Senior Fitness, Beginners, and Kangoo Jumps® Rebound Boots

A few weeks ago, I took a self-study course in Senior Fitness for continuing education credits. These credits are required to renew my certification as a Group Fitness Instructor. Many courses were available, and I chose this one for several reasons. First, I'll be 61 years old next month, which pretty much makes me part of the demographic for "senior fitness." Second, seniors who want to become or remain fit are a growing segment of the fitness market and an astute business always recognizes a growing market. Third, it was available at a discount when I made a purchase I had to make anyway. (Since I wanted the course, this just determined the timing.)

The best reason was one I did not know until I started getting into the study materials. It turns out that many of the accommodations suggested in the course to help senior participants in a fitness class also happen to help most beginners. Those beginners are the reason I got my Kangoo Power™ instructor license in the first place, to allow them to learn the basics at their own pace and not scare them away before they really started to feel the benefits of rebound exercise.

You are probably wondering what those accommodations are, right? With the caveat that not all beginners and not all "seniors" need these options, here are some that I try to incorporate when I choreograph each song and when I design the class to teach basic skills on KJ boots.

• The warm-up and the next couple songs have a slightly slower tempo, because the point is to get them comfortable with the bouncing action of the boots, as well as the rhythm and balance of the simpler steps used in the first few songs.
• The warm-up has a very limited variety of steps, very basic, and the next few songs add only one or two movements per song.
• Transitions between different types of steps are spaced at longer intervals so that more time is spent on each step before we change to a new one, allowing more time for a feeling of mastery.
• There are no 360 degree turns in one move. While these can be fun to perform, they also mean you can't see the instructor for at least part of the move. Instead, there are four successive 90 degree turns with plenty of time to catch up if you miss one.
• Water breaks are scheduled after every three songs, for thirty seconds. If it seems appropriate when watching the participants during the break, that may be extended to a full minute. Seniors and beginners both may have more difficulty lowering their heart rate in 10-15 seconds, and the longer break takes the pressure off anyone struggling to keep up. Remember, this is a cardio workout with a three-pound weight on each foot, so what feels easy to some and moderate to others may feel like an uphill hike with a 30-pound backpack to a few.
• Explaining how to do the steps, or breaking them down into component parts, makes it easier to perform a variety of steps. (For those who are familiar, e.g., this means describing a "pendulum" as just a double step on the same foot with the other leg "out of the way" to the side.) Often I preview each new step between songs, then explain it again when it comes up in the choreography.

Do all these choices make for a slower-paced class? Yes. Is that right for everyone? No. That's the main thing I learned from the Senior Fitness course, that everyone comes to class from a different place along the fitness continuum, and what works for some will not work for all. The observant instructor offers options for easier and more challenging ways to do many of the movements, and the students must pay attention to their own bodies and move in ways that are right for them.

Kangoo Jumps® Adventure: License in Hand

The highly anticipated Kangoo Jumps Instructor License is now in my actual, physical hands. (The photo is on Facebook, at my page Loraine Says JUMP.) It took almost as long as getting my college diploma. So of course I took a week or so to relax and savor the actual possession of the license before taking time to write this blog entry. (OK, I was busy with family and Thanksgiving activities; yeah, that's it.)

Now it's time to become more active in contacting venues where classes could be offered. There is research to be done here, but I like research so that's OK with me. In terms of timing, I hope to be offering classes that "the public" can attend not too long after the new year starts, to convert new people to euphoric members of the Kangoo Jumps "cult" before their New Year's Resolutions wear off.

All kidding aside, if you know of a location in Northern Virginia, USA, that is at least 20' by 30' and has at least 9' ceiling height, that is the minimum space I need for getting people acquainted with Kangoo Jumps boots. If you want to arrange a private session, that is the smallest space that will work and we need 5 or 6 people (who happen to wear the size boots I have on hand). I mention the location only because I am constantly surprised by and grateful for the number of readers of this blog who live in other countries.

Just this short entry today, so I can make it to the Kangoo Jumps class I take on Saturdays. After all, good teachers like to keep learning too.

Kangoo Jumps® Rebound Boot Maintenance and My Aching Muscles

Ow! My aching legs! And it's my own fault, so I had better learn from this and not do it again.

All right, I'm done whining for now. Here's the scoop. I bought a pair of Kangoo Jumps® rebound boots in October 2011, and have worn them for well over 300 classes and quite a few out-of-class adventures. I figured it was probably past time for me to change the t-springs (the part that looks like triple rubber bands inside the two curved shells), so I ordered a pair and replaced them.

Walking around my house in them to make sure they were seated properly after reassembling the boots, they seemed fine. A little stiffer but that was the whole point of replacing them. Then I took a class wearing them. OMG! I wore myself out during the warm-up song! First, they were noticeably harder to compress (to squish the curved parts together and make them more flat, for those who are visual readers), which I sort of expected. But the bounce back up...so much higher! I was not prepared for this. Instant euphoria and adrenaline and a grin so big I thought my face would split. Clearly I should have traded out these t-bands sooner! By the end of class, I was more tired than usual, partly from peaking so early and partly because it requires more effort to compress the boots now. This seemed reasonable.

I have continued to find new sore muscles along my legs for a couple weeks now. To me, this is an indication that I should have changed the t-bands sooner, before my legs got used to the over-squish of the original ones invisibly wearing out. Plus, I should have treated myself more like a beginner or at least someone who had been away from rebounding for a few weeks, because breaking in the new t-bands did not need to feel like breaking me in instead. I have heard similar stories from friends who have replaced either their shells (curved pieces) or t-bands over the last few months.

Here's the take-away for you, reading this in search of avoiding similar aches.

• Maintain your boots before they need it, not after they break. Wipe them off after use, spray inside with disinfectant, let the liners dry between uses, and if you wear them outdoors (especially in grass, dirt, or sand), take them apart and clean where the parts meet.
• There are recommended intervals for changing different parts of the boots, so check the instructions that came with them. If you don't use yours very hard (more aerobics than power jumping, more dancing than distance running), you can probably go longer than suggested on the original parts. If you use the living daylights out of them (run on sand, fully flatten the shells when you jump, etc.), you probably want to order the spare parts and have them ready, even if you can't bring yourself to replace things that are not yet broken. Carrying a broken boot home from a rebounding run will convince most people that preventive maintenance is worth it.
• Now that I am teaching, I make sure I have spare boots with me, because stopping class to repair my own boots would not be very professional.
• When you do replace any part on your boots, even the liner, give yourself time to adjust. Just as a new car should be driven more gently for the first couple hundred miles, so should your new shells or t-springs. Expect things to feel different than they did before the switch, and be aware of your body so that the boots are getting broken in, and not you.

Now it's time to go "maintain my brain" by rehearsing the playlist for my Monday rebounding class. Until next time, take your of yourself...and your boots!

Four, three, two, one... and we're LIVE!

So, yesterday I taught my first Kangoo Jumps class by myself. And survived. And got invited back. These are all good things. Was I as good as I wanted to be? No. Was I more than adequate? Yes. Given that my personal life was pretty unusual the week leading up to this, I feel OK about the first class, and have plans for how to improve the aspects that were not quite how I envisioned them.

Here are a few of the lessons learned from that first class.

• Setting up in a new place will always take longer than expected, so arrive even more early than seems reasonable.
• Tech rehearsal should not be done the same day as the event or show, regardless of lack of options.
• An index card with a few key words on it, taped to the top of my sound system, supplements memorizing.
• Experiment with my microphone more to find that perfect angle so they can hear me talking to them but not hear me licking my lips due to nervous cotton-mouth.

There were also a few things that worked exactly as planned.

• Having an assistant who has been through the Kangoo Jumps instructor training is helpful beyond words. (Thank you, thank you, thank you!)
• Songs that I practiced cueing while driving, and rehearsed dozens of times exactly alike, worked perfectly. (So make that ALL of them next time.)
• The class schedule was not finalized until the newly purchased KJ boots arrived.
• A small class encourages people who prefer not to learn the basics in the same class with people who are way beyond the beginner level. They were the ones who invited me back.

Now I have my self-critique done, and my plan for improvement in place. (Of course there are more details, but if I tell you everything, many of you would say "TMI!") My boots are all arranged on their to-go cart, and the pretty knee socks are in a pretty hat box. Disinfectant spray, forms new students must fill in, spare batteries for microphones, even a spare microphone -- all packed and ready for the next class. My sound system is almost done recharging. Now it's time to get dressed for the class where I am the student, because good instructors never stop learning.

Stretching, Strengthening, and Schrodinger's Cat

It's good thing my Kangoo boots always bring the endorphins when we work out together. That alone keeps me jumping three or four days a week when everything else seems too frustrating for words.

My Kangoo Jumps instructor license reminds me of Schrodinger's cat. I may or may not have a license already. My license may or may not be in the mail. I may or may not be researching alternatives to teaching in those boots with that license. Lucky for Schrodinger, he did not have to feed his cat until he knew with certainty he had a live one.

But enough about me. For those who get to this blog by searching, rather than being people I already know, here is today's useful information.

As part of preparing to become a Kangoo Jumps instructor, I studied for and passed the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America (AFAA) examination to become a certified Group Fitness Instructor. In addition to the study materials AFAA will sell you, I found two books in my local public library particularly useful.

Women's Strength Training Anatomy is a beautifully detailed manual for the female body, written and illustrated by Frederic Delavier. He has also written multiple editions of his earlier work, Strength Training Anatomy. These two books made it much easier to visualize and learn strength exercises for specific muscle groups. In addition, I now own Stretching Anatomy, for which Delavier was joined by collaborators Jean-Pierre Clemenceau and Michael Gundill.

I still refer to the stretching and women's strength training books on a regular basis. After all, rebound exercise isn't just about momentum, choreography, and a good cardio workout. It's all about the muscles we use, and stretching and strengthening them is part of the joy of jumping.

(It's also about the really interesting knee sox we find to wear with our boots, but sources of sox will be another blog post!)

The Kangoo Jumps® Instructor Adventure Continues

If a passion for something were enough to accomplish it, I would be a Kangoo Jumps® instructor by now. Instead, it's been almost a year since I took the initial course in August 2012. I just learned this week that the video that has held me up did not need to be as complicated as I was making it. Plus, my horoscope this morning said I should just get out of my own way and most of my obstacles would disappear.

But enough about me. Here is an opportunity for YOU to become a Kangoo Jumps instructor.  On August 18, 2013, in Franconia, Virginia, there will be a one-day workshop to start the licensing process. That's the blue flyer.  This is the course I took last year. Once you take the course, there are three other requirements. One, you have to be certified as a group fitness instructor (GFI) by an accredited certifying organization, like AFAA or ACE. Two, to be certified as a GFI, you need to be CPR-certified. Third, of course, is the video showing you actually instructing (very specific criteria). Of course, if you are GFI-certified and teaching something else already, that shortens the process.



But wait, there's more! If you want to really sharpen your skills at instructing a music-based Kangoo Jumps class, Chakaboom Fitness is offering a six-week course for exactly that (the pink flyer). Six Saturday morning classes, four hours each, will take you step-by-step (pun intended) toward becoming an excellent Kangoo Jumps instructor. Many of the skills will come in handy for any other music-based fitness class you happen to teach. For more information about the two courses, email kathchakaboom@gmail.com.

The catch? In order to take the six-week course, you have to take the one-day course first. Never tried a Kangoo Jumps class before? No problem. Check out the schedule of regular classes at Chakaboom Fitness, the Franconia location, either on Facebook or at ChakaboomFitness.com. There are classes four days a week where you can rent boots and try it for yourself.


As for me, I am going to listen to my horoscope, and a piece of advice from back in the late 1970s. "You get what you resist," so I am going to get out of my own way and stop resisting the obstacles to getting my video done. You know I'll keep you posted on how that works out.

Healthy Eating is a Learning Process

In 2011, I lost a quarter of my body weight, dropping 45 pounds between January and December. People assume I must have been dieting to achieve this, but there was no planned diet about it. I kept eating many of the same foods I had eaten for years, added a few more salads and fruit smoothies, and accidentally turned most meals into snacks for lack of time.

The trajectory of weight loss went like this. From January to early May, I used my treadmill when I could, lifted weights at the local recreation center, gardened, took tap dancing and Zumba lessons, and went about my abnormal life. In that four months, I lost 8 pounds. Not great, but it felt like a good start after several mostly unsuccessful attempts over the past years.

On May 2nd, I tried a different Zumba class, recommended by a friend from college.*  She warned me to bring two bottles of water the first time, because there would be some serious calories burned. She was absolutely right! The dancing itself was more intense and challenging than a typical Zumba class, the people were friendly, and the instructors were a couple of hot Brazilian guys who actually interacted with the crowd. What was not to love? I began coming to their classes several times a week, and eventually got to be friends with more than a few people there. By early September (my 40 year high school reunion, did I mention that before?) — also four months — I lost 25 more pounds and dropped my cholesterol so far that my doctor canceled my prescription.

In August, the same instructors added classes using Kangoo Jumps boots, which I fell in love with immediately. By the beginning of December (three months), I had lost 10 more pounds. Christmas treats did me in, because I had counted on hours of fun fitness every week being enough to keep the weight off. Zumba and Kangoo were no match for the holiday (eating) spirit. I had to figure out another piece of the health and fitness puzzle.

2012 was a year of learning about better ways to eat, balancing workouts and paying work, realizing that sleep is not just that nuisance time between fitness classes, and going up and down a small roller coaster of weight. Admittedly, some of the gain was building muscle (muscle weighs more than fat), but some was just bad eating habits.

It was either late 2012 or early 2013 that a couple friends became vegan in their food choices. This is a nutritional choice even more stringent than being vegetarian, as vegans do not eat dairy foods or eggs, in addition to not eating any form of meat or seafood. They happily shared information with anyone who would listen. I am nowhere near a convert at this point, but because of talking with them I have tried an assortment of healthier foods in addition to, or instead of, things I already eat.

I don't eat 100% healthy at this point, but I feel like I eat in a more healthy way than I used to. I enjoy the texture of foods, and timing is also a big factor in what I eat. So, for those who have asked me about my eating habits, here is a typical day. I start with two cups of coffee, usually with whole milk in them. Next is often an English muffin, half a bagel, or a slice or two of cinnamon toast. Other days, there are eggs embellished with onions, cheese, and whatever else is handy. Breakfast depends on what's on the agenda for the morning. I take a fruit smoothie to work with me and it gets me through the rest of the  morning, along with a handful of nuts. My favorite lunch is mushroom ravioli with pesto sauce and roasted red peppers, but other choices include corn chips with salsa, hummus, or guacamole, or sometimes a bottle of whey-protein-enhanced coffee if lunch has to be done while driving. Afternoon is usually a snack instead of dinner, because of fitness class timing. It could be a salad (today was iceberg lettuce, baby kale, and matchstick carrots), the other half of the morning bagel, or even a bottle of b-vitamin-enhanced blue juices. After evening class, I am most likely to drink a big glass of chocolate milk, or have a few more corn chips with hummus or salsa. I don't pay attention to calories or carbs much, but I do make sure I get enough protein and water. Some days the choices are more healthy, and some days ... not so much. 

If anyone wants to adopt me and feed me on a regular basis, I will consider offers. For now, I am getting more sleep than last year, taking fewer fitness classes in order to get more sleep, and trying to at least notice my food choices, so that they move along the continuum from less healthy to more healthy. Life is a work in progress, people. Change is the only constant.


*Thanks again, M.A. Mulligan, for introducing me to Chakaboom Fitness. And thank you to Roberson Magalhaes and Leo Lins for creating the energy explosion that is the heart of Chakaboom.