Thread: Teaching at a senior center

I have been contacted to teach at a senior center. Do any of you do this or have you done this? What would I teach?

I love my senior ladies, they are the sweetest most enthusiastic crowd you'll ever get hands down. Even better the ones that seem to come to my class usually have wicked senses of humor which makes teaching that much more fun.

You will have a lifetime of posture and just living wear and tear issues to deal with so first thing to remember is they want to have fun and get some exercise usually. Go slow with plenty of breakdown on how to do moves and lots of spot checking. Be ready to adapt everything to compentsate for prior physical issues. Don't skip warmups and cool downs. In my experience they love to do prop stuff, veils seem to be the hands down favorites.

My classes typically start with a warm up, simply walking around the room trying to use a good posture, then some gentle sliding/swaying hips while they walk, circles of the shoulders, that sort of thing. Then we work on isolations, slides of ribs/hips, into slower moves, circles and whatnot, then faster, shimmies in place for example. Then maybe a traveling move and a short combo of what we've worked on in class. After that a cool down, again shoulder rolls, isolations done slow and some gentle stretches for example.

Hope that helps some. They can do pretty much any and all moves you can think of, it just takes a little longer to get the hang of and on many occasions some creative thinking on your part to adapt for any physical restraints. Don't expect perfection and be ready to have a good time. If your having fun, they will have fun.

I have done it, and they were the best classes I've ever had! I've never had so much fun, it was incredibly rewarding.

I taught a fitness/drills type class, but the ladies were eventually wanting more. (unfortunately I am not teaching the class anymore due to scheduling issues for me ..cr.:)

Don't be afraid to ask them what they want! They are usually NOT afraid to speak their minds, and will also let you know what they can and cannot handle. They are eager and you can adapt things easier than you realize,
also more often than not, they can handle much more than you think they can!

Enjoy it!

Enjoy and have fun , you're gonna love them.




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