Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Music List Can Fit Pro

First things first! Gotta have the music!

Click here to download the music playlists from all 8 of my sessions at Can Fit Pro. This includes my 7 sessions, plus the 2-hour pre-conference One World ride I did for Josh Taylor.

If you downloaded my music lists from WSSC, you have most of it, but not all. Some of the playlists are the same (Alpe d'Huez, and Moving Mountains, except that the latter version is only 90-minutes instead of 2-hours) but the others may have 1-3 songs that are different than I used at WSSC Miami. Loop de Loop, which I did not do at WSSC this year, is somewhere on this blog, but you might as well get it again!

On this document, you'll also find the lyrics for Move Any Mountain by Shaman (which I used in Moving Mountains) and the Bicycle Zen Proverb that I read to the class at the One World 2-hour ride. Download this and read it to your students!

I also give suggestions on where to find many of the tracks that I use, knowing that some are hard to find. Most can be found on eMusic (click that icon to the left of this blog post to get your 25 free downloads), some on iTunes, some on Beatport, and if it's really hard to find, you may just have to google it and/or buy the whole album (there's many other download sites, I can't list them all). You can find many of those on my Amazon store.

Enjoy. Coming soon, the profiles...


Monday, August 18, 2008

Back from Can Fit Pro - will report back soon...

Just got in today, Monday, from Can Fit Pro in Toronto. Awesome, awesome, awesome experience! But I'm even more fatigued that even after a WSSC.

On Sunday, I was put on alert that they may want to send me early, because Josh Taylor had an injury and couldn't make it. They found someone to cover his regular sessions (Michael Ferrante, who did an AWESOME job!), but he couldn't do the Wednesday night pre-conference 2-hr One World ride. I got the go-ahead Monday morning to change the flight (can you imagine the expense??) and flew in on Tuesday because no flight would get me there early enough on Wednesday to get the music, listen to it, and put together a ride for Wednesday night. Josh overnighted his music to the hotel - no time to send it to me in Colorado. This was something I insisted on - I cannot do a 2-hour, very special ride without getting a good feel for the music. It's too important a component to just wing it to music you don't know. I could have created my own, but that would have taken me hours and hours, which I didn't have, and Josh had built the class around this music, already pre-mixed - and he's a master mixer.

Sooooo, Wednesday night went GREAT! At least that's my impression from the immediate feedback and the energy I received, but I guess I'll find out when they send me the evaluations! 

Then I team-taught the Thursday 9-hour orientation with 2 one-hour rides (I got to sit out the second ride while Renee taught it). Friday, Saturday and sunday I had 7 sessions. All told I rode 11 hours, sometimes with very little rest in between. A little more than an average conference. There were 6 of us there from Mad Dogg/Spin Fitness - 4 from Spinning and 2 from Spin-Pilates. A VERY fun group, I might add! We even lit up the dance floor at the Presenter party thrown by Can Fit on Saturday.

By my last session on Sunday, my body was saying very loudly to me, "You want me to do what??? You gotta be crazy!" 

I've got some catching up to do after being gone a week, and will post soon some of my session information (much of it was already posted after WSSC), as well as some new profiles, music lists and discussions I have in mind. 

Thanks for reading, share this blog with your instructor peers, and keep coming back!

If you have any topics you'd like me to discuss in the future, please share them with me.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Can Fit Pro Toronto 2008

I leave in two days for Toronto for Can Fit Pro, one of the largest fitness conferences in North America. I am excited about it for several reasons. First, I get to present my absolute favorite sessions, which as you can imagine, is the dream of every presenter. Workshops that I love to teach, classes that energize and invigorate me, on subjects about which I am so passionate. Sharing these rides with other instructors is truly the high point of my career as a Master Instructor. It is my one goal to help other instructors be the best they can be. I try to inspire them not just as an indoor cycling coach, with coaching,skill development, physiology and motivational tips, but also by inspiring them to work on themselves by getting rid of the barriers to success, most of which are self-imposed limitations, doubts, fears and beliefs (this subject is a primary goal of The Secret Ride).

The other reason I am so excited is that all of my sessions except one are repeats from WSSC a few months ago in Miami. That means the preparation is not as extensive (although I say that now...knowing me I'll still stay up late, hide out in my hotel room, practice my power-points, re-read my notes and listen non-stop to my playlists until Sunday afternoon after the conference). The 7th session (one more than I presented in Miami) is one of my all-time favorites called Loop de Loop. I retired it from WSSC (after many years) to make room for newer sessions, but it has been one of the favorites since I began presenting. Why? Because it's just so dang fun! 

The third reason I am so excited about next weekend is because Toronto is one of my favorite cities. I used to live in San Francisco, and Toronto reminds me of the chic, metropolitan international ambiance that I loved so much about SF. It's a beautiful, exciting and user-friendly city, with fantastic ethnic restaurants (my favorite)! If anyone reading this is going to be at Can Fit Pro (or even if you're not and you live in/near Toronto) and you want to get a group together to go out to dinner one night email me at jennifer@vivatravels.com.

Here is my schedule at Can Fit Pro:
Thursday: Precon: Spinning Orientation with Renée Spriggs
Friday 1:30 - 3:00 Lactate Threshold Field Test
Friday 6:15 pm - 7:30 The Secret Ride
Saturday 7:30 am - 8:45 Pedal Stroke Drills
Saturday 12:30 - 2:00 Moving Mountains
Saturday 3:00 - 4:30 The Triple Threat (Three Types of Intervals)
Sunday 7:30 am - 8:45 Loop de Loop
Sunday 11:45 - 1:15 Tour de France and Alpe d'Huez

My co-presenters are Jeff Krabiel from California, Renée Spriggs from Houston, TX, and filling in for Josh Taylor (who unfortunately had to pull out due to an injury) is Michael Ferrante from Massachusetts. The Spinning room will be filled with sold-out sessions from early morning to evening (last sessions are over at 7:30 pm - whew - that's a long day)! This promises to be a very exciting, educational and fun weekend. Each of the Spinning Master Instructors presenting have different styles, different music, and different cueing and coaching ideas to teach, and between the variety of session offered, attendees have so many different choices. If I were a Canadian IDC instructor, I wouldn't miss this event for the world!