Aiming to make health and fitness more accessible, helping you to reconnect with your body, release tension and rediscover your true nature through movement and music I qualified as a PT in 2018 and as an Exercise to Music Instructor in 2019 after many years of convincing myself that it was just too difficult, and I just wasn’t good enough. I am an anxious, sometimes shy overthinker who is reluctant to put myself out there!!! Dancing has always been a passion of mine and a way of expressing myself but for most of my life very much behind closed doors; unless you count the odd club dance floor! I have come up with all sorts of excuses as to why it is not a good idea to start my own classes including:
- That instructor looks better in shorts than me
Revised thought: So what, bodies come in all shapes and sizes fit looks different for everyone, wear what you feel comfortable wearing!
- My choreography is not good enough
My classes are accessible and fun complicated choreography doesn't feature
- I am not a good enough dancer
It's a fitness class not a professional dance class, besides this ain't about you honey! you got to go out there and give people a great workout and a darn good time!
- I eat too much sugar and won’t be setting a good example! No comment 😂
However, I always come back to the reason I wanted to do this in the first place, my inner diva truly does come out on the dance floor and the sheer joy I feel when I lose myself to the music is unparalleled and something I want to share. I want my classes to be a celebration of life, of the self and of others and a way to share my passion for moving to music. I used to exercise because I wanted to be thinner, to offset my eating and out of a misguided notion that the thinner I was the more loved and accepted I would be, now I exercise for the way it makes me feel. That mostly involves yoga, dancing, boxing and walking depending on how I feel. There are still times when I feel uncomfortable in my body and ashamed of the way I look and on particularly bad days I really struggle to face the world. Especially on these occasions I try to focus on all of the amazing things that my body does for me and the work silently going on beneath the surface just to keep me alive rather than what I look like on the outside; as like it or not my body is my home and I have to take care of it! I also find connecting with other people really helps in these situations even if it’s the last thing I feel like doing. Stress, anxiety, anger and frustration all collect in the body and can manifest themselves in all sorts of unhelpful ways if not attended to including aches and pains as well as feelings of illness, overwhelm and exhaustion. Movement including both slower gentler practices like yoga and more vigorous exercise like dancing, running or weight training can be hugely beneficial in addressing and ridding ourselves of these pent-up emotions. That is what moves me to move, I am very much guided by how I feel on any particular day at any particular time. I hope to inspire others to find their why and discover what works for them.
