First Post!

Cardio Fit is just what I call a cardio class that I teach every Monday and Friday in Penang.

What's the class about? Actually, I'm not too sure myself. Every 3 months I choreograph a new 1 hour class, and right now I'm alternating the new releases between an aerobics class and a dance class. I draw inspiration for the class format from Les Mills BodyAttack and BodyJam, respectively.

1. Why copy, er, get inspired from Les Mills programs?
I am a BodyJam instructor and I have huge respect for the Kiwi company that routinely churns out great classes every quarter. They've certainly found a repeatable process to achieve success and rightfully claim their title of "McDonald's of fitness classes"! Like some say, imitation is the best form of flattery.... and I have a lot of good things to learn from them.

2. Why choreograph your own classes instead of just following LM classes?
Let's just say that I feel a desire to create. Teaching a pre-choreographed class is fun and it takes a lot of the hard work out for the instructor. But challenging myself to create new choreography every 3 months is a fun task and it forces me to learn many aspects of putting a class together, which I plan to document here.

Now, I'm not as qualified as either Lisa O. or Gandalf. I'm not an aerobics national champion and I only started enjoying dance a few years ago. But I believe people underrate passion and determination. I'll have a lot of skills to catch up on, and even some skills which is probably out of reach, but nothing else in life is any easier. Might as well be challenged in something I love!

3. What is the purpose of this blog?
I didn't get any training on creating choreography when I first started. I basically just jumped into the deep end of the pool and started flailing around. That was 2 years ago. It was tough, especially the first 1.5 years! I tried many different things and it turned out horrible. As a result, I don't teach most of the tracks I created for the first 5 releases anymore.

Next month I'll be releasing Cardio Fit 10 to my classes and I feel the quality of the tracks have improved significantly! I'll admit there's a couple of tracks which I feel is below par, but it's too late to do anything about that now.

Anyhow, I created this blog to document my adventures in choreography. I'll be sharing the lessons I learnt so that aspiring group fitness instructors who's just started teaching might benefit from it. I'll also blog about my R&D work for future releases. At any one time, I'll be thinking about the next 2-3 releases. So I'll document the various work being put into them - music, moves, choreography. At times, you may consider my work disastrous, but that's why it's called a Work in Progress.

The last reason is for pure vanity, I'm afraid. When my class' format and inspirations draw so heavily from the Les Mills programs (especially BodyJam), it's easy for people to accuse me of outright copying and having no creativity of my own. Well, no one has came out and publicy say that, but consider this a defensive move.

It sometimes happens that both the LM class and my class is going the same direction. For example, around last month I started planning for a House Funk block that will have some truly funky tunes like Funk Nasty (listen to that!). Then, last night I read that the next BodyJam 50 release will have a Cardio Funk block. I immediately thought, "Damn." Anything Gandalf does will automatically be better than mine, and when I finally release my House Funk block in 6 months time, can I blame anyone for thinking "Ugh, Zemien is copying the Funk idea from Jam".

Another timely example is Jamie Foxx' "Blame It". The first time I heard it on radio, my mind immediately pinged, "Recovery track, ain't no doubt about it!" As it turns out, it'll probably be the recovery track for BJ50 as well. (As an aside, I won't use Blame It anymore because it'll be hard to avoid copying BJ50, and to preserve my sanity as well since I need to teach that too.)

Therefore, I hope to jot down my R&D thoughts whenever I have an idea for a routine. At least, in the unlikely event someone wishes to accuse me of plagiarism, I could point them to the relevant page. Hey, it's not conclusive proof, but dance is a big world - it'll be hard to create a totally unique routine.



There'll be no posting schedule. I'll post when I feel like writing or struck by inspiration. Enjoy reading!