Heads up fellow inline skating instructors. Whether intended or subconscious, the attitude you display toward your students has a big impact on how much they learn and how much fun the activity is—for you and them. Here’s a personal experience from the receiving end that drove this home for me.

By the time our  one-hour Thursday Spin class had ended, I’d decided there was no need to follow the substitute teacher’s directives because, really, that class was all about her, not us. Within half an hour, I felt disengaged from her and the group experience, and decided I’d have to get the best workout I could on my own.

For starters, we were ten minutes into the session before Debbie began her agenda. Maybe it’s because she got annoyed by satisfying our morning group’s preference for the overhead fans: back row on, front row off. People choose where to set up their bike according to this non-verbal standard. “Are you happy now?” she asked. “As long as you’re happy!” she repeated at least twice, only slightly sarcastically.

Then she turned on her iPod, climbed astride her bike (in the non-fan row) and started a standing sprint that lasted five minutes with no acknowledgement or instructions to us. That particular sprint is not a beginner skill: it takes coordination, core strength and lightening-fast leg speed. So basically it looked a lot like she was showing off as she watched herself in the mirror for five minutes. Or maybe it was her heavy-handed way to demonstrate her credentials (read: superiority over us mere mortals).

As her iPod music selections played in sequence from start to end (easy for the instructor, tedious for the participants), Debbie announced what to do at the beginning of each 3-4 minute piece and then left us to our own devices. No cheerleading, no encouragement, no “Only 30 more seconds to go, you can do it!” Her teaching style was to direct rather than guide us through the intervals, sprints and “hills,” and to berate us for being stuck in a rut (“You’ve got to learn something new every once in awhile!),” as though our regular instructor has been neglecting us.

During one moderate-paced song, our 15-year veteran (“I learned Spinning from the inventor!”) decided to improve our technique. First she pointed out that there was too much bobbing up and down in the ranks. Then she”congratulated” one  lady who had smoothed it out, pointing her out to all as the main culprit, although 2/3 of the room bobs.

Debbie got off her bike a couple times with no comment and for no apparant reason. Was she taking a break? (She never gave us one!) Finally, with several more minutes remaining, she started moving the unused cycles to the back of the room, apparantly to save herself some time so she could leave the gym sooner.

All of these  behaviors add up to what looks like nothing so much as an instructor with a chip on her shoulder, which translated to me as dislike or disrespect for her students. I was so shocked she felt free to express this attitude that I immediately scribbled out how it felt to be on the receiving end on a paper towel.

Note to self:  Give up teaching inline skating altogether if I can’t always be enthusiastic about my students and what I am about to offer them.

PS: If you are curious to read my Beginner Spinner series of Fitness blogs from start to finish, here is the first post, right after I started in November 2010, My Head is Spinning!

Heads up fellow inline skating\u00a0instructors.<\/strong> Whether intended or subconscious, the\u00a0attitude you display toward your students has a big impact on how much they learn and how much fun the activity is\u2014for you and them. Here’s a personal experience from the receiving end\u00a0that drove this home for me.<\/p>\n

By the time our\u00a0 one-hour Thursday\u00a0Spin class had\u00a0ended, I’d decided there was no need to follow the substitute teacher’s directives because, really, that class was all about her, not us. Within half an hour, I felt disengaged from her and the group experience, and decided I’d have to get the best workout I could on my own.<\/p>\n

For starters, we were ten minutes into the session before Debbie began her agenda. Maybe it’s because she got annoyed by satisfying\u00a0our morning group’s preference for the overhead fans: back row on, front row off. People choose where to set up their bike according to this non-verbal standard. “Are you happy now?” she asked. “As long as you’re happy!” she repeated at least twice, only slightly sarcastically.<\/p>\n

Then she turned on her iPod, climbed astride her bike (in the non-fan row) and started a standing sprint that lasted five minutes with no acknowledgement or instructions to us. That particular sprint is not a beginner skill: it takes coordination, core strength and lightening-fast leg speed. So basically it looked a lot like she was showing off as she watched herself in the mirror for five minutes. Or maybe it was\u00a0her heavy-handed way to\u00a0demonstrate her\u00a0credentials (read: superiority over us mere\u00a0mortals).<\/p>\n

As her iPod\u00a0music selections played\u00a0in sequence from start to end (easy for the instructor, tedious for the participants), Debbie announced what to do at the beginning of each 3-4 minute piece and then left us to our own devices. No cheerleading, no encouragement, no “Only 30 more seconds to go, you can do it!” Her\u00a0teaching style was to direct rather than guide us through the intervals, sprints and “hills,” and\u00a0to berate us for being stuck in a rut (“You’ve got to learn something new every once in awhile!),” as though our regular instructor has been neglecting us.<\/p>\n

During one moderate-paced song, our 15-year veteran (“I learned Spinning\u00a0from the inventor!”) decided to improve our technique. First she pointed out that there was too much bobbing up and down in the ranks. Then she”congratulated” one\u00a0 lady who had smoothed it out, pointing her out to all as the\u00a0main culprit, although 2\/3 of the room bobs.<\/p>\n

Debbie got off her bike a couple times with no comment and\u00a0for no apparant reason. Was she taking a break? (She never gave us <\/em>one!) Finally, with several more\u00a0minutes remaining,\u00a0she started moving the unused cycles to the back of the room, apparantly to save herself some time so she could leave the gym sooner.<\/p>\n

All of these\u00a0 behaviors add up to what looks like nothing so much as an instructor with a chip on her shoulder, which translated to me as dislike or disrespect for her students. I was so shocked she felt free to express this attitude that I immediately scribbled out how it felt to be on the receiving end on a paper towel.<\/p>\n

Note to self<\/strong>:\u00a0\u00a0Give up teaching inline skating altogether\u00a0if I can’t always be enthusiastic about my students and what I am about to offer them<\/em>.<\/p>\n

PS: If you are curious to read my Beginner Spinner series of Fitness\u00a0blogs from start to finish, here is the first post, right after I started in November 2010, My Head is Spinning!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":null,"protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98,3,7,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking","category-fitness","category-journal","category-skating"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/getrolling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/getrolling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/getrolling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getrolling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getrolling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/getrolling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1602,"href":"https:\/\/getrolling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions\/1602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/getrolling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getrolling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getrolling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}