How I Got Into Teaching Group Fitness

I'll keep it short:

Back in the late 90's I was overweight and looking to slim down so I joined a gym in the Raleigh, NC area where I lived at the time. I started going to the gym on a pretty regular basis and would mainly use the elliptical, treadmill, and weight machines. After losing some weight, I became bored with the machines so I decided to try a step class with a friend of mine at the time who was also a member of the gym I belonged to. After trying a few classes with a few different instructors we found that we both liked step classes with 2 instructors (Anne and Wendy). They taught the "step challenge" classes which had more advanced choreography. These classes were usually on Monday evenings and Saturday mornings (if I'm not mistaken...it has been over 15 years).

After attending these classes regularly, Anne made a comment to me one evening. She said you should think about teaching classes, you'd be good I can tell that you can hear the music. I honestly had never thought about teaching classes and didn't think much about it until she said it again. I knew I enjoyed going to classes so I started to work on some combinations on the step and met with Anne and Wendy to go over them. I knew it wasn't perfect, but they gave me some feedback and I continued to work on it. During this time I moved to Pittsburgh, PA where I joined a new gym and knew I wanted to start teaching group fitness classes.

The Group Fitness Manager at the club in Pittsburgh was willing to give me a shot so I got my AFAA Primary Group Exercise certification and started subbing step classes. The members were responding well to my classes so I continued working on choreography and was given my own class. To keep it short, the rest is history as they say. In addition to step classes I started teaching kickboxing, general muscle conditioning classes as well as cardio combo classes (step & weights, etc...). In 2004 I was introduced to Les Mills Bodypump. After Bodypump I got certified to teach cycling classes. Bodypump was a success so the club added Les Mills Bodyjam (late 2005). After Bodyjam, I got certified to teach Les Mills Bodyflow (early 2008), Bodyattack (early 2010), and SH'BAM (early 2012).