Hi everybody! For all my American friends, I hope you had a lovely Memorial Day. Here in Canada last weekend was our long May weekend so it was business as usual for me today.
Yesterday (Sunday) I spent the day in Halifax at the CanFitPro Fitness Conference. CanFitPro is our largest fitness certifying body in Canada, and is the organization I have my Fitness Instructor certification from. This conference is held annually for all us fitness professionals to obtain our CEC’s (Continuing Education Credits) in our to maintain our certifications. I actually had already taken enough courses over the past two years that I didn’t need to attend, but it’s always a very informative day, and I love me some new ideas so off I went!
I started the day in a session called Step Tonic. It is a different type of step class where you spend 3 minutes learning dance steps (only 8 counts are taught over the 3 minutes), followed by 2 minutes of a boot camp styled power move to really get your heart rate up there. You do this for 40 minutes (so 8-5 minute blocks) and at the end you put all of your dance moves together for a final “show”. I loved it. It was dance-y, and I got a serious sweat on from the power moves. The only real issue I see (for me) is I think it would be an extremely difficult type of class to teach without a mirrored wall. The dance moves we learned weren’t super hard but I think it was really helpful for us to watch the instructor facing away from us to see her footwork exactly, and because of the mirrors she could still keep an eye on us. The class is marketed as the step class “anyone” can “get” and I think they could – if you have a mirrored wall, if you don’t this would qualify as a semi-moderate difficulty. Any of my Acadia girls that are reading – I think you guys could handle it no problem, but for beginners not really used to step, it would be a bit harder. I found a little promo video on youtube of steptonic so you can get a better idea of what it’s like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJDqZxgqVTE
I’m not 100% sure but I think the blond instructor in the first half of the clip is the same girl I took my session with yesterday. I really liked her!
From there I went on to a few different lectures and a yoga session, but there was really only one session I could think about….
a lecture by Krista Popowich
I’m sure very few of you outside of the fitness industry know who she is, so here is a brief bio I’ve taken from her profile on ideafit.com:
Krista Popowych, B.HK is an international presenter on group fitness, personal training, indoor cycling and management. As a two-time Canadian Presenter of the Year recipient (2008 & 2003), Krista is a passionate fitness professional who inspires others through movement and education. As an Adidas sponsored athlete, Krista holds numerous certifications, is featured on various DVD’s and has both hosted & co-hosted fitness TV. She sits on IDEA’s Fitness Committee as well as Can-Fit-Pro’s advisory panel.
The other bit of information you need to know is back when I first took my Fitness Instructor Certification course, prior to completing my practical they encouraged us to find a local fitness instructor to mentor us, to give us guidance, and just generally help prepare us to teach classes. I didn’t have a mentor. I had quit my full time office job to become a fitness instructor, had didn’t have a lot of money to travel the 30 minutes each way to take classes from someone, never mind the actual cost of taking the classes. So, I improvised. I started taping the Caribbean Workout (which happened to be during the time Krista was hosting) on OLN twice a day and every afternoon would do the two workouts from that day and would analyze how she cued, wrote down different step, ho/lo and kickboxing combos she used, learned proper form when executing strength training exercises, etc. Essentially, Krista was my mentor.
Okay back to yesterday, lots of times at these sessions you don’t really get a chance to talk one-on-one with the presenter, but I went early in hopes that I would get the chance to meet her before or after the session. I lucked out. She came in the room and actually went around to every person and introduced herself and shook hands with everyone. When she got to me I was totally tongue tied. I *tried* to tell her how she was my “virtual” mentor while preparing for my practical and I totally tripped all over my words. On top of that I was looking like a hot mess from being all sweaty and gross all day (by the way – she had been teaching spin sessions all day and came in dressed in a dress and knee high boots looking absolutely perfect – what’s that all about!?) so I’m sure she thought I was a total goof ball.
Oh well, I still got to meet her, and talk to her, and shake her hand. I would have been a total nerd and taken my camera to get my picture taken with her but we were told cameras were not allowed (although I saw a number of people taking photos and video taping sections of sessions all day – which was totally forbidden) but considering how nasty I looked, this is probably best.
I tried to find a clip of Krista on the Caribbean Workout on youtube, but I couldn’t. If you want to see her in action here is a video of her from another workout video/series she was involved in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVcEo4Qs2KE
Sidenote: I have also taken sessions with the feller on the left Geoff Bagshaw, he is a really fab presenter too, and the other gal is Sharon Mann whom I haven’t met.
So that is my celebrity story of sorts. I guess you could liken it to meeting your favourite sports star or something of that nature.
Now to get myself to NYC to meet Tara…
Question:
Have you ever met one of your favourite stars/idols/etc? If you have please tell me you acted like a goober like I’m sure I did!! When I head to Florida in July for the Zumba convention one of my sessions is with Gina Grant (who is one of my fav Zumba peeps) so I have a good chance of meeting her – and acting like a goober all over again. :/
One last tidbit:
This past weekend we celebrated our annual “Apple Blossom Celebration” here in the Valley. The Apple Blossom Parade was on Saturday and is the 3rd largest parade in all of Canada. I did not go to the Parade. I missed Brandon Walker (otherwise known as Jason Priestley). Honestly, the most exciting person I ever saw in that parade was Dini Petty. Lynette @ My Wee View saw him though and got a good picture you can see it here. I think he was the Parade Grand Marshall or something – his TV Show “Call Me Fitz” is was shot right here in the valley, and clearly my husband and I are two of the last people who actually WANT to see him that haven’t. Sheesh.