1. A night significant to Americans and many others around the world. It will be like 9/11 - you will always remember what you are doing the moment you first heard the news. I was watching a movie - the Kings' Speech ironically enough, when I checked twitter and saw Obama was going to make an announcement later that evening. rare, for a Sunday night I thought. I moved on to watch Old School, and then checked twitter on my iphone again. Twitter was abuzz with the news that Osama Bin Laden had been captured and killed, Obama was to make a speech about it within an hour. I left my boyfriend with Will Ferrell and Luke Wilson and headed to the computer. "Worst week not to have cable!" I tweeted. Within 5 minutes someone had tweeted me back telling me the White House website would be streaming his speech live.

Turns out, I certainly did not need cable to keep up with all these events. the NHL game could have been streamed, I saw pictures of the Royal Wedding online, and most importantly I was able to still watch Obama's speech live. Plus, being the speech lover that I am, I even downloaded a full transcript of it online from the White House website the next morning. Thank you WH.


What really excites me, is how the news of Bin Laden's death broke on twitter.

1) One of the earliest sources, Keith Urbahn chief of staff for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, tweeted nearly an hour prior to Obama’s confirmation “So I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn.”

2) by Monday morning, twitter was full of updates linking to articles and blogs that told the story of
Pakistani IT consultant, Sohaib Athar. He was tweeting about the event as it was happening, and he didn't know it.  His first tweet mentioned that a helicopter was hovering above.  Shortly after he said  “a huge window shaking, bang here in Abbottabad…I hope its not the start of something nasty”.

These two tweets caused a worldwide reaction within minutes. I could barely keep up with the twitter updates before the Obama speech, let alone afterwards.

In Canada, the next morning (May 2) was Election Day. We were electing a new Prime Minister. The government realized that social media could create problems once the results starting coming in. Elections Canada announced a media blackout period concerning reporting on the election until the polls had closed at every polling station. Social media activity was a no-no, but people couldn't be stopped, especially once Elections Canada confirmed they would not be monitoring social media sites.

I got my cable back, the night of the election. I followed the live news coverage and twitter simultaneously. It was more entertaining to interact and engage with others online, than it was to follow on tv.

So, was it the worst week not to have cable? Absolutely not. I didn't miss a thign and by making a presence on twitter, I felt even more informed than others. My sister texted me Sunday night about the announcement. They with their satellite didn't know what was going on, and I was filling them in on what I was seeing on twitter.

It was an eventful week on earth, and an even more so in the virtual world.

May 5 UPDATE:  For a more in depth analysis and metrics on this see this article.