In March of 2015 I completed my Body Attack AIM1 during which I was assessed on a track in release 87. The training was held at World Gym in Penrith and the trainer was Steve Cluff.

There were only 5 of us that attended which is actually a super quiet module, in fact they aren’t even supposed to run it for less than 6, but one person didn’t show up. We all arrived before the trainer and spent some time getting to know each other. When the trainer arrived we got straight into it with moving introductions (we each had to get up on stage and do a Body Attack move while introducing ourselves). Then it was time to get our track allocations. We were each allowed to choose our own track and the order of selection was based on who had registered first for the module weekend. I chose track 4 which I am starting to think was a bit of a mistake now because it was a split the room plyometric track so not the usual format and my feedback was only really going to be specific to this release.

Then came the challenge, the only way I can describe it is “3 x 100”. So, 100 push-ups on the toes, 100 burpees, and 100 of something else which I cannot for the life of me remember. We didn’t each have to do the whole 300, we worked in teams and had to take it in turns to do 20-30 reps each. It wasn’t all that bad.

We were given some time to script our tracks and then we had to perform our tracks for the first time. Not the whole thing but the first round or so. We were filmed on our own mobile so we could use the footage to help us with our second presentation which would be at the end of the day. The feedback I received was that I smile too much in track 4. Hmmm. But the trainer also picked up a few technical issues with skater depth and demonstration of power that are coming from issues that I have with my knees. Unfortunately the things that I needed to work on were not going to be overnight fixes (aside from the over-smiling part, but why would I wanna fix that?!? I’m a smiley kinda gal).

After a short break we were back into doing pretty much what we did at our initial module training, technique drills! Lotsa of standing in front of the mirror practicing kicks, knee lifts, knee pull-downs, plyometric lunges, jacks etc until we all got it right.

Theory time we had discussions on what kind of instructor we felt we were and we even had to place ourselves on the “scale”. I again got this question wrong. I misinterpreted the question as what type of aerobics instructor I thought I was and placed myself in the 110% spot (as in OTT) where I should have thought about the type of sports coach I am and placed myself at about 60% (as in I smile too much to be a good sport coach). You will get what I mean when you do the training. In terms of the Les Mills program that is best suited to my personality, I should be the best Sh’bam instructor in the world. What a shame I can’t dance like that!

Next up was some more scripting and practice time for our final presentation. This time we would have to present our whole track. Now, one thing to note is that if you are attending AIM1 to get your certification, your trainer will be watching you like a hawk the whole day. Any time you are doing any Body Attack move your trainer is mentally grading you, deciding on whether or not you do the move the way a certified instructor would so be sure to use your best technique the whole day.

Time for our final presentation and this time it was game on. We all had to be on our best behavior and show that we had made a shift in our coaching. During my track I was very conscious of making my moves bigger and deeper and any time I smiled I’d get a “STOP SMILING” yelled out to me from the trainer. I’ll be honest, this was very annoying, but I sucked it up and played along. I’ll admit, I have started to be a bit tougher and less smiley in my track 4s and 9s so I guess you could say it kinda resonated with me.

After our final presentations we got more feedback and got our results (we all passed and those who were not video certified got AIM certified), and then we stuck around for a bit of a chit chat and a customary #selfie then we were out the door super early at 4.30pm. I think this was because there were so few of us so we got through everything quite quickly.

Overall the module was pretty good. I learned a little bit more about the direction of the program and I got certified (finally) but I have to say it wasn’t life changing. I didn’t walk out of there feeling that I had grown a great deal as an instructor. The main thing I took away from the day is that there is a time and a track for smiling in body attack!

If you have any questions about my journey as Body Attack instructor, contact me.