Clientele Conflicts

A health club member was upset with me this morning, for using the club’s main studio to train one of my private clients (one of her fellow members). I don’t recall having a prior altercation with the woman; and I was surprised by the venom and distain that she voiced for me. “I’ll report you!” she shrieked.

Years ago I would have been personally offended, worried that I might get in trouble with management; and I would have tried to smooth things over. Not today. With my decades of experience comes blissful indifference. “You’re welcome to talk to my supervisor, the Director of Group Exercise” I shrugged, “She knows that I’m using this space, and in fact pays me to do so.” I wasn’t rude or combative. After all, the dispute was really between the two members — not my problem.

How much time and effort should a staff teacher devote to peace keeping?

Conflict resolution, making everybody happy, is a great gift, and one that I happen to have in abundance. As the Pilates Department Coordinator at that same club, I often found myself in the role of mediator. Back then it was part of my job responsibilities. Not today.

Now, at my OWN studio, Volition Fitness, I’ve an entirely different perspective. My partner and I each have a couple of prima donna clients. When the two are forced to share the space, they’re like hissing cats. We take great pains to keep their appointments at separate hours.

How do you handle disputes among clients?

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Buy-In

Attendance in my performance choreography class plummeted. I thought that I might recruit the dancers from my other classes. However, when I tell students in my other classes that I’m preparing a dance for an as yet undetermined performance, I see rows of polite smiles, but not more bodies in rehearsal. So I try another route. Instead of trying to drum up enthusiasm for my envisioned project, I ask my prospective participants to offer a stage of their own, “Do any of you have a favorite charity for whom we might perform?”

Perhaps this approach can work with my fellow teachers as well. One of them may provide a venue. That requires that I compromise. My two best collaborators weren’t moved to follow my indoor/outdoor, weekend long dance camp suggestion; but they proposed that we gather together to host another in-studio dance-sampler/open house day. I reluctantly threw-in my support behind the idea, “taking one for the team”, because the offer and the initiative arose from them.

I don’t like admitting that all the best ideas for us aren’t mine! For me, it’s an uncomfortable position. I am accustomed to being the Boss; but I’m not the one doing the hard, physical work of dancing the steps, or enrolling enough participants to justify the expensive of production.

How do you make something while relinquishing control of it?

It’s not enough just to listen. Once I ask for suggestions, I’m obligated to apply the answers.

Any suggestions?

Cancellations

At this moment, as the result of a last minute cancellation by one of my fitness clients, I’m being paid almost $100 to eat breakfast.

To charge or not to charge, is always a moral conundrum. In this particular case, the client didn’t show because he had to manage a business opportunity; but the client who cancelled just prior to him reported an illness as his excuse. Do I charge them both?

I have every client sign a liability waiver that includes a separate section in bold type agreeing to give me 24 hours notice of cancellation. I accept notice the night before an early morning appointment as sufficient, even though it’s technically less than 24 hours; and whenever I fail to give 24 hour notice, by way of apology, I give the disappointed client a free session. However, I don’t inform a late canceling client that I’m charging them for their missed appointment. I simply deduct the session from their pre-paid package.

Therein lies the reason for offering volume discounts for the purchase of session packages. The decision to charge, as well as payment, is in my hands. I maintain control of my business and my time.

What constitutes a true emergency, justifying a lapse of 24 notice of cancellation?

It’s a judgement call on a case by case basis. Some clients have frequent emergencies. Others are regularly late to sessions. In those cases, I smile and accept their excuses, “Of course…”‘; but I end the session at the appointed time, even if I have free time following the session. Keeping those boundaries clear is its own kind of training.

What do you think?

Witness

Regarding my job as Fitness Trainer, I like to disrupt the stereotypic image of a jock by saying, “It’s not really about the push ups”; meaning that the physical education is the least significant aspect of the workout.

I’ve been training Jennifer for as long as I’ve know my partner, 15 years now; and I bet that in some ways I know Jennifer better than I know my mate. Sure, my client has physical fitness goals, some functional and some cosmetic, and a history of orthopedic injury extensive enough to fill a medical journal; but “exercise instruction” doesn’t begin to describe our weekly hour together. I am the chief witness to her life. As the weeks and the years roll by, I see Jennifer rejoice in romantic vacations and dreadful fights, workplace honors as well as frustrating dissatisfaction, financial worries, the death of her parents.

What is the primary benefit provided by a fitness coach?

 When a client arrives for a session, I know the important touch stones of that person’s existence. Of course I ask how the diet has been maintained that week, and about the status of the prior week’s reported aches and bodily concerns. Then we get down to business, “How is that law suit progressing?” “Are you still angry at your daughter?” I hear things that no one else knows about that person.

It’s an honor to hold someone’s trust and confidence. It’s also a responsibility. When I observe one of my clients behaving poorly towards other people in their life, or stuck in an obsolete and less than optimal behavioral pattern, I feel obligated to say something.

What do you recommend?

“Those who can, do…”

Working out while instructing

It can be fun, supportive and motivating for the trainee, when their fitness coach to drops down next to them and matches them in a series of push ups or crunches…Team work! In fact, in the health club setting, cardio-dance students expect the teacher to cue the entire class by providing a continuous, visual demonstration. However, in performance training classes, where technical improvement is the aim of the class, the teacher must step aside and let the students take center stage.

 

When is it in the student’s best interest for the teacher to watch rather than do?

Emphasizing his role as observer means that the teacher never gets the thorough warmup that he’s provided his students; and that’s tough on the teacher’s body; for by the middle of class, the students are ready to turn and jump; but the teacher is still stiff and unprepared to demonstrate athletic movement sequences full-out. He’s spent the preceding 30-45 minutes observing and correcting others.

Next month I’m starting a new class, and changing the format of an existing one to combine the two cuing styles. I’m looking forward to the workout; but wondering when and how much to dance/demonstrate, and how much to stand aside and cheerlead from the back of the studio.

How would you implement your best teaching practice?

 

Taking Time-Off

I have two early morning clients and three more this evening; but today my 9:00 – 5:00 is free — a life of leisure?Sometimes, but the variability can be confusing. My empty hours are often unpredictable, anxious and unwelcome. In dance, community theater, and fitness training, Saturday is a work day. Most of us movement teachers dedicate Saturdays to class and rehearsal. Except for very rare, two-day workshops, I decline to work Sundays. A full weekend however, is the exception, expensive (because it is unpaid), and demanding a surprising degree of advance planning.

Is a balanced life best achieved by small doses of time-off through the year, or by one, annual grand vacation?

Although I’d prefer to live in a more rural setting, I am locked into operating my business and living in San Francisco. This is “everyone’s favorite city” for  good reason; and I am well aware of my good fortune. Still, I dream about scheduling one weekend a month to enjoy this place or to get out of town. That means saying No to money and opportunity, and risking the ire of health club directors who frown upon classes frequently substituted.

What do you do to balance your work and play?

Performance Expectations

 

 Yesterday i removed all references of Opus II, my much hoped for amateur dance company, from my web site. “It didn’t work out. Let it go,” I told myself. At the same time, I’m preparing to teach a new class at an unfamiliar health club, where my introductory workshop will set the tone and technical level for a new troupe of performers. I wonder if I must continue to abandon my performance goals in order to avoid intimidating people who are only exploring the art as a hobby.

How much should a teacher allow their own aspirations

to determine the degree of challenge for their students?

I wonder how playful to play it, how much to cater to the Beginner crowd with accessible music and steps, and conversely, how much to crack the whip (i.e. turn off the music and demand precision practice of memorized movement). My usual motto is “Do the best that you can with what you’ve got;” but I want to convince both the participants and myself that we’ll improve over time, that the technical level WILL gradually increase, as will their confidence and pride. I want them to eventually be eager to invite their friends to our shows.

What do you recommend?

Shut Up

“Dance is a silent art,” one of my favorite teachers quoted to quiet his talkative dancers. That admonition also applies to instructors who talk or shout over the music, I’m guilty of it myself.

Must we remain silent and allow students to fail?

As the teacher,  I want to keep the class experience vibrant, and to propel the participants to get warm and move vigorously.  I also sympathize with the underdog, that poor dancer who is so eager to advance that he or she dares to take a difficult, higher level class and is attempting step sequences beyond their grasp. In order to avoid humiliating them or to prevent their stumbling from slowing the pace of the better dancers in class, I yell over the music and spoon feed them cues. Do the beginners even recognize the names of the steps that I’m shouting? I’m screaming French at them. Why?

Even if my hollered instructions work, the practice encourages a dependency that I’d prefer to eliminate. I’d rather show a greater respect for the music and for my dancers, to recognize them as fellow artists who need to hear the music in order to phrase and accent their movement.

What do you recommend?

Broken Promises – discontinuing a class

At the end of the year, I broadcasted an email announcing my decision to stop teaching one of my classes. It was the second time that year that I initiated a class closure. Inconsistent attendance made it impossible to progress my choreography or to advance the skills of the few students that showed up. I was bored.

As soon as I hit the “send” button, I had second thoughts. What am I doing, turning down a pay check? However intermittent their attendance, a few students will be disappointed, and my boss will be unhappy with me. I tried promoting the class for months before choosing to abandon it. I worried that one week was insufficient notice; but in the end, I said ENOUGH.

How do we balance our own needs with those of the community we lead?

The problem is that, whether the choice is made by the teacher or by the program director, canceling a class is a unilateral decision, even though a class is a team effort, a collaboration. The Group Exercise Director has a vision for his program and a roster of offerings to support that vision. The other dance teachers on staff may have a sense of faculty and take pride in knowing that other instructors of high caliber teach at the same facility. Every student, however irregular their attendance, is juggling a little dream of their own as well as a schedule.

What do you think is my responsibility here?

Revealing Upset

My mother may be dying. It is a confusing time for me. I’m distracted during training sessions. Long time clients likely notice; and they would be offended if I hid such a significant personal fact from them. My calendar effects theirs and has become unreliable. Also, the students in my classes deserve an explanation for my frequent last minute employ of substitute teachers. Some of these people are beleaguered by similar sadness and panic as they care for their own parents. Many of them have recently experienced it themselves and are fonts of very helpful advice and information. I could use their help; but I am like a dam about to break. Get me started and I’ll spill grief for the entire hour.

How much is too much sharing?

I usually reveal just enough of myself in a training session to foster a sense of equity and peer to peer confidentiality. After all, it’s their time, and their dime; but when you’ve talked with a client twice a week for a decade, the line between friend and professional service provider blurs. Still, there are topics and emotions that ought to remain unspoken.

What criteria do you use to govern the depth or scope of what you reveal?