Guest Post: Essentrics Down Under - Jeanne Wright

This month's blog entry is a guest post from my good friend and fellow Essentrics Instructor, Jeanne Wright. Jeanne teaches Essentrics in Auckland, New Zealand. Though we've never met in person, we regularly chat via Skype. She's a great person and I hope to one day attend one of her classes! Jeanne has over 20 years experience in the fitness industry, and she's taught almost every type of group fitness. She only teaches Essentrics now..read on to find out why.

“Like most young girls I did dancing (tap and jazz) at an early age.  I completed the exams as far as I could.  In New Zealand at that time, there was not much you could do with dancing, so I decided to become an aerobics instructor.  I became a certified aerobics instructor at the age of 19.  Although it was not dancing, it gave me the chance to be creative with warm up routines.  I ended up teaching at Club Physical Gym, where I still am today.  As an aerobics instructor, I learnt anything new that came about.  I taught Step, Circuit classes, Tai Bo (kickboxing), did full-on Boxing as well (fully trained), New Body (movement with small hand weights), Flex or Pump (weight class with barbells), Sculpt (toning with hand weights), Slide (like step but using a slippery surface where you slide from side to side), Spin (on bikes), Pilates – pretty much everything that was available, I learnt it. 

I taught at the Gym part time and taught all types of classes, right up till my first child, at the age of 39. I had a bit of a break to look after my baby and started to get back into teaching about 6 months after giving birth.  I noticed that I was getting more injuries from weight-bearing classes. Even though my form was good, my body was telling me that it didn’t like it.  I didn’t listen to my body and continued with most of these classes. I did start to cut down on more high impact classes, but stuck with the weight-bearing ones, until my second child, at the age of 42.

At the time of falling pregnant, I was asked to learn Zumba.  Due to the high impact nature of Zumba, I decided not to do it. Plus after my last difficult pregnancy, there was every chance this one would be the same. After a 4 month break from teaching, the owner of the Gym asked if I would come back and learn a new type of class – Essentrics.  Baby in tow, I remember her showing  us what Essentrics was all about.  I absolutely loved it, BUT I won’t lie – I was worried that I was not flexible enough to teach it, plus I had also put on A LOT of weight during my pregnancy.  We were given the books to learn Level 1. I mastered learning the routine and fell in love with how fluid Essentrics is. 

After teaching Essentrics for 3 months, people would come up to me and say ‘you have lost so much weight’. I was shocked as I still weighed the same, BUT what had changed was the shape of my body.  Yes, I was still the typical pear-shaped Kiwi, but I was standing taller and gave the illusion of lost weight.  Plus, the type of eccentric training means the muscles are elongated, again making you appear thinner.

I continued to teach Essentrics, along with a few barbell classes, when in 2013, I started to have major issues with my knee.  I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis - from many years of doing weight-bearing exercises.  Osteoarthritis is a degenerative disease, so it’s from ‘wear and tear’.  I was told from the specialist to stop all weight-bearing classes and that I would be certainly looking at a knee replacement within the next few years.  This led me to give up all classes apart from Essentrics. I was and still am determined NOT to have a knee replacement.

The more I taught Essentrics, the more levels I did, the more exams I passed, the more I wanted to learn.  In all my years of instructing, and previous examinations, I have learnt more about the anatomy through Essentrics.  To this day, 4 years later, I still find myself learning more about the muscles in movement.  I have learnt the more you move, the less pain your body is in.  I have learnt that even when my knee is painful with the osteoarthritis, if I don’t keep moving and using it, it gets worse.  So many people, as soon as they have a diagnosis, give up, they stop moving, when this is the worst thing they could do. 

I understand that my knee is likely to get worse, but I believe that through Essentrics I can avoid this operation.

To date, I am the only Level 4 (highest level for correspondence) certified Essentrics instructor in New Zealand.  My classes are going well and my most recent achievement is being asked to be the official trainer for the Pink Dragons - a local dragon boating team that supports breast cancer. I have received many testimonials from class participants and I just love how Essentrics have helped them.”