Anniversary Bash

On January 8, 2010, we celebrated 2 years of Jazzercise in Spring Hill at our current location in Fun Fitness Factory. What a great reason to party (Jazzercisers will party for any reason)! At the end of 2009 I had given all the students a ballot in which they could vote for their favorite routines of 2009. I decided to make up a set of routines from the winners of those ballot counts. Everyone was excited about that because they knew it would be songs they loved! Plus I decided to have some gifts to give away and we wanted to have food. My two associates, Emily and Carrie, were planning to be there as well, so we came up with a menu, complete with champagne (aka sparkling grape juice).
The night arrived, and Emily, Carrie and I got there plenty early to get everything set up. We had balloons all over and I had made gigantic "2's" to hang around the room. It looked so festive! Everyone started arriving at about 5:15, with the class due to start at 5:30 p.m.
Here is the list of songs we did that night: I Gotta Feeling by Black-eyed Peas,Fire Burning by Sean Kingston,Womanizer by Brittany Spears, Fuego by Mad Washer, Rockin' In The Country by Daryl Singletary, Heavy Rotation by Anastasia, Rockin' in the Free World by Chris the Greek, Smooth Criminal by David Garrett, Single Ladies by Beyonce, Walk the Dinosaur by Queen Latifah, Healing by Summerwind, Cue the Rain by Queen Latifah, Manos al Aire by Nelly Furtado, Move That Body by Chi-Love Vibe,and Live and Let Die by Escala As you can see, it was a great mix of music!
We actually started the night "practicing" I Gotta Feeling because I had seen in the newspaper that Black-eyed Peas was going to do an audience participation thing on the Grammy's at the end of the month, and they were looking for people to send in videos of themselves performing that song. Well, I thought what fun it would be for me to video us doing that song and not only singing it but moving to it as well! I figured it would be unique, and surely we would be put on TV. I got everyone all excited about this, which is why we decided to have a practice run first before the video take. Everyone was so into it!!

Unfortunately, I found out after the fact that they were only accepting videos of single people rather than groups, so that was that. Dang.
After the class the party began! We had a toast to our success and to many future years of Jazzercise in Spring Hill. Here, here! We ate all the goodies and prizes were awarded. I think everyone had a terrific time, and I am already looking forward to next year's party!

Catch Up Time

As I mentioned in my first post, about 2 years ago I decided that if I was going to have a Jazzercise business like I've always dreamed of, it was now or never. Let's face it, I'm not getting any younger! So I started searching for a facility. To make a long story short, the instructor that had been teaching in Spring Hill but was about to quit, told me about a possible place just around the corner from where her business had been. So I checked into it - a place called Fun Fitness Factory. They had a smallish room that they were looking to rent out. It was perfect for what I needed at the time, and we worked out a great deal, so it was a go! I started classes on January 2, 2008. I had about 8-10 people registered for my evening classes, thanks to some former students of mine and the other instructor who had quit. My morning class started with 1 student, but quickly grew to 4! So as I started, I was teaching 7 Jazzercise classes per week.

For the next year I spent a lot of my time trying to get more people into my classes, of course! I put out many news releases, put flyers out whenever possible, and held special events that would hopefully bring in community participation. As my classes started to grow, the business at Fun Fitness Factory started to grow as well, and they wanted to expand their classroom area. So in August of 2008, the room I had been teaching in became a weight room, and I moved into a new room twice the size of the one I had been using!



This is my room looking from the registration area toward the stage.

In 2009 things really started happening. During the course of that year, I had 3 students become certified instructors, plus I had another instructor teaching for me. I doubled the amount of classes I was offering to 14 per week! My attendance has grown in leaps and bounds. It is exciting stuff, but I still have a long way to go and lots of work to keep things building and building. The economic downturn has been a real challenge, but I'm not giving up!

Now its 2010, and even though I would like to backtrack and relive everything we've done at Spring Hill Jazzercise up to this point, I won't put you through that. I do want to backtrack to the beginning of this year, though, when we had our 2 year Anniversary Bash. That will be my next post, so stay tuned...

The Beginning

Let me introduce myself. I am the owner/operator of a Jazzercise Franchise. Although I have been involved with Jazzercise for 30 years, it is just in the past two years that I have decided to try to follow a dream of mine - to make my Jazzercise business a thriving one, with multiple instructors working with me, thereby allowing me the chance to offer many classes a week and possibly even expanding into multiple locations. With that dream comes all the trials and tribulations of running a business as well as the rewards. However, I consider myself one of the luckiest business owners in the world because my job allows me to have fun and stay fit all at the same time! "Have fun exercising?" you might be thinking. "Is that possible?" Yes it is, and that is a challenge I want to throw out to you. We have all heard of the many benefits of regular exercise: weight loss, muscle toning and strength building, increased flexibility, lowered blood pressure and cholesterol levels, increased cardiovascular endurance and energy levels, increased bone density, and my personal favorite - stress reduction. When I list these perks, I think why isn't everyone dropping everything and exercising every chance they get? I have heard every excuse, um, reason in the book. For most of us, the bottom line is time. You think, "I have no time", and I say "How can you afford to not make the time? Your life depends on it!" So that brings me back to my challenge. I believe there is a physical activity out there that you would have fun doing. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find that activity or activities. If you enjoy it, you are more likely to stick with it, and there are so many options out there! Of course my favorite is Jazzercise and I'd love for everyone to agree that it is their favorite, too! But the most important thing is to get moving, even if you just start with parking your car farther away when you go shopping, or sit on a stability ball while sitting at your desk or watching TV. Women in particular tend to put everyone and everything in front of our own needs. I challenge you to go ahead and be a little selfish in the coming year. Put yourself first and allow yourself the luxury of movement. Trust me - it will make you a better boss, wife, mother, daughter, sister - you name it- because you will feel so much better both physically and mentally.