Les Mills: BodyAttack 77 - Master Class Choreography Notes 1
Charise Scrivner
In order to choose a format, you should take the class as often as possible and find where your passion sits. I would not recommend training in a program that you are not passionate about. They are all very different, but they are all excellent in their own ways.
As a note: You do not need any additional or previous professional fitness experience or certifications in order to attend an initial training in the U.S.. However, in other countries, you may be required to have an additional fitness certification in order to attend training. But in the U.S., Les Mills takes care of giving you everything you need to know to teach that program.
However, I HIGHLY recommend pursuing additional certifications outside of Les Mills to diversify and further your education moving forward, such as a personal trainer certification (from NASM or ACE or other) or a general group fitness certification (from ACE or AFAA). You will be much better off the more educated you are, in addition to your live teaching experience.
Currently, the price of an initial training weekend is $299 to $349. However, if you sign up more than 30 days in advance, the price is less. With that fee, you get a weekend full of training, and you get your digital music, choreography notes and education materials.
Based on your participation, attendance and presentations, your master trainer will give you an evaluation, and you need to receive a pass (which is a 3 out of 3 on the core competencies: Choreography, Technique and Coaching) to move on to the video evaluation portion. If you do not receive a 3/3, then you will have 14 days to submit a video of yourself teaching your one track, and you will send that video directly to your trainer to assess. This is different than the official video evaluation below in the next step.
You will shoot a video (can be done very informally on an iPhone) of yourself teaching a full class, on the release that you trained on, and you have to do this in a licensed Les Mills facility only. You introduce yourself, push play on your music and teach the class with no stopping or starting the video. You cannot use any notes, and you have to know the entire class from top to bottom.
You also need to bring plenty of water, food (to save valuable practice time, have your lunch on hand), snacks, a notepad, a smart device and headphones to listen to your digital music, your choreography notes, a sweatshirt to put on during the lecture portions, a change of clothes and an open mind. Good luck, have fun and just do it!
For instructors: This one was pretty easy to learn because of all the repetition. Make sure you master the new moves before teaching them (like the side step over, high ice-skater, etc.), and be prepared to give plenty of options during each track to help people of all levels be successful. Also, if you teach a shorter BODYATTACK format, refer to the choreography notes for the new track line-ups to make up the 30-and 45-minute versions. For more tips, check out: Top 10 ways to grow your group fitness classes.
Much closer to filming, I was allocated Tracks 4, 5, 7 and 9, which meant I had a week or so before arriving in Auckland, to prepare for those tracks. These tracks were physically intense, so training before filming was important to me, in order to ensure I could perform at my best.
Prior to filming, I increased strength training and became much stricter on my diet, so that I felt healthy, fit and ready for the intensity of filming week. I also reduced teaching some of my regular classes so I could focus on refining my coaching for BODYATTACK. Doing this also gave me time to do some Les Mills GRIT classes as part of my own training.
The lead up to the trip was very stressful. With COVID flaring up across the eastern states, there were times very close to departure where I was expecting the travel bubble to close! Luckily, we shifted my flight so I got into Auckland (New Zealand) a day earlier, which meant I could pass through the travel bubble with no issues. It happened just at the right time too, because shortly after changing this flight, the travel bubble between Melbourne and Auckland closed (which was the route I was supposed to take). And then, just a few days after arriving in New Zealand, South Australia went into lockdown, which closed that travel bubble too.
I was, however, quickly welcomed by the team at Les Mills International (LMI) in New Zealand, who turned out to be FANTASTIC to work with, which meant I really enjoyed the lead up to the Masterclass filming.
In Sydney music licensing meant that we could only practise with mirror rehearsals and individual feedback. But this time it was much more detailed, and stacked with rehearsals, practise classes and video feedback sessions with the Program Directors. As a team, there was lots of reflection and dissection of our teaching. This process helped me learn a lot about myself such as the way I teach and what I am truly capable of as an Instructor.
During the welcome meeting we were all really encouraged and empowered to teach from our strengths, and to really bring to life the content of Advanced Training; so hopefully that comes across in the Masterclass.
Prior to engaging in the filming experience, I was very much a visual or kinesthetic learner. I would spend hours watching and moving through the workout to retain the choreography. Not having the Masterclass to watch during the filming experience, and being involved in the Trial Team really developed my skills of being able to learn by reading the notes.
A big focus for this Masterclass is the lunge; so we were given scientific research to build into our scripts. This was extremely valuable in the coaching focus that I set for each block, particularly in Tracks 4 and 5. Track 7 was all about feel, so it was really cool to build that script with Ra [Presenter, Rawini Hirini] and teach that track in a fun and different way.
Lisa makes you want to be better! Not for ourselves, but for the experience we give to the Instructors, the members, the people we reach at home on-demand, and in clubs all over the world. It was amazing and an honour to work with Lisa again, and especially to reconnect face-to-face!
We all brought our own strengths to this Release, and the knowledge I took from their collaboration and feedback was invaluable. This experience gave me two great friends in Mandi and Ra and I am so grateful for that.
After that, I returned to the filming venue and spent the night in awe watching the BODYPUMP and BODYSTEP teams do their thing! I really wanted to soak up the atmosphere of filming because it really is something else!
As a team, things wrapped up pretty quickly for the BODYATTACK crew! Before we all flew home, Lisa organised a team dinner at her place with her family and the BODYATTACK community in Auckland, which was a great way to finish off the week.
This Release is really fun! The track list has some really cool and familiar tunes and the workout provides multiple opportunities for challenge and connection! I think it will be a very popular Release when it drops.
After about 30 minutes, BodyJam took over, and then the wheels started to come off for me a bit! Usually I can kind of stumble through a Jam class (embarrassingly, but still), but by that point in the day, my brain and body were just exhausted and I decided to pull myself out and watch this one from the back.
Once the team has each discipline absolutely PERFECT, the Program Directors (the people in charge of the discipline) and a team of super-star international instructors film the class in Auckland, New Zealand in front of a 700 person class, package it up, write out the choreography and education notes and then the releases are distributed around the world to 77 countries, until they end up at the doorstep of each international instructor.
In one of my previous posts, I posted a picture of me on stage during BodyAttack at one of the previous Quarterly Workshops. That was a total dream come true, and a total stroke of good luck. Last year they started a new trend where at the opening ceremonies, they would pick an instructors name out of the hat for each discipline, and that lucky instructor would get to shadow the presenting team on stage for one track! I got picked for BodyAttack last year and was in sweaty plyometric heaven. It. Was. Awesome.
By the time we were done, I was ready to collapse off the bike after having done Pump, Step and now RPM back-to-back-to-back. I knew that BodyAttack was coming up, and had been waiting for it all day.
Towards the end of my run, I started to get conscious of time, and the impending arrival of the pizza delivery guy. For some reason, I got it in my head that I had to beat that pizza delivery guy to my house, or something TERRIBLE was going to happen. I so did not trust Andrew to hear that door down in the basement. My watch said 5:55 and I had a feeling the pizza would arrive at 6:00. I had a little over a kilometer to go. So I did what any serious, Half Ironman athlete on a regimented training plan would have done.
I burst up the stairs and into my house, only to find Matt had arrived on the scene and was running the show, doling out pizza, plates and drinks to the ever-growing group of 16 year olds in the kitchen. My love for him had never been stronger.
Essentially, BodyPump is a 55 minute weight-training class that focuses on low weight-high repetition training to give you long, lean muscles, and burn fat along the way. The Rep Effect is a fairly new term that they just introduced in the past year or so. They figure that we do approximately 800 repetitions in a 55 minute BodyPump class! Oh mama.
Each track is choreographed using different tempos, different weight loads and of course different music to keep us energized and motivated. Oh yea, and I guess the instructor should help with that too ?
I adore BodyPump now, and I owe all of my strengh gains to this program! You will never find me in the weight room, or lifting free weights on my own. Ever. I just find it hard to stick with, for me, I need the group atmosphere, the pounding music and the challenge set out for me. I teach BodyPump twice a week, and have noticed enormous improvements in my strength and body composition since I picked up the program back in 2009. I foresee BodyPump playing a big role in triathlon training as well.
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