I founded The Center for Women’s Fitness in 1994, not with any forethought of becoming a teacher training facility but really to keep teaching while bringing up my (then) two daughters. I renovated my basement into a small comfortable studio and began teaching my friends and neighbors anything from fitness to ballet- you name it, I taught it. While setting up the studio I became pregnant with my third daughter.
My intention back then was just to make a little pocket money, keep my interest in fitness going while being a stay at home mum. Little did I know what was ahead of me.
My business grew rapidly. I listened to the stories. There were women who did not feel comfortable going to a gym, or pilates studio with the body they had. Apparently, my take on exercising during pregnancy made sense, my fitness programs were fun and effective. Why? Because my classes were geared towards women. I didn’t expect anyone to be buff or ripped. You came to class to work your body (the one you were given) and had fun doing it. You were never discouraged or made to feel lacking in any way. All shapes, sizes, stages of life were made to feel normal.
I listened to the fear of birth, the fear of aging, basically the FEAR of being a woman and I decided to do something about it.
First and foremost, I began to develop a pregnancy program that addressed the changes that were taking place and designed the exercises to support these changes rather than fighting them. After a few years and a stint as a birth doula, I realised that what we should be doing is creating movement to prepare women for the birth rather then just keeping fit. With this program underway, I had to design a postnatal program to help my pregnant clients when they returned. And they did, in droves. I began to design the postnatal programs based on the birth stories and what had happened during labour and delivery, rather than on the pregnant body.
These programs soon built into the Teacher Training programs you have today.
As I experienced my own transitions in life, from pregnancy through menopause,I began to design more programs specifically geared to the female anatomy and physiology. Armed with information from many alternative sources, my Women’s Health programs truly address being a woman, what that entails and definitely, how to exercise as a female.
As women, we have many gifts. We cannot separate the physical body from our other subtle bodies. Our emotional, mental and spiritual bodies are represented by our physical and if one is not in alignment, the others are not either. This has an enormous effect on how we exercise and my teachers are taught how to watch for this. We teach YOU how to take responsibility for your own body and health. We teach YOU how to accept and love what you have. We teach YOU that everything you are experiencing is NORMAL for a woman. Birth is not an illness and neither is aging. You can be fit and strong at 20 and be fitter and stronger at 60. We teach you to change your mind about fitness and see it as not just a physical outcome. We teach you fitness of the mind and spirit as well.
We teach you to be FEMALE.