Gatecrasher Jam

“Dance is a language every culture understands. All you need is the right instructor (…) and you can unleash total euphoria – and create a real sense of community.”

Gandalf Archer-Mills: Programme Director, Les Mills Body Jam

Body Jam is one of over 20 programmes offered by Les Mills International, a New Zealand-based global fitness company with in excess of 140,000 instructors worldwide. Their mission is to “create a fitter planet”.

Body Jam is a unique dance fitness programme – certified instructors teach a continuous sequence of moves, building one on top of the other, to culminate in a routine (known as blocks). Each 45 or 60-min class will generally be made up of single warmup/isolation tracks, two “blocks” and a cool down. Blocks are made up of several tracks, seamlessly blending from one into the other and can be Hip House, House, Latin, Streetjazz, Dancehall… the music used will be those plus Trap, Drum ‘n’ Bass, Soca, electronic. Anything goes, really.

As with all Les Mills programmes, music and choreography is distributed to their instructors worldwide; these are known as Releases. Four releases are issued a year, and instructors learn them to launch and teach in their individual clubs. At the time of writing (Nov 2022), the world is teaching Body Jam 101, learning 102, and release 103’s masterclass had recently been filmed in London. I was there. HONEST, guv, and it was LIT AF.

Body Jam itself is pretty niche as Les Mills programmes go. It’s not as popular as Body Pump, Body Attack or Body Balance. But once you get the Jam bug, it’s like a drug – Jammers are fanatical about the programme. We are pretty unstoppable!

Gandalf Archer-Mills is the Programme Director for Body Jam. I’ll blog about him but suffice to say, HE’S A GODDAMN GENIUS.