I was going to title this post - “Difficult Customers” but really if we didn’t have customers we wouldn’t have a studio and I wouldn’t have this job that I enjoy so much.
So customers – the ones who carefully follow the program; the cheerful ones; the ones who seem to question everything; the ones who always have some new little ache or pain that they worry over; the ones I need to instruct every time even though they might be expected to know what to do by now; and yes, even the “difficult” ones – are why I am here at Vibra-Train every weekday morning.
So, who are they and why would I even suggest a customer seems “difficult”?
The customers who appear difficult are the ones who will not accept instruction and think they know better about how to do the positions than the instructor who works with these specific vibration machines every day. I’m not talking about customers asking questions or getting the pose a little wrong but about the few customers who bring their gym based positions or what they’ve read in the latest fitness magazine and that’s how they insist they are going to do the positions.
The Vibra-Train Safety Program was specifically designed to work-out the whole body. Everything about how the positions are done; how to get into position and how to maintain it; and even the exact order of the positions is “set in concrete” and must not be changed. There are alternatives for cases where a person has limited movement. Also if a customer really excels in holding positions there are some advanced positions and higher level machines but no one (customer nor instructor) is allowed to “do it differently” just because they do a similar position elsewhere in a gym or another brand of Vibration Studio. Instructors at Vibra-train are trained to teach the Safety Program and the few allowable alternatives, they will lose their job if customers are seen to be doing whatever they want to do instead of the program.
So, there’s no choice involved. In Vibra-Train studios and now in many other Vibration Training Studios worldwide we use the Vibra-Train Safety Program following the step-by-step instructions on every visit. Those who argue about it are reminded that they have a huge amount of force coming up at them from the machine platform (or handlebars) and they’d be wise to do as they are told. There’s always the Exit Door if they refuse.
For more information there’s a series of short videos on YouTube that show each position in detail with instructions and explanation by Lloyd Shaw, designer of both the Vibra-Train brand Vibration Machines and The Safety Program. Starting from The Basic Squat the series is for instructors and anyone who wants to view it.
