UD Employee Health & Wellbeing

Fitness Coordinator

UD Alumna

Instructor, Orangetheory & YMCA

"My mom was a singer growing up. I would see her perform on stage and because your mom is always your role model, at 7 years old I wanted to be a singer. I've had that musical interest ever since. I started doing musicals when I was in middle school. The more I did, the more involved I got with choreography, the more I got better with it.

I learned the choreography with those eight-counts that you hear over and over and over again. You get used to the beats of any type of song, so with the fitness classes I teach, we have to learn different styles of music, different tempos - and I need to be able to translate that in a way that I'm not saying every count aloud in class. Being so well versed in the beat of the music that it's just innate translated really well from learning all the different types of choreography growing up into what I do now.

With my fitness classes, particularly within Les Mills, we have different layers of coaching. The motivational coaching piece is really hard to script, so usually, the music does a good job. In BodyCombat, that will show a lot because they choose really awesome music to exemplify how you should be feeling throughout the class - it's super empowering. I hear the song multiple times when I'm learning a new Les Mills release, and once I hear that song in the class, I take the lyrics, I say them, I twist them in my own words and use that to steer the participant toward how they should be feeling.

A lot of the music that Les Mills chooses, especially when it comes to Sprint, shows the intensity of the class. When I go see some festivals or artists, I'll sometimes hear that type of music. In BodyPump, they have a lot of music that puts you in the feels a little bit. I get so enveloped in seeing the live experience of those songs and then come back into the live class setting, and it just puts me in such a good place of mind. Seeing that live on stage, I'm like, 'Oh, my God. This makes everything come together.' It makes me enjoy the class more.

My first music festival was in 2014 and I’ve attended 27 festivals since then. I think music brings people together, and being in those group settings helps people to socialize and open up a little bit more, be vulnerable to new opportunities and challenges. It's just like a fitness class - you get the experience and challenges of that workout together as a group.

I feel like I have more purpose and more fulfillment in what I'm doing. It doesn't feel like work.

When I’m teaching a class and I look around and I see people looking at me and they're smiling, it's the most pleasing feeling. Or when people take the time out of their schedules to get out of the busy work environment and make it part of their routine to work out with me because: One, they enjoy it. Two, this could be the best part of their day. And three, they're getting something out of it and they've seen the benefit of it. That’s crazy, crazy cool."