2 classes, 1 day

it was a busy Zumba day for me again yesterday.

i had a half hour demo at the north ayrshire learning disability awareness week celebrations, it was lucky i got there early as it transpired that my slot had been moved forwards and i hadn't been told!

so i walked into the Volunteers Rooms in irvine and OMG - it was SO busy, loads of stalls and LOADS of people!

spotted loads of familiar faces, nursing staff, carers, clients... it was one of those days where i saw loads of faces I knew and struggled to place a few of them. it was nice to catch up with some of the nurses i'd worked with last year, even had one ask about where i was going for my year long 3rd year placement and if i'd consider going back to the north team. chatted to a few service users i'd got to know from my 10 weeks with the north team too, most of them recognised me but couldn't recall where they knew me from.

anyways, we got started with the Zumba, had about 20 starting out, wide variety of ages but generally ability level was a lot higher than tuesday's class so routines were yet again modified to suit the needs of the group.

yet again, some real characters started to stand out, mainly males I must say!! i think I've probably had more men taking part in these 2 classes than most instructors get in a year!! there was a small group of young male service users who i spent an afternoon with while on placement last year who joined in after the first couple of routines despite being all shy initially when i'd asked if they were gonna join in, they really got into it which was a great laugh. it's interesting how i've found from these 2 classes how it's actually been the guys who have really got into it!

about half way through during a water break i got approached by a woman who asked me to find her after i was done so that we could talk putting on some Zumba classes, i assume she must have been from a day services - unfortunately come the end i couldn't track her down, i hope she manages to get my contacts through one channel or another...

so we finished the half hour slot and the physio department took over the floor to do some games, i had a couple of the service user participants come up and chat to me about Zumba, one already goes to 3 different classes and raved about how much she loves it, she even showed me her entry into the artwork competition which was Zumba based! :)

then got approached by a woman who turned out to be Paula, the lady I'm doing the charity class for in july, I had seen her daughter running about (her long flame red hair makes her difficult to miss!) but didn't know she was there herself, so it was nice to put a face to the name. am really looking forward to doing that charity class :)

on the way out I caught up with Lisa, who I'm at Uni with, who had been doing massages all day and looked shattered - i think in general we're all just hitting exhaustion stage now and cannot wait for our holidays in 6 weeks.

then ran into a guy (support worker) who i knew i knew from somewhere but couldn't for love nor money work out where from, he came up to me and pretty much said the same thing - we are both student nurses but in different years... on different branches... at different unis.... so it evidently wasn't that... we ended up backtracking our careers and it transpired we worked at Daldorch (a residential school run by the national autistic society) at the same time, which would be why i found it so hard placing him considering i've not worked there in 4 years, plus i'm pretty sure he worked in a different unit, so knew him as a face in passing but didn't actually know him.

that's one of the benefits and downfalls of having been in so many community placements - you certainly 'get your face known' which is obvs a good thing, esp when it comes to future jobs, but it gets to the stage you know so many people in passing....

I went and picked Caelan up from school in my Zumba attire, which attracted a few odd looks.

I covered a standard class in the evening for Gillian (Zumba Ayr), only 6 people turned up but to be honest i wasn't really expecting a huge turnout, according to Gillian it's never usually a huge class and between those going to see take that, those who decided not to go considering it was a cover instructor and those who made the most of the sun... but it was a reasonable class, had a range from those pretty much brand new to Zumba to one who had evidently been going for a long time, but i'd say most of the participants fell into the first category so i kept things quite simple and added more empahsis and flavour slowly throughout the routines, letting them get the hang of the basics before adding the umph, the lady who'd evidently been going a while just gave it welly throughout once she knew what step went where, which was fine by me.

this was my first hour long class, so this one for me was the real test, especially so as it was my 2nd class of the day added to the fact i wasn't feeling all that well.

i survived the class, managed to get it pretty much bang on to the hour and everyone left sweaty and smiling, so i think i did OK.

i had one of the ladies stay and speak to me at the end, saying how it was only her 3rd class and how she finds it easier to follow when the instructor is facing the same way as them, which I agreed that some routines are a lot easier to follow trickier leg moves when the instructor is facing the same way. i did the whole of baila, menea y goza facing the same direction as the class, as well as stand by me as i knew the legs would be easier to follow in the same facing. she said she's still at that stage where her legs get in quite a muddle but that it's probably just a case of practice - i told her of the number of times i've tripped over my own feet, landed myself on my backside etc when having '2 left feet' days.... i ended up doing a fair stint of the static stretch along side this lady as she was having difficulty working out what leg went where and what leg bent and where you put your weight to get the optimal stretch out of the muscle, which she said she really appreciated.

it made me realise that despite my deep hatred of mirrors, they do serve a purpose - it would have been nice to have faced the same way as the class so that it was easier for them to follow my moves but still be able to see what they were doing - i felt i needed wing mirrors or something!!

i did remember to cue for the most part again too - though for some reason I struggled more with the cuing for this 2nd class.

it does make me laugh, both classes I did cinco letras, both i started off doing the legs very slowly and when i said "shall we take it up a level, go a bit faster?" there was this nervous laughter, but they all managed.

come the end of the day to say i was sore was an understatement, i didn't get a great sleep last night either due to the ache in my legs, but after a day of relative rest they're already feeling a bit better. wine is helping too.