Prioritizing Personal Workouts: The Teaching/Learning Balance

Making enough time for personal workouts in a busy aerial teacher’s schedule is a huge challenge.  If you teach multiple classes each week and have other obligations like family, another job, performances, etc. then regular personal workout time often doesn’t make the cut. 

We prioritize our time based on what we feel is most important.  If I felt that personal workout time was very important, I would never cancel it without good reason.  Personally, I struggle to keep workouts on the calendar, so writing this post is motivating me to honor my own training time.

How do we perceive personal workout time as valuable? 

If you are an altruist, know that prioritizing workouts actually helps students because it refreshes the teacher.  During workouts I get new insights about aerial theory that I share with students the next week.  I also enter class with renewed excitement rather than boredom.  When I take better care of myself and set the example, I can take better care of others.

Once we get decide the value of personal workouts, how do we make time for them?

Here are some ideas that I’ve found to be helpful.

1. Create a personal warm-up for yourself to do before you begin teaching each day.

Our creative minds crave rituals.  The repetition and predictability of a choreographed warm-up frees up brain space to discover new things and get new ideas.  It also prepares the body/mind to work and focus in a specific way.

2. Give yourself deadlines.

Is there an upcoming performance you’d like to be part of?  Or perhaps your studio has a student showcase that could feature faculty work.  If you commit to performing on a certain date, you will be motivated to train regularly and get an act together.

3. Do a week of training with an outside coach.  

This is a great ritual to do once a year.  Either bring in a a coach from outside just for you, or go out-of-town to do a workshop.  Being a student again is the most powerful process a teacher can go through.  Remembering what it is like to learn new skills or train in a new way helps you empathize with your students.

4. Teach a class that forces you to do movement research.

Teaching new material has always been a great motivator for me.  Developing a new course will get you in the studio, and can improve your technique or creative process.

What ways have you learned to protect your personal training time?  Share your comments below with the Born to Fly community!

About the Author:  Julianna Hane traded life on a cotton farm to become a dancer and aerialist.  She is the author of the Aerial Teacher's Handbook, Director of Training for Born to Fly.