Video preview above is for Aqua Free Part 2 – Travel & Direction
Jacks, skis, jogs, kicks, leg curls, ankle reaches, twists, rocking horses, leaps, hops and moguls. Sound familiar? Does this pretty much sum up your aqua class? Don’t worry. This pretty much sums up ALL of our aqua classes. The reality is we all teach the same base moves, but we learn to teach variations of base moves. Jumping jacks would get boring if we didn’t change them up. We travel jacks, we turn jacks, we change the tempo of the jacks and we dress up jacks with new arms and impact options. And we do this with skis, jogs, kicks and all the other base moves.
The more creative and skilled you are at applying these variations to base moves, the more exciting your classes are to teach and to participate in. Welcome to Aqua Free! This is the premise of my new 2015 IAFC session, workshop and 5-part online video. It is my opinion that learning how to create variations of base moves is one of the most important skill sets an instructor will ever possess.
Have you ever felt like you were in the movie “Groundhog Day” while teaching your classes? Doing the same warm-up, the same combinations and the same stretch - class after class? Learning how to create base move variations means you will have a wide variety of “new” moves to choose from. Having access to a movement library consisting of virtually hundreds of base move variations will ensure that your classes never feel the same.
In Aqua Free - Arms (Part 1), posted on January 19, the focus was on creating base move variations with changes in arms.
https://www.fitmotivation.com/#/blog/arm-your-aqua-workout Just posted (February 16), Aqua Free – Travel & Direction (Part 2), focuses on creating base move variations with travel and directional changes.
When you travel base moves forward and back, laterally and in circles, you change the outcome from doing that movement in place. Traveling a move increases intensity thanks to the Law of Inertia. Starting and stopping, requires more total-body energy. Traveling around the pool also reverses the motion of the water providing more intensity due to water’s inertia. Adding directional changes and turns also changes the outcome, increasing intensity with other aquatic laws as you spring off the pool floor to complete turns.
Aside from altering intensity, adding travel and directional changes simply provides more creativity to your routine planning. And from a participant’s point of view, a class is more enjoyable when you are moving around. Just a quick note regarding turns; some participants don’t like to turn because it makes them dizzy. Always try to design and demonstrate moves so that they can be done without turning. Once you have taught it without the turn, teach the move with the turn as an option.
GOOD NEWS! Did you happen to notice the underwater footage in Aqua Free Part 2? Going forward, Fitmotivation videos will have both above and below water camera footage. Gosh, I would have started the underwater footage sooner if I had known that underwater GoPro cameras were so inexpensive and easy to position without a camera operator. I was thrilled with the outcome and I know that Fitmotivation video subscribers will be too. Adding the underwater view to all videos going forward will definitely improve the quality of the monthly video content.
Stay tuned for Aqua Free Part 3 in March. This video will focus on creating base move variations using impact options. We will head back to the lab to concoct combinations of base moves with Level 1, Level II, Level III, grounded, elevated and propelled impact options.