As instructors we get together to train at both studios on Mondays and Thursdays. Mondays we focus on pole, and Thursdays we focus on aerial. We do a review of things we all know and teach and share different ways we like to help students with these moves. Then we work on harder, more advanced or spotted moves for ourselves or all together. This training time is incredibly important for us to have time together as an Aerial Dance staff family, and also to get some time to train for ourselves. As an instructor I teach roughly 20 hours of classes per week, and with my other hours I do my administrative duties. This puts me at the studio or answering emails about the studio 40 hours or more a week. You can imagine how hard it is to find motivation or get a chance to train for yourself to get better at your own skills when you’re already at the studio all the time.
Sometimes the last thing you want to do is stick around at night or early before classes to try and do an insanely hard trick or get some conditioning in. This is why I am so grateful we have our designated training time as a group so that I can be sure to do something for myself at least once or twice a week. I have had my biggest training wins on the pole with the advice of my fellow instructors helping with a move I cannot figure out on my own. As an instructor our focus turns from our own journeys to helping our students with theirs, it is a huge change that happens from moving from student to instructor, not all studios have their instructors train together but I am so happy that we do! It keeps us motivated and bonded so that we can be the best we can be for everyone that comes to our classes!