Instructor Auditions – Take Two

Who’s ready for the weekend?! I know I am!

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I realized the other day I haven’t posted any photos of Bailey lately, so here are a couple from this morning. Bailey says hi friends!

As for eats today, I had something very important planned after work and needed to be in tip-top condition. So, I tried to eat pretty nutritiously, though, I will say, after hearing Brendan Brazier, I’m shying away from meats for performance reasons.

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Breakfast – fried cage-free egg, spelt toast with Earth Balance, and some organic strawberries. Plus a lil coffee on the side.

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I snacked on some Galaxy Granola (*) with some vanilla almond milk.

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For lunch, I had a GIANT romaine salad with almond butter toast.

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I made sure to add lots of healthful ingredients – romaine, cucumber, bell pepper, sunflower seeds, pepitas, hemp seeds, ground flaxseed. Chef Drew’s as my dressing.

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Great Harvest spelt toast with Barney Butter.

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Lunch was a tad on the light side, but I had some good snacks planned.

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Since I didn’t get it for breakfast, what better for an afternoon snack than OATMEAL! I added chia seeds, dates, almonds, and ground flaxseed to mine (cooked in 1/2 water and 1/2 almond milk).

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And for my pre-workout snack of choice – a delicious smoothie pumped up with good stuff from my Vega Complete Whole Food Health Optimizer (1 scoop). Other ingredients: banana, frozen blueberries, ice, almond milk.

You can check out my review of this product by clicking here. I’m hoping to use it and gauge my energy levels, but I don’t have that info yet.

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So, what may my important activity today be? Well, some my older readers may remember that I tried out to be a zumba instructor last June (click). You may have wondered what ever happened to that and…well, it turns out I didn’t get it. 🙁 I know I should have made that more obvious but who wants the world to know that they were a failure? Ok, well now you all know, so I will move on…

On Monday, I didn’t say anything because I was thinking of not telling you guys at all about this so I don’t totally embarrass myself if things don’t work out, but I had a private audition. I did 3 songs: Hips Don’t Lie (Bamboo Version), Jai Ho, and Elevator. The audition went really well (MUCH better than last year), but I had another round to do – something new they’re doing this year – a LIVE audition. Eek! 😯

Well, the live auditions were tonight. The plan – lead two songs (from the private audition) in front of a live class as though you’re the instructor.

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After polishing off my smoothie, I got ready for auditions by first getting my outfit together: my blue zumba pants, aerobic shoes

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Zumba LOVE sports bra and Zumba instructor tank top. I am a certified zumba instructor, but I am auditioning to be an instructor with a particular group in town.

Then it was dress, makeup, pack water, and get ready to have FUN!

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So, each of the 7 people auditioning led two songs for a live class – there were TONS of people there! This would normally terrify me, but the energy in the room was just so positive. Everyone was there to support us and cheer us on and it was really amazingly-awesome.

Big thanks to Jenny for being my photographer tonight! 🙂

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Here’s me just before taking the stage.

And here are some action shots:

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I did Jai Ho and Elevator this round and I had so much FUN! I was pretty nervous, but I knew that all my hard work and practice would kick in. I tried to mentally prepare myself in the past couple weeks that I’d be leading songs without another instructor helping me and one part of that is knowing your choreography. I find that you have to practice it over and over well in advance (not the day of) and that way day of, you don’t have to think about your choreo, you can just DANCE!

Anywho, I’m sure I probably messed something up, but overall, I’m just so happy with how I did, no matter the results. I’m proud that I failed once but came back stronger to try again and that I gave 100%. All you can do is your best. 🙂

All the people who tried out did a fabulous job – they should all be very proud of their hard work.

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Some of the other auditioners (that’s a word, right? 😉 ) – Chauna, Lind e, Crystal, and moi. (Thanks Alex for the photo!)

We should hear back by April 30th, so I’ll keep you guys posted!

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A small group of us went out for dinner afterwards at Big Daddy’s Burger Bar. We were having burgers, so I had to have a coke – a REAL coke. I only managed to finish half this, but I still like the flavor of it with burgers.

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My friends have been showing me pictures of food they’ve taken, which I think is pretty freakin fantastic! I love seeing their photos. This is a photo of eggs benedict and mimosa breakfast.

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Alex got a spiked cookies and cream milkshake and shared samples with us.

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I had two delicious bites. Yum!

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As for eats, I got the Western Burger – burger with monterey jack, crispy onions, and BBQ sauce, plus tomato and lettuce. I got sweet potato fries for my side.

I was a little disappointed that I ordered my burger medium well and it looked a little too similar to my friend’s burger (they ordered medium rare). My waiter told me the burger would have a warm pink center when I ordered it, but it was preeeetty red-looking to me. After working for years in the restaurant industry, I’m not big on returning food, so I ate it, but I would have preferred medium well like I ordered. I’d like to add also that my waiter and some guy (presumably a manager) stopped by to check on us and I didn’t say anything about the burger – I’m sure they would have been willing to cook my burger more had I said something, but like I said…I don’t like to return food.

I did like the flavors of the burger and toppings and the sweet potato fries were really good, too. Our waiter was also really nice.

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What do you think about scales? Are they helpful or over-rated? Weigh in here.

Organic Gardening questions? I’ll be compiling questions for Don, so I know I said ask them by Thursday, but if you add more tonight or tomorrow, I’ll be sure to include them when I email him the questions. Click here to ask away!

Also, I’m working out some promotions for when my OpenSky shop has its grand opening. What would you like to see? Percentage discounts? Free gift certificates, like $5 off anything. Free shipping? Buy something, get a free sample of something else? Tell me and I’ll try to work it out. 🙂

Have a great weekend everyone! Hubby and I have plans to start our GARDEN tomorrow!!!

Do you have a funny, inspiring, or interesting audition experience? Tell me about it in a comment.

12 thoughts on “Instructor Auditions – Take Two”

  1. Congrats on your audition! You look like you’ll be an amazing instructor. If I wasn’t completely rhythmically challenged, I’d love to try out some zumba or other dance classes. Unfortunately, even a step class takes a little too much coordination.

    Reply
  2. Hey Diana!

    I did some grocery shopping today and got to sample the Galaxy Granola in Not Sweet Vanilla; when I saw it, I immediately thought of you and decided to give it a whirl. LOVE it and had to get some to bring home! Thanks for sharing your eats; I might have never tried it if it weren’t for your super positive review of Galaxy. 🙂 I could not believe how low in fat it is compared with most granolas. I usually shy away from it because of the high fat. They are geniuses; who would have thought cooking it in applesauce could be so good! Yay! I had a 1/4 cup of it with a 1/4 cup of 1% organic milk for a snack this evening. Delish!

    PS – Wishing you lots of Luck for your audition! Hope you get it! You look great and I am sure you rocked it! 🙂

    Reply
  3. That’s soooo exciting!! How fun! Can’t wait to hear how it turns out, I’m sure you did amazing. I’m really wanting to come Zumba soon 🙂

    My story isn’t so much about an audition, but a job interview: everything was going great, but towards the end I kept feeling something funny on my toes (I had peep toe pumps on), finally I glanced down and it was a HUGE spider on my toe!!! I SCREEAAAMMMED and jumped up out of my seat while spurts of “EEK! EEKK!” kept coming out.

    I don’t like bugs.

    Luckily, the woman interviewing me hated them just as much, so she was able to overlook my moment of temporary insanity. 🙂

    Excited for you and can’t wait to hear when and where you’ll be instructing!!

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  4. I hope you hear back positively! I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for you. I love the action shots your friend took for you ~ the exude so much energy!

    I don’t like to send food back either ~ since I eat mostly salads these days though, it’s really hard for them to mess it up 🙂 In fact, to my surprise, the places I’ve eaten seem to love getting creative and making salads that are a little off-the-menu. This may be normal in the US, but it’s kinda fresh and new over here!

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  5. Hi Sarah and Diana, we’re so glad you’re enjoying the Galaxy Granola!! Let us know what you think of the vanilla almond and any of the other flavors.

    Also, stay tuned, we’ll have some exciting new flavors coming your way soon. 😉

    Reply
  6. Hello I’m Sasha this is my first time to your website and I enjoy it very much. I am also a certified Zumba instructor. I had my first audition last Saturday and did horrible =(.I came across your blog and I wanted to let you know that you inspired to me to try again and to not give up. Thank you for helping me feel like I can come back stronger. =)

    Reply

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