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Photo by Chris Soo
L
ooking far back into my childhood and teenage years, one could say that I was known
as the scrawny kid who wasn’t only skinny
as a stick, but also vertically challenged. The kids in
my neighborhood and at school used to call me the
midget girl with the toothpick legs.
Fortunately for me, I never really had an issue
with my body and I only have memories of being a
happy and active kid. I do remember a time when
my body size was an issue and that was when I tried
out for the middle school basketball and volleyball
teams in middle school. I was very passionate about
basketball and volleyball. Unfortunately for me, these
are two sports where being short was a disadvantage
back in my day. When I showed up for try-outs ready
to show my skills, the coach looked at me and said:
“You’re too short” and turned me away without even
looking at my skills.
Needless to say, I never bothered picking up a
basketball since then and even now as an adult, every
time I see a basketball, all I can remember are the
hurtful words from the coach. In just a brief moment,
a coach/adult/teacher took away my passion for a
sport. Luckily, I was strong enough to replace my passion for basketball with a passion for dance, gymnastics, and martial arts, but many other children that
endured similar experiences never decided to choose
alternative sports and gave up on sports altogether,
which I always saw as a tremendous injustice towards
14. FitnessX.com / FitnessX Magazine
those children.
I eventually grew up from a short kid in middle
school into an average sized woman with athletic skills
to boot, thanks to my newly found passions which
enabled me to grow into a professional cheerleader and
dance captain for the Canadian Football League, Toronto
Argonauts. This became my first experience as a role
model for many aspiring young girls.
Remembering my lessons from middle school,
I began to pursue a career as a P.E. teacher and have
always gone the extra mile to help inspire kids to find
enjoyment in fitness and sport and to empower them
by helping each of them understand that they too have
unlimited potential and should never let anyone tell
them differently. This mission to inspire kids and change
lives has kept me extremely passionate about my job
and I now find myself at 53 years of age still taking this
responsibility to heart just like I did when I started my
career 30 plus years ago.
Living life with the intent to inspire others means
that we need to live by example and I feel, even though
I am 53 years young, that I still need to be in the best
shape possible. This has not come without its challenges. Ten months after the birth of my little miracle
daughter Kilani, whom I gave birth to at the age of 40, I
was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Hypothyroidism, an autoimmune disease that treats your thyroid as a foreign
body causing complete dysfunction of the thyroid.