Like many women of a certain age, I took up Zumba last year. I usually go to a Wednesday night class, but last week I couldn’t make it. The only class I could make was a beginner’s one earlier in the week.

Taking the attitude that ‘something is better than nothing’, I went along…and I’m glad I did. OK, I hardly broke a sweat, so from the point of view of burning calories, it wasn’t as good as my normal class. However, it did bring other benefits.

1. I saw how far I had come. In my normal class, I’m in the 50% who can more or less keep up with teacher and makes few mistakes, but I’m one of a large crowd. I always seem to be next to the one person who’s perfect and ultra-fit, highlighting my own (albeit few) inadequacies. In this class, I felt good about what I could do.

2. I was able to check that my basic steps were right, and correct some that had got sloppy. There’s no opting out, so I did the ‘slow’ version of the steps with everyone else, and as a result, tightening up my technique.

3. I was able to motivate those who were genuinely new, who complimented me. When I explained that I’d been doing it for 6 months, and everyone needs at least a month to get to grips with it, they felt a little better about their first attempt.

In my professional life as a trainer, many delegates are less than keen to participate in training that isn’t completely new to them. I sometimes hear “I don’t need to do this. I did a course 4 years ago”. Sadly, it isn’t usually sufficient to do things once to be good at them. Unless these people have regularly applied what that course 4 years, had feedback, been coached and taken time to reflect on what works and what doesn’t, and kept up to date, I can be pretty certain that refresher training will do them good!

Louise Gelsthorpe

Power Hour Training - Bite size sessions that you control