Why do I do this work?

Movement has been a positive constant and even a healthy addiction in my life. This need to move my body (even just a little bit) each day, has unintentionally shaped my health and well being as a woman and mom. Once I tuned out the pressure to look a certain way or get a workout done as something I had to do and started looking at it as something I got to do, moving my body became a way of life that lead to a happier, healthier body, mind and soul. It also aided drastically during pregnancy, birth and postpartum. 

Movement is the thing I turn to when life gets hard. As a kid and young adult, dancing, stretching, and yoga helped to “get out” extra energy and helped me feel less anxious and more focused. I continued to pick up on that in my young adult life where I adopted and incorporated meditation and breathing exercises in my movement practice, to manage and cope with the stress of being a young dancer surviving the more challenging parts of living out her dreams in NYC. I studied movement, technique, balance principals and form like an obsessed scientist as a college student and eventually professional dancer for over 10 years.

From there as a faculty member at AMDA College teaching many dance formats to young actors and musical theater majors I realized I wanted a more direct route to helping people understand their body, the potential it holds and how much joy and peace of mind moving everyday and fitness can bring. 

I became a certified personal trainer through National Academy of Sports Medicine and taught hundreds of group fitness classes since 2018. My approach to fitness and training sessions is that every class or session should be inviting, accessible and fun to everyone no matter what fitness level or season of life they are in. This means an Olympic athlete can stand next to their grandma in a class and they should both be offered options that benefit them on that particular day. I believe fitness is for EVERY BODY.

As a mother, I suddenly feel the culmination of everything I’ve ever practiced being used in a different way to care for my daughter. Not only does movement help to mitigate aches and pains through pregnancy, but so far the strength needed for motherhood exceeds what I expected (and she’s still tiny). It’s in the unexpected moments when I feel grateful to be able to carry her around in her car seat, hold and breast-feed her for what feels like hours on end, get up and down from the floor about 100 times, or even carry my daughter down a mountain on a weekend hike, that I think back and realize all those moments I chose to move and push my body are worth more than I even intended.

I want to help women have thoughts of “I am so glad I’m strong and can do this”, as opposed to feeling overwhelmed or exhausted. I want to create relationships with incredible women, learn what they want out of a weekly habitual movement practice, and help them let go of the things in life that may not be serving them and fill those spaces with happy, healthy, energizing practices.