Thread: Teaching at a Gym

Hi ladies!

First post, but I've been lurking for a while now :) This place is awesome!

Anyway, I've been dancing for about 4.5 years now, mostly cabaret but currently tribal fusion, which I can't get enough of. I live in Ohio, I'm 28, I work in corporate retail. Hello :)

I'm going to be teaching classes at the local gym and was hoping you all could help me out with suggestions. Anyone have experience teaching at a gym? Since it's not a true studio, I'll have beginners joining every week and people dropping out at random points as well. Just hoping you could give some tips on how I can keep it beginner-friendly, yet still get slightly more advanced with every class. I don't want to bombard these girls with tricky moves or choreography either.... just want to get the blood pumping while providing an intro to belly dance that keeps everyone's interest week after week. Was thinking of doing easy arms, a lot of hip work, isolations, etc.... but would love suggestions!

I apologize if this has been done a million times - I'm at work and don't have much time to search the threads... hope I'm not repeating an already beaten-to-death topic :)

Actually, my first performance was in a gym! I took lessons at a village recreation center and they didn't have a stage.

Gyms would be great because there is so much room. Your beginner students would not have to worry about bumping into each other, something you think about at first when you are in a classroom just starting out.

Your other suggestions sound like really good moves to start with too. Good luck!

I teach weekly classes at a fitness center and I do keep my beginning classes gym appropriate.

What I do is put together the music for my class in advance, just like an aerobics teacher would, it goes like this:

- warm up music
- med paced music
- slower music
- really upbeat music
- slower music
- cool down music

I then choreograph our general routine for each class that goes with the music - warm up, isolations, basic rhythmic steps, 8s, shimmies, undulating moves, arms, cool down - and I do that every week, calling out break downs and corrections as we go. It gets people's heart rates up and keeps them moving and dancing for the whole class.

Occasionally, I'll get everyone repeating a step and then go help an individual briefly, but for the most part I encourage everybody to go for everything and not to worry if they don't get every move the first week, because we will be repeating it next week. If they really feel they need extra breakdown for one move in particular they catch me after class.

I reinforce moves each week and then work in new moves as we go along, so there is some consistency, like we always have a shimmy song and we practice the same basic type of move for each song, and there is some change as I incorporate a new traveling step for a med pace song, add a variation to a step we've been working on or focus on a new 8.

It works great. I only break this format if we have a show coming up, in which case I prepare and teach a specific performance choreography, giving my beginners the option to perform.

I hope this helps.

Yay! Well last night was my first class at the gym, and about 60 (sixty) women showed up!! It was a great class and they hired me on the spot to teach as often as I'd like. Probably do once a week until the winter, then I'll do two classes. But it was great to see the interest and enthusiasm of the ladies who came. I absolutely LOVE this dance and am really thrilled that I get to share it with others. Yippee!

Congrats! Sounds like it was great!

I've been teaching at gyms for about 5 years now. Here's some of my thoughts:

The key to teaching at a gym is repetition - don't break down moves super slowly for people to get them, because most of your students are there to burn calories, not learn proper technique. But they CAN learn technique by doing things over and over again.

I start each class with a slow warmup - snake arms, figure 8's, stretching, etc.

Then I go into an isolation drill where I drill chest lifts and pops, shoulder shimmies, hip shimmies and "egyptian" shimmies, and hip drops. All go-go-go - fast paced, if you don't get it - come back next class and try again! Ocassionally I will go around and correct individuals, but unless I see someone hurting themselves, I let them be.

Then I do a choreography - an easy one that is either (1) just a drill and short enough to learn in one class or (2) a longer choreo that can be broken down into segments and taught as it's own dance for the benefit of the drop-in's.

Then we do a follow-the-teacher slow dance for cool down.

Occasionally I do veil work, because it's a great arm exercise and gym-goers love it, but with 60 people you would have a hard time supplying veils for all, I think!