Dance mats were the craze! We looked around at different suppliers of systems to run them at the leisure centre and sampled 3, each were as good at each other but Cyber Coach were able to offer that extra dimension by giving the class instructor option not to mention the games that were offered over and above the instructor. We saw potential in the virtual class instructor and choose Cyber Coach.
Initially we pushed the dance mats and from that were showing the classes that could be done with the system also. The virtual instructor played its first role when one of our own instructors called in sick at the last minute and instead of cancelling the class we put the system on and they loved it. The virtual instructor has so far covered yoga classes, a dance fit class, an abs workout and a legs, bums and tums class. Having to cancel classes would have a negative effect on participation levels and income. All routines start by building up to a main session and a cool down. Experienced participants are also catered for as themed classes are not one off’s they are done to encourage development.
During quiet times the centre is able to put the system to use for as many or as few participants as two. As the system only uses a little power it is more than covered by the charge for use. We have small groups of people who are low on self confidence booking the session and enjoying exercise without having to feel self conscious in front of an instructor. They are also enjoying the fact that they can book a salsa class and half way through change from salsa to Bollywood at the touch of a button. To supply one instructor the cost implication would mean that the class had to be at least half full to cover costs.
Virtual instructors take the spin classes at the centre.
We now have community groups using the centre and booking Cyber Coach from Jump Start (council initiative targeting obesity), Active schools, Local disability groups, young carers and many more. Every time we show the system we impress people and gain a customer. Without the system we would not be able to provide for so many people or offer such a variety of classes.
The biggest unexpected benefit has been that the system was bought to run dance mat classes but have ended up making much more income from the virtual instructor side than the dance mats.
‘’Cyber Coach is by far the most versatile system on the market to date and has helped our little centre provide the classes that only the big leisure centres can afford. With the ever expanding programmes and first class support team Cyber Coach should be everyone’s first choice’’
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"We all know how boring it is to be bombarded with messages exhorting us to "eat five-a-day", "don't be a couch potato", "fresh air and exercise can help your brain" - so much so that we're quickly immune to them all. Gradually, we're learning that although we *know* these activities are good for us, the long term outlook of good isn't enough to convince us to take the short-term healthy decision. That's why there's been a lot of recent interest in incentivising people to take "good" decisions - think of Tesco's "Green Points", for example. Cyber Coach's innovation is a product that helps teachers string together segments of video together to deliver a dance class - together with electronic dance mats so the pupils get instant feedback on how well they're doing. Easy for the teachers, fun for the pupils, maybe even introducing an element of competition to help things along - just how many wins is that?"
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I really like this - a great example of technology meets needs in an innovative way that hits so many buttons including the delivery of scarce skills ( dance) into schools and communities as well as incentivising exercise with fun. It is great to see steady and projected growth demonstrating that in this instance at least - technology is not being viewed as a threat to traditional teaching. Dance has been shown to have great impact with boys and girls alike and with childhood obesity reaching epidemic status in many countries - the potential market is substantial. Good product and good market niche.
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Cyber Coach is an example of technology fused with children’s lifestyle to produce a winning result all round. By allowing children to develop and design their own dance classes the children then feel compelled to use them. Like many great ideas, simplicity is at its heart. And the money follows. Unit growth over the next 2 yrs is predicted to more than triple. Turnover for the last two years escalated six-fold turning the company today into a multi-million pound organisation with a rapidly developing global salesforce. A key component of innovation is risk. The owners embraced this facet by sticking to their plan during three whole years of product development and partnership negotiations resulting in significant early losses. Today they are reaping the rewards.
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The Cyber Coach in Denbighshire has made a tremendous impact on the primary schools throughout the County. The Cyber Coach has been travelling around 8 schools as part of Denbighshire's PIWS (Parents Involved With Schools) scheme. The scheme is about engaging parents into schools to take part in physical activities with their children. Both children and parents have had great fun with the Cyber Coach being involved in Dance activities, cheerleading and aerobic sessions. One head teacher said that "it has had a great impact on the school, where they have had pupil, parent and after school staff sessions on a weekly basis developing a sense of well being and good feeling amongst everyone!"
Denbighshire's Education department are looking to roll out the Cyber Coach programme to other schools as it is a system that is easy to set up, delivers quality physical activity sessions for all levels and abilities and provides schools with a sense of unity among parents, pupils and staff.
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“Keen to promote a healthy lifestyle and to prove to pupils that exercise really can be fun, Cyber Coach enables us to provide all our schools with up-to-date dance and fitness activities for breakfast, lunch and after-school clubs.
“The extended schools programme relies heavily on the goodwill and availability of teaching staff. Using Cyber Coach we are able to reduce the pressure on staff and offer a truly diverse range of stimulating sporting activities for very little cost.” “Currently, each primary school has access to Cyber Coach for an entire half-term and the freedom to use it however they see fit. This has helped us provide a wide range of routines and dances at a fraction of the cost of employing specialist fitness instructors.”
“Staff find it really useful for cardiovascular exercise and dance activities. What’s more, if a particular PE instructor is taken ill, any other member of staff can take their class and provide a truly engaging lesson.”
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"I’m so delighted that Cyber Coach has arrived as it is an easy and effective way for members to take part in classes of their choice and at a time that suits them. It’s not meant to replace the many classes that we offer already but to enhance the services that we provide.”
“The system is so much better than home exercise DVDs; many people find the class environment very motivating and the Cyber Coach offers all the benefits of any other aerobics class. The large format screen makes the sessions easy to follow and very life like."
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“After a closely fought contest between a number of extremely worthy entries and much hot debate between the judges, it was agreed that Quick Holdings should be the overall winner for its world class interactive dance & fitness system, the Cyber Coach. The ground-breaking technology allows for a class of up to 30 children to engage in exercise simultaneously. Exactly the calibre of company The National Business Awards are made for. It positively oozes qualification and excellence”,
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"The Cyber Coach system has so many different programmes and is so versatile that there is always something to suit our requirements. We are looking at using the system to help improve balance and agility in our younger students and our 6th Form College is also looking at the Streetdance Programme to incorporate this into PSHE. We have also used the Bollywood inspired classes to help our students understand some of the basic moves required for this type of dance – it’s really helpful for them to be able to see what they are aiming for!”
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"Teachers at The Regis School, Bognor were looking for new and interesting ways to bring in Physical Education across the curriculum to support students when revising for GCSEs.The connection between increasing physical activity and fitness levels with improving alertness, competence and concentration academically was something we wanted to recognise and maximise across the school.
We had worked with Cyber Coach before and were using the Interactive Dance Mat Games in a number of schools across the partnership. We noticed that when students were competing using the existing quizzes on the software they benefitted from the competition element, the fun factor, and from receiving instant feedback on how well they were doing. We thought these factors would be great if used to help students revise.
We devised a sequence of curriculum based GCSE P.E. questions covering various topics on the syllabus and worked with Cyber Coach to incorporate them into an interactive dance mat game. The school then held revision lessons with year 11 students using the dance mat game. Students could enjoy testing their knowledge on a range of GCSE exam topics in a fun, active and interactive way. We ran full lessons using the mats for up to 50 minutes and „revision burst‟ sessions of approximately 15-20 minutes for the students. After school revision sessions were also held for year 11 students.
Staff found it to be a brilliant tool to support revision - we could select a topic, and if the students all scored well they could move on to another topic. If the scores were low it meant they needed to look at that area again.
The main advantage was that the students enjoyed revising – it was fun. Teachers and students felt that the use of the game really improved confidence and competence in completing multiple choice questions under time pressure."
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