Get ready for a serious cardio workout with Stacey Beaman, cofounder of PlyoJam. This is dance powered by plyometrics and is guaranteed to burn a ton of calories. No matter what your dance background is, you’ll be able to keep up with these easy-to-follow combos! Let go of your inhibitions and get ready to jump, shimmy, and feel the beat.
Co-founders Jason Layden and Stacey Beaman talk about PlyoJam and their popular dance fitness classes on Good Morning LaLa Land, a live-streaming daily talk show.
3 Steps To Create a Killer Workout Playlist
I started teaching dance in 2011. Since then, with the help of our master trainers, we have choreographed dance routines to over 250 songs! I’d love to take credit for all of them…LOL. As you can imagine, that is a lot of routines to try to remember. While 80 percent of the routines have been filmed, the remaining 20 percent still rest somewhere in my brain in fragments. When I teach, students are always requesting songs, but every now and then the routine doesn’t always make it to the top of my memory. If you are a dance fitness instructor, you may relate! Or maybe you’ve been the student requesting a song from the teacher. Either way, there is a lot to remember when teaching dance fitness. Here are some tips for staying organized and having a stellar playlist.
How to Stay Organized
Keep a running playlist on your phone. If you’re old school, buy a writing tablet, but honestly at this point you should have a smartphone! There are many different apps that you can use to purchase songs and store them. Click HERE to see a list of free music apps! I personally like to use Spotify or iTunes. They both allow you to share your playlist, which is a perfect way to stay connected with your students. You should have at least three playlists at all times. At the beginning of each year, I will create a playlist call PlyoJam 2019 Master. By the end of the year this list may sometimes have over 50 songs. Then I create a second list call PlyoJam 2019 Old, again by the end of the year this will have over 50 songs on the playlist. Thankfully, with the apps I recommended, it’s very easy to move songs from one playlist to another. I then create a third playlist called PlyoJam 2019 Current. This is the playlist I review before each class to determine what I will be playing in class. The three playlists evolve throughout the year. If I have a special event or a demo to teach, that will always get its own playlist and labeled accordingly.
How Often Should a Song Be Played
How often you play a song in your class is important to consider. The more you perform the routine the more it will become ingrained in your head. The moves and transitions will become muscle memory. Another thing to consider is how much is too much? You do not want to over play a song in your class. You will become that teacher who appears lazy and lacking creativity. If you are a student reading this, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Big no no!
Teaching Schedule
Depending on how many dance fitness classes you teach on a weekly basis, a song should only be on your current playlist for four to six weeks. That is plenty of time for the students to master the routines. Any longer, and your students will get bored and tired of hearing the songs. After four to six weeks, that song should be moved to your old playlist. Be sure to keep your old playlist in the order you add the songs. That will make it easy to reference them later. Now here is the trick! Let’s use Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings” as an example. You debuted the song in your class on January 1. You moved it off your current playlist and onto your old playlist mid-February. You put the song back onto your current playlist in 8 weeks, mid-April. At this point “7 Rings” can be sporadically played through the year, maybe once or twice a month. By this point, your students are no longer sick of the “7 Rings” and feel like badasses because they remembers the routine. By keeping your old playlist in order, you will have a better gage as to the time of year the song was put on the playlist. If you want to be even more precise, you can create an OLD playlist for each month.
Take video!
Taking video will depend on how you get your choreography. If you are a PlyoJam teacher, the videos are provided and archived in the teacher’s dashboard. If you are someone who isn’t part of a brand, then taking video is highly recommended. Have a friend or a colleague film you on their smart phone. Set up an account on Vimeo. The basic package is free. This site will not block or mute your videos. Vimeo allows you categorize and search for your video. They also have an app that you can download. I recommend getting this on your phone. You will want to be able to access the video easily when you’re building your current playlist. I often find myself in my car watching video to refresh my memory of the routine that I have completely forgotten.
Here’s is an example of what our Master PlyoJam Playlist looks like on Spotify!
Click HERE to listen!
I hope these tricks help!
Social media, with all its pros and cons, inevitably does something similar for all its users. It reminds us of the past…whether it’s that Facebook “On this day 3 years ago” notification or Instagram’s Time Hop, we are constantly being reminded of what was going on last year at this time, two years ago, five years ago, etc. The other day I received one such notification and both notifications happened to have photos from my PlyoJam dance fitness classes that I teach in Westlake Village, CA.
As I looked at the photos, I realized how much my fitness classes have changed, grown, new faces added, old faces lost. And some of the faces I saw in those photos made me sad! I haven’t seen them in so long!
As a fitness instructor, we build relationships with our students. We seem them regularly, weekly (or for some, even daily) in our fitness classes and it becomes routine. Second nature. And as much as students feel they rely on their instructors, I am here to say that fitness instructors rely on their students JUST AS MUCH.
In a world full of constant change, inevitable impermanence and sometimes chaotic uncertainty, isn’t it wonderful to have a place to go a few days a week to get an amazing workout. A place to go see the instructor you love. A place to sweat it out alongside the classmates you’ve grown accustomed to seeing each week?
But then this thing happens. A student who I’ve grown used to seeing week after week just disappears. No word. No explanation. They are just gone. And boy do I notice. That “spot” (you know how everyone has their “spot” in class) is suddenly empty, or filled with someone new. And I’m left wondering why Lauren is no longer in my back left corner or Maria is no longer center third row.
Dear students…your instructors love and value you. We rely on you just as much as you rely on us. And we know life changes, schedules change, and sometimes the fitness class you once attended regularly no longer works for you. If you have been a regular at a fitness class for a while, and suddenly must depart that class…I beg of you, let your instructor know. You may not think they’ll notice, but I promise they will. And I promise, we miss your presence.
And if you can make it back to a class, book one today! Head over to SweatNow where tons of PlyoJam teachers have their classes listed!
PlyoJam is an energized and intense dance workout that blends jumping exercises with short, explosive hip-hop moves. This uniquely engaging fitness program began in California in 2012 and has been sweeping the nation with its party-like online classes. If you want to lose weight with a partner, PlyoJam can make sure you stay on track and have a blast dancing your way to your health goals.
When I first started my journey taking dance fitness classes, I was about to turn 36. I was overweight, unhealthy and unhappy. Having recently gone through a few bad breakups, stuck in a career I didn’t love and miles away from any kind of fitness regimen, I was just kind of lost.
I remember attending my very first PlyoJam class in the summer of 2014. You know what the biggest struggle was? Figuring out what the hell to wear! I hadn’t worked out in ages, I was adamantly against showing my arms, nothing felt good, the struggle was so real! I would look in my closet and try convince myself not to go to class because I had nothing that fit right. I had done this countless times in the past, so the internal conversation of “I should just skip it” was alarmingly familiar. After trying on countless baggy t-shirts and leggings, I finally settled on something and headed out the door.
Next hurdle…getting out of the car and walking into the dance fitness class. I remember driving to the class, blasting Eminem, trying to pump up my confidence and quiet my fear. “You’re a great dancer,” I told myself. “You will just stand in the back and do what you can!” So I got my butt out of the car. My memory is as clear as day of walking into the studio. Everyone seemed to know each other. Everyone looked adorable in their tanks and Lulu leggings. It was intimidating AF!
I stood in the back, eyes flitting around the studio, waiting to get started. I was so anxious, but once the music began, I felt a little more at ease. The music filled the room and I felt like I could almost hide in the folds of its rhythm and tempo. As Jason began to teach, the moves felt super fast and hard to follow (funny to me now!) but OH MY GOSH it felt so good to move my body, to feel the sweat running down my temple! Four songs in I was addicted and I had this burning excitement in my tummy because I sensed something big could and would come from this class I had found!
I’ll never really know where I found the gumption to try that very first dance fitness class. I’m not sure what finally quieted the internal “what’s the point, I’m not going” dialogue. I think it may have been the little voice in the back of my head that kept saying, “something has to change.”
Maybe I was tired of my own excuses.
Maybe I was tired of feeling down.
Maybe it was some kind of muscle memory from years past when I used to be an athlete and I knew how good endorphins made me feel.
Maybe my poor little soul was tired of my brain being so mean to me.
Whatever it was, I’m so thankful for that initial spark.
But maybe I need to give myself more credit. Yes I was fearful and unsure and embarrassed. But I have also had a really deep internal strength. I’ve accomplished a lot and I’ve overcome a lot, so would I really let the fear of a dance fitness class get me? Hell no!
And thank God I didn’t. I walked into that class and it changed my life forever. That day was the beginning of an 8 week mission. It was summer break and at the time I was a teacher off for the summer. I ended up taking forty PlyoJam classes in eight weeks. I lost 26 pounds. What I lost in pounds, I gained ten times over in confidence, health, inspiration, happiness and a newly found zest for life!
I’ll save the rest of my story (how I went on to become the co-founder of PlyoJam, teach privates to James Corden and Adelle, be featured on the news, and teach PlyoJam to hundreds of my own students) for another blog.
But for today I want you to think about what’s stopping you. What roadblocks and hurdles are in your way. How can I help you find that SPARK to shove those roadblocks aside and take a chance on something scary and new? Because trust me, it could change your life.
Encino resident Carrie Murray joins about 140 participants at the Dance4ACause benefit fitness event on Jan. 20 at Agoura High School. PlyoJam Dance Fitness organized the two-hour cardio dance party. All proceeds from the event will be donated to the families of the victims of the Borderline Bar and Grill shooting and those affected by the Woolseyfire.
PlyoJam Founders Stacey Beaman and Jason Layden make an appearance on KTLA Channel 5 with Lu Parker and Glen Walker to chat about their upcoming Dance 4 A Cause event. The event is being held to raise money for the families of the victims of the Borderline shooting and the victims of the Woolsey Fire.
PlyoJam Dance Fitness will host a benefit class from 4 to 6 p.m. Sun., Jan. 20 at Agoura High School, G Bldg., 28545 W. Driver Ave.
All proceeds will be donated to the Las Virgenes Fire Relief for those affected by the wildfires and to the Conejo Valley Victims Fund for victims of the Borderline Bar shooting.