I don’t think my first personal trainer ever learned my name.

I'd just graduated high school, gained some weight, and signed up for the intro package at 24 Hour Fitness. A few sessions to figure out what I was doing. It was obvious he didn't want to be there. I don't think he ever learned my name. But that was still the beginning. The machines, the treadmill, figuring it out on my own from there.

I was born and raised in California to parents of Mexican descent, in a house where the emphasis wasn't on sports or academics. It was on working hard. So I never played anything organized, even though I was always athletic. I was the fastest kid in my grade in elementary school. The boys couldn’t ever catch me. In middle school I would tackle the boys in flag football for fun. Strength ran in my bones before I ever trained for it.

Real training started later, when I moved from Sonoma County to Oakland chasing my love of salsa dancing. I had friends I trained with Monday through Friday after work. Half social hour, half gym. It's also when I experienced a lot of trial and error. Learning what macros were. Shooting straight apple cider vinegar that ended up on my Instagram story. I believed a lot of nonsense back then. But I kept going, and eventually I saw real progress. Leaner first, then stronger. Compound lifts, deadlifting over 300 pounds with bad technique, because I loved getting stronger too much to slow down and fix it. A friend introduced me to Olympic lifting, and that took it to a new level. Humbling, and hard, in a way nothing before it had been.

Then, in June 2017, I tore my meniscus. The months after were frustrating. I had to dial back training, and even dancing, because of the pain. An MRI in October confirmed it, a bucket-handle tear that needed surgery. After the operation, I had my first anxiety attack. I was depressed, and I moved back in with my parents so I wouldn't be alone. It took over a year to get back to where I'd been before the injury.

What that year taught me wasn't really about training. It was about roadblocks, how to work through one without ignoring it or being ruled by it. How to listen to my body without becoming afraid of it. It's stayed with me as a way of operating, not just a memory. I give myself a lot of grace. I don't believe in all-or-nothing. I have a healthy relationship with food, and the scale going up doesn't send me into a spiral. I focus on capability over appearance. If I tweak something, I adjust around it instead of resting and waiting for it to go away. If a week goes badly, I just pick back up where I left off.

Post-pandemic, working in the restaurant industry was hard. By then I'd already gotten curious about training from my own journey, the way most people do once they've been consistent long enough to feel the benefits. But I was scared of turning my passion into my career. So I started coaching a few clients part-time, in the mornings, before my full-time restaurant management shift. I've never liked mornings. I didn't mind them at 5 a.m. for this. And I turned out to be good at it. I started at Crunch on Polk Street, the old theater building. I wasn't a great trainer right away. Nobody is. You don't find that out until you keep learning and growing into it.