Dancing for Exercise

Having spent all my life keeping fit through sailing and for sailing campaigns, I have difficulty feeling motivated to going to the gym if my life is focussed on other goals. I find I associate gyms in particular with the grind of using weights to gain strength.

I have a friend who keeps very fit without the goal-set mentality – she does it by doing things she enjoys. One of her activities is dancing – Mo-Jive. It turns out there are many organisations, an example of which is www.danceyourselfdizzy.com Of course it does depend on having a regular enough life to be able to commit fairly regular evenings while learning, but since women aim to follow the man’s lead in this sort of dancing, it’s the men whole bear the bigger brunt of the education.

Great fun. And getting fit too.

RORC Red Funnel Easter Regatta

Lots of fun was had by all this Easter. I was part of the coaching team for this ‘beginning of the season’ regatta run by the Royal Ocean Racing Club www.rorc.org.uk out of Cowes, and much to everyone’s surprise given the lack of wind forecast, we got a lot of racing in.

It was one of the very few times that the Sailing Instructions have been amended to allow coaching during racing, so it was a great opportunity to get coaching ‘in the moment’. In terms of coaching style, it was interesting how much more directive my coaching became in response to this, and it was good to see the massive improvements that could be made to performance.

There was far more coaching available than normal with the RYA www.rya.org.uk using the event to broaden the knowledge base for coaches who have recently trained as RYA Keelboat Coaches or those who are thinking of getting their qualification this year. As one of the RYA’s Keelboat Coach Trainers, I fully supported this initiative, and all the feedback I got was positive.

One of the more endearing aspects is that the Regatta Prizes are chocolate Easter Eggs. At the end, all children in the room are awarded and egg – ocean racers of the future! http://rorc.org/photos/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=18