My ICTP Experience, by Tabby

The day of instructor auditions I had absolutely no earthly idea what to expect, much less what the heck I was doing. I bounced into the dark bike room with 15 other strangers still clueless and so nervous but my athleisure was on POINT. Ha! The biggest thing I took away from that Saturday was how I still didn’t know what in the world this was that I just did, but wow I wanted to be a part of it SO BAD! I was convinced that there was truly no chance I’d be chosen (zero experience in cycling or leading group fitness) to be a part of the founding team - BUT HERE WE ARE! 

I think my lack of prior experience both served in my favor and made my training a bit more challenging. Unlike some of our team, I have no background in dance, no context for listening to changes in the music, or knowing what the heck an 8 count was. This was definitely a big challenge for me when it came to hearing the music and learning when the beat changes and what that means for my riders. An advantage to being so green was my ability to quickly catch onto a lot of the technical things that we learned because I had no previous influence. 

The way the ICTP forced us to get comfortable with the most uncomfortable parts of instructing was so mentally challenging and rewarding at the same time. To highlight just a FEW of the biggest things I took away from training - would be the way we were taught to recognize when we were in our own head and how that always negatively affected our performance, how our tone sets the stage for the whole class, and just how much room we have to be unapologetically ourselves in this space no MATTER the circumstance.

The technical aspects of instructing take tons and tons of practice... I practice every single one of my playlists so many times before I ever teach them. Truly EVERYTHING you learn in training prepares you to be the best, most confident version of yourself as you lead a room full of beautiful humans through possibly the best 45 minutes of their day! I couldn't be more grateful to be a part of this team and I can't wait to see what all we can accomplish on our stationary bikes in a dark room with the music all the way up.

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Love,

Tab