I am a Can-Fit-Pro certified Personal Trainer Specialist, Yoga Teacher and former High School teacher, with a broad spectrum of experience. For over 7 years I have been involved in the fitness and wellness industry and have competed as a fitness model, fitness, and figure competitor with WNSO and FAME, as well as the OPA/CBBF. I have worked as a Personal Trainer, Yoga Teacher, Fitness Director, Rehabilitation Therapist, Physiotherapy Assistant and Health Clinic General Manger in several different locations across Southern and Northern Ontario. I also have experience in post-rehabilitation services, brain injuries, fitness for older adults, and exercise psychology. My path towards living a fit and healthy lifestyle truly began during my final year of university. I found myself at a point where I did not feel comfortable with my body, was stressed, and frustrated. As a direct result of these feelings, I began incorporating resistance and cardiovascular training into a daily workout routine between classes, 5 or 6 days a week at the University gym shortly after the Christmas break. By April, I had gone from a moderately muscular and out of shape body to a lean and tight physique and the ability to do a full cardio session without giving up. From this point onwards I have been working or involved in the fitness and wellness industry. I have watched as my journey unfolded before me, taking me from one end of the spectrum teaching high school English and Psychology for two years, through the middle as a personal trainer, fitness competitor, and too many 60+ hour weeks of fitness management work, to the opposite end where I have recently landed after becoming a certified yoga teacher in 2009.
My first encounter with yoga was in 2002 while I was preparing for my first fitness competition. I bought two home yoga videos and did “power” yoga two mornings a week on my non-cardio days at the gym. My yoga teacher told me many valuable things during training, and one of them was that “it doesn’t matter what brings them to the mat, it’s that they come to the mat.” Looking back, it doesn’t matter that I initially came to the mat to gain more flexibility so I could perform the splits in all three directions for my fitness routine. It was all part of my story, a story that is still unfolding chapter by chapter with each passing day. I had no idea that in 7 years from that moment I would become a yoga teacher, nor that I would experience such a transformation through that journey. I have always been a teacher at heart; the difference is that now I teach from a place of truth, about a subject that I am passionate about, something that has the power to transform lives from the outside in and from the inside out. I look forward to what the Universe has in store for me in the years ahead, and I trust in the process. For now I will continue to be here, now, in this moment sharing my passion and teaching anyone who is ready to listen.
