How to properly sub your first exercise classes

I now have total respect.

Total respect.

For Fitness Instructors.

I've been taking fitness classes most of my life, in fact, I love exercising.  Getting older has made the classes more of a mandate as everything goes where it is not supposed to go.  I was asked by a friend to sub in a yoga class, then a Stretch Tone and Balance class as she is out of town.

Sure, I said, I've been taking these classes for-evah why not?  How hard can it be?

Hard.

It didn't help that I was up most of the night before the class running through the routine in my mind, almost getting out of bed making sure I knew the poses.  It didn't help that everyone, including me, was running late this morning so arriving at the yoga class with a calm and peaceful heart was not in the cards.

So I start with about 8 people running through my routine.  How can I properly screw up the class?

1.  It is hard to do yoga poses while explaining them to the class.  I have respect for the teacher that can still talk after a few sun salutations.  I sounded like a porn actress, my voice taking on a breathless quality because I was breathless!

2.  It is much harder holding the poses when people are watching you than hanging out in a class. My legs were shaking, I even caught myself holding my breath.

3.  My students were on the silver haired side, when several farted during holding the poses I tried not to laugh, then worried, am I doing too much?

I relax into it, running through all the sequences in my mind, acting like nothing was going on when a few other passes gas.  We get all the way to the end and as they are in corpse pose I realize, "Damn I never did a single child's pose during class!  No rest for anyone.  No wonder they were farting!"

The next class was working out with weights, I decided I had to look capable as an instructor and picked up 8lb weights rather than my 5lb weights.  By the end of it, I was sweating like a pig, the other women looking like they'd stepped out of the spa.  When we went to the mat to do our abdominal exercises I swear we all fell on the mat.

What did I learn out of this?

I am not too bad of a yoga instructor.  I have so much more to learn, I think this could be a new pursuit.

My arms are going to hate me after those 8lb weights for 35 minutes.

Nobody went running to management complaining that I killed them.

So maybe it was a good day.

I'll see how sore I am tomorrow.