Flock to Class

I went to Zumba exactly once.  I could cope perfectly well with making a fool of myself by not knowing what the heck I was doing, but I kept running into other people and that was not OK.

Recently, I learned about why that happened.  Or, more accurately, I learned about how to apply the rules of flocking or schooling behavior (in birds and fish, respectively) to large groups of humans attempting to take a fitness class.  (Spoiler alert:  it does not require the exclusion of inexperienced or relatively uncoordinated participants!)

 

A flock or school is a structure in motion that is defined by three basic parameters.  They are separation, alignment, and cohesion.

 

Within the flock, each bird uses its kinesthetic senses to maintain separation from other birds.  This is not a perfect system, but it’s pretty good.  Some birds need a little more space than others.  In a fitness class, setting things up so that participants have a reasonable amount of space around them is a good start.  In a Pilates class, for example, the instructor can influence this by setting up mats in advance.

 

The second parameter, alignment, means that each individual bird in the flock is approximating toward the direction the flock as a whole is flying.  As the leaders of the flock change their direction, the rest of the flock follows along.  Again, in a group fitness situation, an instructor can create success by clearly defining the front (or redefining it, if the instructor wants to shake things up and make what was the back of the class the front, or even spiral the focus of the class around the room over time).

 

Finally, the flock uses cohesion.  All the birds are doing the same thing, more or less.  Fitness instructors can promote this behavior by ensuring that every participant can see either the instructor or another experienced student at all times.

 

None of this will work, of course, if the space allotted for the class is too small for everyone to move reasonably freely.  It might be time to take it outside or to schedule more classes to alleviate the crunch.

 

Above and beyond all this, it is a good idea to explain that this is a game with simple rules, that we are playing.  We all do our best to follow along. 

 

Go play.