If you met me at the beginning of my fitness journey, you wouldn’t have guessed that I would become a personal trainer. That being said, my fitness journey started when I was 4 years old, so you probably couldn’t tell much about me at all at that point.
I tried a lot of different sports growing up, many of which I was bad at, some I was good or even excellent at, and one I even placed last in for every race. In middle school and high school, I played school sports and was on a competitive swim team but I was one of the least athletic kids in those sports. I played for the B team in high school volleyball even though it was one of my favourite sports and I desperately hoped I would make the A team. One sport I was good at was basketball. I was the starting point guard and I loved it. I put many hours into ball handling and drills by myself and even felt I was quite good at it. However, I’m 5’2” as an adult, which meant my genes didn’t allow me to have a very bright future in basketball.
The sport I was worst at by far was swimming. There were quite a few girls in my age division, but I would always place dead last no matter which race it was. After each race when the placing was posted, all the girls would run up to the printed sheet of paper that was taped to the wall and squeal or complain about where they placed. I would linger behind, embarrassed. I always placed 23rd out of 23 girls – dead last. Consistently. It wasn’t even a surprise to me to see my name in last place after 6 years of competitive swimming. As hard as I tried to push myself to swim harder or train more, competitive swimming didn’t come naturally to me. I felt defeated and I eventually quit to try something new.
I always enjoyed watching the UFC with my dad. He had his black belt in taekwondo, and he would narrate the fights to me as we watched them. He would break down what was happening in the fight, the winners strategy, and where the losers weak points were. I found it fascinating. When we watched the female fighters, I felt deeply inspired. They were fast and tough and fought through getting punched in the face as if they didn’t feel it. I never thought I would be brave or skilled enough to fight someone, but part of me really wanted to. My dad would always tell me that I could be like those girls. I could be tough and brave and learn how to fight. And eventually I decided that I would.
We lived in a very small town in British Columbia, so when I started looking for martial arts gyms to train at, there were only two options. The MMA gym looked good, but it was in the next town over and I didn’t have a car. I ended up going to the only gym within walking distance. It was strictly a jiu jitsu gym, but I was willing to give anything a try.
When I walked into the gym, I saw a room with about 10 very sweaty men training on mats. They were rolling around trying to twist their partners arm into a submission or choke them until they tapped. It looked like a fun but fairly intimidating game. I was quite uncomfortable with how close we got to other sweaty people the first day, but my brain clicked into how to play the game quite naturally. I signed up for a membership after class and started training seriously right away.
Within a few months of starting, I started spending five nights a week at the gym. I would stay there for multiple hours, attending all the classes each night and staying late to roll freely after class. I quickly met more experienced people who were willing to coach me one on one, because they saw my talent and drive to improve. It became obvious that I should compete and that I would likely do well.
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