BODYJAM

Body Jam 50

bastos69 — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:26:30 GMT

Just did the new release of BJ 50 last night and once again, its ***!!!! I have been doing BJ for 2 years now and I seems to noticed that the current releases were getting worse and worse....esp. the MUSIC. The only good music from BJ50 is the cool down with Jennifer Hudson's Spotlight. From the warm up all the way to the house blocks, every single music were uninspired and lack umph!!! The latin track was good but too repetitive. Why bother using Sneaky Sound System's 3 years old song in the house block?

When will Gandalf stop using elctrohouse music? I am soooo sick of this electro-crap music that his using. Come on bring on some good house vocal music!!!

Here I am hoping that BJ51 will be a good one.

The Beginner's Hall - cause even you were new once!

Dashoboy — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:25:09 GMT

Hi everyone! I opened this thread for you to write us your funny, sad, odd, outrageous or whatever kind of experiencies and anecdotes you may have and want to share with us during those days you were a mere mortal kiddo beginning (and maybe struggling!) into the fascinating world of Body JAM!

This is intended to all, enthusiast students during their firsts days as well as your early days as an instructor alike, even while on taking your very first module! maybe you'll have some tips for those who are just beginning to avoid having them screwin up the same you did, or just to make them improve better!

Oh, and for the record, yes I'm taking my Jam module tomorrow morning (sat 14th), finally I'm taking the step from Jam fanatic to Jam instructor, YAY! So this thread will become pretty in handy, so I'll be posting my own experiences and anecdotes in the upcoming days! And also I think this thread will be useful to others newbies like I am right now for future references.

It will be so funny reading this in a few years from now with new members asking for help or tips just like I did! And to read all we went through, I bet it will be the same to you!

Please, comment! =D

BodyJam 51

tiger75 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:16:53 GMT

The silzzler of 51 #

BODYJAM® 51 is here to drop a funk bomb on the floor in your club! We’ve got hits from T-Pain and The Ting Tings, the best Gloria Estefan track ever and the hottest House anthems of the year! Track 1, Scared Of Me from Fedde le Grand, is so funky it should be illegal. The first combo comes back strong in the second half of the class, so feel the correct flava from beat one. T-Pain’s track, Freeze, will take you through the Isolation block. This is about feeling your hips from the beginning. Sing along while you get your class to “dance like me”.

Get your Swag Swag on to The Ting Tings’ Shut Up And Let Me Go – one of the hottest tracks from 2008. So what is Swag? Swag is your flava. The style is purely you, and you know you are all over it! Make it oversized and Swagalicious, baby! The new Tribal Salsa routine is a cosmic concoction of Latin styles. It’s going to fire up your floor and push your heart rate through the roof. Are you ready for the hottest, nastiest Recovery Track ever? Missy Elliott’s anthem One Minute Man is Hip Hop 101. Get yo’ Bounce Bounce on with the Kick Back Step. Surrender yourself to the rhythm and Leave The World Behind! This standout anthem of 2009 is so phenomenal that we’ve included two versions for a full 11½ minutes!

Want more jammers on the floor? Use the two complexity levels to grow your BODYJAM® class. Teach the low-complexity version for at least three weeks before adding in the advanced options. Get your class comfortable with the release as a whole, then start throwing in the advanced options over the next couple of weeks. Save some of the trickier options for later to keep your advanced class participants on their toes.

Body Jam vs Zumba - A.K.A. "I did my 1st Zumba class today"

Paul_T — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:36:05 GMT

I've started a new thread as this doesn't really relate to the "Jam being replaced by Zumba" thread...

OMFG!!! I did my first Zumba class today... Not an experience I'm in ANY hurry to repeat!!! At the club I'm GFM at we're adding Zumba to the timetable in addition to Body Jam (company policy) and we ran a taster this morning... Myself and my Jam team went as we were curious as to what it was going to be like and also support the team teaching it... I nearly cried... The cueing was late and there were times where we were looking at each other going "they're not on the beat?!?" The chorey was BORING and they kept stopping the music and pre teaching the moves and then putting the music on again - had flashbacks to the old format of Jam - way too stop/start... I got a workout, but just didn't get the Body Jam "high"... From what I have found out about the process of getting qualified as a Zumba instructor, the training/assessment process is nowhere near as tough as what we go through to become Jam instructors either, so not surprised I was disappointed...

Verdict - fine for people that don't want to use their brains, want to do a "dance style" class, but don't actually want to dance etc... I just don't see this as competition for Jam - they are two programs that are 100% completely, utterly different...

My Jammers were not impressed, so I'm not worried about and of my girls "defecting" to the other side lol...

I can see the value of it for people that are de-conditioned or just have no motor skills, but it's just not my bag!

Why I can NOT submit a song? technical issues :(

Dashoboy — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:43:29 GMT

I don't know if this is the right place to ask but, whenever I try to suggest a song in the proper section a message constantly pops up saying "user Agent can not exceed 200 characters", and I'm not quite sure of what this implies, if I shorten the text it keeps displaying this error, no matter what I do it's always the same

Here's an image which shows the problem:

Jam will never know Yelle? sniff... (oh, and I wanna suggest the album version btw) or any others I would like to suggest in the future? Please help!

suburban Knights

mrrocket — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:29:35 GMT

Is this a friken awesome track or what!!!!

Backrelease

adessert — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:57:28 GMT

I am wanting to learn a backrelease from before Body Jam 39. I would love to learn 34 or 35 as I've heard they were great. However, I can't find any available before 40 in the LesMills store. Anyone know if they are still available?

It's getting frustrating

Oz_BC — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:17:22 GMT

Jam is becomming a hit or miss class at my gym. we run two classes a week but the numbers are so up in the air that at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if it got cut altogether. Which is a massive disappointment considering i just did my training (LOL). Also because it's such an awesome class that people just don't seem to realise.

Has anyone experienced this in their classes? any ideas on how to attract more people to jam classes?

Body jam is not as challenging as it used to be

kaza — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 15:31:02 GMT

As a regular to body jam I am not enjoying the new way of introducing the easy moves 1st and then adding the 'advanced' moves later on. I find sometimes the 'advanced 'moves are easier in some releases than the 'easier' moves. The last few released haven't really worked us as hard as the older releases and I know my instructor explained that they are trying to make it accessible to everyone but the regulars seem to get bored of the new release a few weeks down the line and stop coming as regular. I would like to see the moves more challenging with options to make them lower but teaching the advanced moves from the start.

Desperate for jam instructor Western Sydney

Danceaholic — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:19:11 GMT

Hi jammers,

There is a slot available for a jam instructor at One 55 Rooty Hill 6pm Fridays. If this slot is not filled the centre will have to axe the programme as I can only commit to one class a week. This will be so sad for the 20 -30 participants who love the programme. Leave me a note on my profile if you are interested.

Gail

Mambo everywhere - not sure??

fluffie_bunnie — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:34:55 GMT

I'm just learning jam 50 and absolutely loving this release!

However I've got some reservations about the "mambo everywhere" - my jam class is quite new and has pretty low numbers - some weeks 10 or 12 but other weeks only 2 or 3. I'm trying to build them up but that's a story for another post ...

In the meantime I'm not sure the mambo everywhere is really going to work with so few people, the whole "go and meet someone new" idea not really going to work and I think they may feel self consious being asked to move around the studio as they're rattling around in it anyway!

Any suggestions for how to carry this off, has anyone tried it in small classes?

thanks guys

Beth

Jam not working for you?

mrrocket — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:50:20 GMT

I keep hearing more and more people saying they are struggling to keep people coming back to their Jam class. Jam seems to do really well when its launched but dies on it *** after like 6months.

For me i have seen numbers go from 40 to 20 to 3 to 10 to 20 to 2 to 30 and it really is hard to keep people coming back and i find that there is so much responsibilty on the instructor to 'sell' the programme and make it different to keep people coming back.

I am now releasing a new release and sticking with it for like 5 weeks then mixing the first block and then mixing like three releases into the last house block to keep it interesting. The other programmes seem to sell themselves without having to change anything to keep people coming back, there is something wrong with Jam's format IMO and the many other instructors i have spoken to.

I mean its soul destroying when numbers are down and you have worked your ass off to learn the chorey and put so much time and effort into making it a great class.

Another reason why its soul destroying is cus unlike BC, with jam if we wanna mix a new block in we have to take hours out of whatever we are doing (working) and re-learn a whole block,with bc and all the other programmes it takes a few minutes to remember the chorey. So you turn up to class full of fresh chorey and enthusiasm and you have like 5 people in your class,your heart just sinks.

And then a new realease......classes good for a bit then numbers drop,regulars get bored and then pressure on the instructor to change things to keep get them back in and the cycle starts again!?

Im realy worried for Jam and what its trying to do. Unless the blocks are shortened and more complex chorey introduced i feel it will fail.

Jam is never EVER going to appeal to the masses like the other programmes and until the programme directors get there head round that they are going to be caught in between the devil and the deep blue see (stuck in the middle trying to please everyone and not pleasing anyone apart from ass licking people who tell em what they wanna hear).

Target those who wanna dance not those who just wanna huge CV workout. Target dancers and those who have the ability to dance and not people who cant dance for *** as they will never be interested. Those who have a basic ability want to be inspired by great dancers and great moves and the better dancers you get in your class the more inspired people(newbies) will be. Its like going into BC or BA and everyone is 300stone overweight, those wanting to be inspired to get into shape will not go back to the class.

It must be working in some clubs but in general everyone i speak to have similar concerns as me.

BODY JAM tag line...

Bexi — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:11:08 GMT

uhhh is it just me or does anyone else think this is a stupid tagline for BODY JAM...?

"It's like the Spanish Inquisition, with a hip-hop soundtrack"

are they trying to say that it's like torture and religious persecution with a hip-hop soundtrack...?

why dont they change their marketing tagline to "It's like playing russian roulette, with a salsa soundtrack"

Jam is being replaced by Zumba!!

kaye — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:11:17 GMT

In a lot of clubs, the attitudes that other instructors present about Jam can affect our class numbers. In our clubs, the GFM brought in Zumba. Where Jam will generate anywhere from 10 to 20 (10 is regular, 20 is a great day) Zumba is packing 25 to 30 a class. Jam numbers have been declining since release 39 or so (a long time!) but the members seem to love Zumba. I am a Les Mills SNOB. I don't really like any other classes or formats, so I almost feel like bringing Zumba in is a slap in the face. My GFM tried to get me to certify for Z but it is CRAZY expensive (cert. and music). Has anyone else experienced this? The regulars I have either love Jam and hate Zumba or love them both. I work frequently with a National trainer, and she assures me that it is not my instruction causing the decline. Any ideas???

BJ 50 conclusion?

mrrocket — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:57:36 GMT

So been teaching it for 6 weeks or so now and wondered how its going down at everyones clubs?

I have loved this release and also embraced all the the + options and the breakout options. Participants loved the build of this release which has kept them interested(and me).

Couple of old issues that still need ironing out me thinks. As discussed before the latin block needs much more comlexity to keep it going (more + options) ive intoduced interested things like swapping feet on the mambo everywhere and going in another direction but its hard work to keep them interested(having said that more hip hop/funk and NO latin would work for me :) ). The recovery is PAINFUL! Lasted about two weeks before they were yawning. Also the scoop section is far to long and repetative(just the first track). More short blocks like the cardio funk with the same complexity in the + options will turn this programme around in many clubs IMO. Looking forward to the next release.

Groove FX

fluffie_bunnie — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:46:01 GMT

Just wondered if anyone had ever done or taught this programme?

I did it for the first time this weekend at Fitness Fiesta and surprised myself by really enjoying it - was expecting it to be a sub stanrdard version of jam - but actually, although very cheesy, it was a lot of fun. I gather it is similar to the older style jam releases (which I have never done) in that each block/style only lasts for one or two songs so you don't get long routines like we do in jam, but it still was fun and felt like actual dancing instead of aerobics.

I was so taken with it I'm considering looking into teaching it, the fact that no licence is needed and I'm already qualified by virtue of my jam training is appealing as I could just get the cd and chorry for £20 and start straight off teaching.

My main concern is that I have only done it the once, amd maybe the short blockls would get a little boring after you've done it for a few weeks.

Anyone else got any thoughts/opinions?

Beth

Rockets review of BJ50

mrrocket — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:39:13 GMT

My thoughts on 50:

Now... i have only taught this a couple of times so my opinion is based on kinda first impression so conclusion to follow:

Without getting to carried away with BJ50 i can honestly say that i really do think the Jam team has FINALLY got it right in terms of balance.

There is no need to try and make it extra special or add your own bits to keep the class from getting bored it all seems to be in place.

BJ50 starts with a fantastic warm up and isolation track that actually makes you feel like your dancing

and grooving with some great rhythms.

The mambo section is probably the only section that i think people will get bored quickly as there are not enough + options but the music choice is excellent and it is very up-lifting and a great CV workout.

The greatest thing about this release by a MILE is the cardio funk, it is soooo good members just cant get enough and the first few times i have taught this i could hardly talk at the same time as it is so tough CV wise.

The recovery is super cool and the second block is off the wall crazy but with enough options for everyone to be happy.

The greatest thing about this release is the fact that the base is hard enough to keep people interested for 5 weeks then you can add your plus options which was always the way it should work. But not only do we get plus options we get some friken awesome breakout chorey that the class will be drooling over. The presenters on the dvd were *** hot and loved all the add-ons that were choreographed. The educational is superb as its so easy to follow.

My class feel like they are dancing, i mean real dancing (not endless step touch and hand claps) and the instructors feel like they have some great moves to learn, practice and get better and better over the quarter. Great music choice throughout the whole of this release...awesome.

Two minor points though...i think newbies may find the ‘3 times’ cue at the start of the mambo confusing ‘cut it in half’ would be easier to understand.

I also think the ‘mambo everywhere’ is a little stupid, its ok like ‘g’ said if its in a studio like his but the reality is that numbers will be from anything from 5-40 and it just don’t work with small numbers(as a one off then yeah but not long term)

Also...the star cloth at the back, can you put some star cloth on the ceiling above the stage as the ceiling lets the ‘set’ down and please tidy up the ends of the star cloth at the back,hehe.

All in all an amazing release with fantastic options, can we please have the chorey at this level all the time especially the cardio-funk as this is the best block we have done since G took over....INSANE... IMO!!

BJ 49 conculsion?

mrrocket — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:43:16 GMT

Just wondering what everyone’s final thoughts were on BJ49?

Personally i feel that the Jam team have found the perfect balance in this release. Jam ‘base’ is hard enough for participants to be challenged and Jam+ HAS to be introduced in stages to allow participants to get to grip with the moves which is the whole point of doing + and base.

I could feel that if I introduced + too early I would lose some peeps as they would have found it too difficult, so yeah the balance is perfect I think.

The biggest surprise was that ‘man ballet’ is being loved by me and all my participants, it flows beautifully and i actually found mixing some of the base and + together worked well in one club.

I think instructors are bright enough to know when to use + and base. For instance, in one club there is no way they would have got the fast samba first time but i knew they would get the + version of man ballet.

The most important thing is that i really do think it is working and will only get better. The house block is amazing and i actually prefer the ‘base’ kick version to the plus version as we get more of a workout!!!

The only issue i have is that damn button you have to press to get the + version, it makes learning it so much harder if you are a visual learner. The concept is spot on but please can we have the two separate versions. It’s also important i have both version on my ipod as I learn in bed as well!!

So very happy with 49, big well done to all the jam team for this release,FAMAZING!

Getting BodyJam to our club

chelsea86 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:21:54 GMT

Just wondering how other instructors have gone getting BodyJam to their club and doing initial training without the experience of participating regularly?

My club is 3 hours away from another club offering Jam classes, so we only get a Jam class when travelling out of town or the rare (5hour drive) to a quarterly.

We got BodyVive when it first came out but I assume the moves are lot easier to learn than BodyJam.

A few of us instructors are keen to train in BodyJam, I guess it will just be a lot harder to pick up the technique?

Any others clubs in the same boat?

NEED Lyrics of Set It Off J. Williams

momopoko — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:05:25 GMT

I can't find it...... even though i searched everywhere.

Best shoes for Jam?

Michela002 — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:12:38 GMT

Is there an old thread for good shoes for Jam? (I know there are a bunch for Combat.)

I wear Nike Free trainers for Combat but they're not great in Jam - the turning isn't working in this particular shoe. I've found the Nike Zoom Essential trainer work pretty good in Jam, actually, but I've owned (seriously) about eight pairs of 'em and would like something new I may re-buy these if I can't find anything else though. They're not dance shoes but are very light and seem to work ok for Jam.

I also own Nike Air Troupe Low Women's Dance Shoe but they are very clunky and heavy and I hate wearing them in Jam, especially in Latin tracks. I'm definitely looking for light weight, but cool looking. Probably want a flexible sole too ... for the on-the-toes stuff.

Any recommendations?

Looking for contact info for Les Mills NZ - online contact form not answered

Nemesis — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:28:33 GMT

So I sent LM a message through their online contact us form requesting contact info so that my Jam instructor can purchase older releases. LM did not get back to me and this was about a month ago.

Does anyone here have a contact email so that I can get this ball rolling. In my previous thread someone replied that Les Mills NZ would need to contact my instructor and confirm with her that she is a licensed Jam teacher and also confirm with the Canadian Les Mills manager, or something like that.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Body Jam 51 FILMIMG

HBJammer — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 19:53:38 GMT

I hope someone will post the track list after the filming tonight..lol

"We're here to set it off, you think you got somethin to prove.." - J Williams

Question about ACE CEC's

fitdiva2007 — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 11:49:51 GMT

For those of you certified by ACE (American Council on Exercise), does anyone know the CEC number and credits associated with the Body Jam Training Module? I know I put in 20 hours plus more, but I just need to make sure!

What does "SHABAM SHABAM" mean?

momopoko — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:59:59 GMT

???