08/21/2026
On this day in 2010, my life changed forever. At just 18 years old, I took the leap to become licensed to teach Zumba®. My parents dropped me off! This was the height of the Zumba® boom in my area and it seemed like every other person was taking a class or also an instructor. I started teaching at my dance studio, soon got a job at a local women’s gym (shout out to my Escape to Fitness fam!) and the rest is history.
6 years later, after exploring fitness formats outside of Zumba®, I took another leap to teach Zumba®’s newest format, Strong Nation®. That training was also held on August 20th and my then boyfriend, now husband dropped me off! I remember DYING during the master class and feeling completely overwhelmed with the new content and style of teaching. I didn’t start teaching Strong Nation® until 4 months later. The highlight of my SYNC career so far had to be the Master Class we held in 2022 with Natalie Bayersdorfer and I led a quadrant 6 months pregnant!
Both of these formats have given me so much:
Confidence, aerobic fitness (talking while moving? It’s a lot), using a mic, better cueing, adjusting the moves in the moment to match the needs of the people in front of me… the list goes on. I even credit teaching virtual classes during the pandemic to a giant improvement in my non-verbal cueing, because it was a necessary skill to provide a good virtual class.
It hasn’t always been a positive experience. There were some seasons where I seriously considered giving it all up, but during milestones like this, taking the time to reflect refocuses me to what I should be paying attention to: how lucky I am to get to do this.
I don’t think my teenaged self understood the magic of those early days. Now that trends have changed, class sizes have dwindled, and I’m now mid 30s with a kid, I have so much more gratitude for that time where 40+ people would join my class.
I wanted to take this moment to thank every single person who’s trusted me enough to provide them a class. Thank you for being here and helping me transform into the person I was meant to be.
Zumba® Instructor Network SYNC - STRONG Nation®️ Network Zumba STRONG Nation ®
