2008 IDEA World Fitness Convention™ - Saturday Blog Entries

After wandering late into the reception for the International Attendees, I made up for lost time by meeting an entire group of very gracious instructors from Japan. Almost all of them have come to at least 10 conventions (that's a lot of jet-lag), but the youngest, Kayo (forgive any misspellings), was here for the first time and had come all alone. What a brave soul! But we all promised her that next year we'd make sure to look for her and turn her into a "regular." For someone like me, who only has to drive or fly for an hour or two to attend the convention, it really is a reminder of how dedicated people are worldwide to improving their skills and providing top-notch service to clients. I have a lot of respect for my new friend from Tokyo.

I knew I wouldn't be able to attend both of the morning's classes due to my flight home, I did manage to attend a Boogie class with Julianne Arney. Besides being a good dancer, she is very adept at creating dance steps that everyone can follow. I wasn't surprised to see my pals from Japan there, as it was a great class to take and not have to worry about speaking enough English to comprehend lots of cueing. Next year I hope Arney does a disco class as that's my particular favorite. And I don't care if you all make fun of me, I just love disco. I even won a disco contest (well, lots of them in the late '70s, but just one in front of my teenager) at my kids' elementary school a few years ago. My son swore then never to let me near his school's fundraisers again!

Before going to my room to pack and drop off the 50 pair of drumsticks I got (remember the Drums Alive pre-con I did on Monday?) for my colleague Barbara to drive back to Santa Barbara, I stopped in the IDEA presenter and press office. Carrie Ekins was there and I am happy to report that she was almost fully recovered from involuntarily attempting to fly off the stage using drumsticks as wings. After hearing about some of her near-death experiences over the years, we decided she should start wearing a giant hamster exercise ball around herself. Nah, but we did wonder how many cats she has, and how many lives they all have left....

Tune in tomorrow for a wrap-up and my list of Top Ten Reasons to Attend an IDEA Convention!

Can I just say that the IDEA Party in Paradise kicked some serious Boombsey last night? And, yes, Kukuwa Nuamah, I saw you up there shakin' your business on the stage when we all learned that new dance. My word, what a great looking crowd of stoked, fun people we had there. The energy in that room was turbo Red Bull.

Speaking of new dances, I actually learned three last night. The other two were courtesy of my new friend from Twist Conditioning USA, Ken Anderson. Not only can this guy dance, he's a tireless choreographer in his spare time (Ken, I think you should reconsider the Twist gig and go live out your dream on Broadway). Five of us were groovin' to "The Makin' Chili Dance" and "The Bowling Dance" in one of the Hilton Lounges after the IDEA party. They both are literally reflective of their names. The recipe for Makin' Chile, for instance: (Do this as a 4-count) First you "chop, and chop, and chop and chop; then you slide the onions in, slide 'em in, slide 'em in, slide 'em in; then you give it a stir x 4; grate some cheese x 4; stir it some more x 4; give it a taste (careful, it's hot!) x 4; mmmm, it's good (as you do the universal happy tummy rub) x 4. Pretty funny. I have video of IDEA membership director Annina Torri practicing with Ken, which I may or may not post, depending on what I think I can extort in exchange for keeping it in the vault. What do you say, Torri?

Today was the usual whirlwind of sessions, meetings and interviews. At 10:15, I sat down for an on-camera chat with Darren Jacobson, personal training manager for Virgin Active South Africa (Darren--I actually got it right this time!), which I will post as a video podcast in the near future. He really lit up as he described what he sees as the incredible opportunities waiting to be claimed that the wide range of education and specialty options holds for trainers in North America. Look up his series of articles in IDEA Fitness Manager on how to be a more effective personal training  manager. It's been a great column and is loaded with many practical management ideas. Darren, thanks for making the 29-hour trip from Cape Town! You've enriched us all with your perspective and knowledge.

• Liz Applegate, PhD, taught "Sports Nutrition Products--What Works, What Doesn't." With more clients than ever training for and competing in running and multi-sport events, this knowledge is essential to have. A piece of information that I was glad to hear Dr. Applegate discuss revolves around sodium consumption. She believes that athletes are too concered about sodium intake, but shouldn't be, as the body normalizes pretty quickly after consuming it. After re-reading my notes on this, I retrieved my little bag of potato chips out of my boxed lunch and am munching away and getting crumbs all over my keyboard as I write. I'm certain the good professor's message was not to bust out a bag of Ruffles, but I'll take any rationalization I can get to give myself a little bit of guilty pleasure at this point in the week.
• I caught the very end of Chalene Johnson's "From All-Star to Super Star" and stumbled into a great quote as she wound up the lecture (I call those freebies. Sometimes you have to wait a long, long time as a journalist for a good quote). She said, "I'm pretty average in every way. I'm not as tall as you and my abs probably aren't as good as yours...but when it comes to the details, I'm going to beat you every time. The details are going to help you go from being an all-star to a superstar."
• Ilene Bergelson (presenting with Bob Esquerre in "Speak Success, the Language of Leaders") was talking about a fitness manager's communication culture when I came in. She pointed out that "leadership is a collective phenomenon." Managers need to share or disclose to all team members 1) What the problem is; 2) How to deal with it; 3) What their role is; and 4) How to become more empowered to play a larger role.  
• Alexandra covers this in her blog, but I think the world of Len Kravitz and wanted to point out that I, too, thought the King of Mitochondria's lecture this morning was fascinating. I walked in to a SRO situation and camped myself in a corner just as he had finished taking the class  through 4 weeks of bioenergetics in an hour. Len stopped suddenly and turned around to ask everyone, "Are you okay? That's a lot of information I just gave you." He's a superb teacher and has a knack for making complicated information not only make sense, but really stick.
• Group Exercise Committee shout out: Thank you for your brain power and passion for what you do! You gave us some great ideas today.

Signing off now with just enough time to wash my hair, put on a fresh face and practice Makin' Chili before the International Reception and Assistant Party tonight. Wow! (there's that word again) can't believe we wrap this up tomorrow!