Without realizing it, I started speaking about body image at the age of 5. I was born missing half of my left arm so my first move on the first day of school was to talk about how every body is different and ask for any questions kids might have about me, so that the bullying would be less intense. While this was a hard + scary thing to say and realize as a child, I think it’s also hard + scary to internalize as an adult.

I take those lessons I learned as a child and bring them into every class and group I teach. Every body is different and what works for your neighbor may not work for you. I teach classes that are backed by health sciences to be effective but are scalable for each student to take at a pace that works for them. Classes with me will teach you how to be an advocate and ally to your body and your fitness goals, while providing you with an entertaining escape from the rest of your day.

This year marks the 31st anniversary of the ADA becoming law - which is great! The ADA has provided structure and protection in many ways for people with disabilities like me. But the ADA is just a taste of the kind of protections that people like me need, and we need our able bodied allies to step in and fill the gaps to ensure our progress continues.

The best way to start conversations about how to continue progress towards Disability Justice is through looking at our own internalized ableism. How many times in our workouts have we felt less than, unworthy, upset because we didn’t burn enough calories or discouraged because our capabilities vary from workout to workout, despite it being a totally normal human experience? This is internalized ableism. We are here to help our community members reshape that thinking about themselves, so in turn they can be even better advocates for people with disabilities and their pursuit for equity and justice.

In October (disability awareness month) we’re going to be having a course to help you not just detach from the ridiculous standards of diet culture, but to take it one step further and in turn making you a better ally for your disabled friends.

Week 1: Body Neutrality

This week you’ll recognize that both hard critiques for our bodies and hyper focusing on being “body positive” are both sneaky tools that ableism + capitalism use to get you to focus on how your abilities and aesthetics do or don’t measure up to their standards. We’ll provide prompts to get you thinking about things other than your body and it’s abilities or aesthetics and have you keep a running list of every time a prompt goes into analyzing your appearance.

Week 2: Disability is beautiful. And really freaking common.

This week you’ll learn a lot of facts about disability and its prevalence in our world, and how to respond when you see it. Included will be preferred phrasing + terminology, and how to address a person with a disability and ask about any potential limitations to be cognizant. You’ll also learn about a lot of rights that disabled people don’t have, and how you can be a better ally to help us achieve those rights.

Week 3: Wellness is a right.

This week we’ll learn about how the wellness industry is not focused on reaching any marginalized community, and how to change that. Fitness instructors have ZERO required training for any sort of disability accessibility training, and oftentimes in addition to not being accessible these same classes can cause short term disabilities.

Week 4: Disability leads to innovation

How many times do you text message or email a day? You can thank the disability community for that. These forms of communication were created as a solution for deaf people to be able to have their communication needs met.

Disability leads to innovation - it leads to innovation in our workouts, it leads to innovation in our workplaces and it leads to innovation in our world. The missing ingredient from making this innovation make the world more equitable for people with disabilities? Informed + brave able bodied allies! We need you (yes, literally you) to be informed, have the tools and resources you need to talk to your gym owner, fitness instructor, local businesses and help them realize they aren’t accessible for many people with disabilities. We’ll give you email templates, resources to help make spaces accessible, and people you can call to help make accessibility a reality in your community.