My Story...

• I am the girl who knew, since she was little, exactly what she wanted to do. There was never really a question — movement, performance, helping people feel strong in their own bodies and becoming more of who they were created to be has been the thread running through my entire life, from a basement dance studio to a national stage.

  My path started teaching movement out of my mom’s basement dance studio as a teenager. I went on to become a six-time All-American Dancer, led a college dance team to its first-ever national ranking, and had the honor of representing two NFL organizations as a Professional Cheerleader, dancing in hip hop videos, performing as an Aloha Bowl Cheerleader, Hula Bowl Cheerleader, and member of the USA Spirit Squad.

  Then life reshaped itself around three amazing boys and single motherhood — and instead of stepping back from the field, I earned a doctorate, became a professor, and built a career simplifying the science of movement and behavior change. My boys have been my greatest teachers, my grounding, and my reason to keep growing, personally, physically and professionally. Life didn’t always look the way I imagined. It became something even more meaningful instead.

  Those years of discipline, preparation, and performing with purpose carried directly into my work as a Doctor of Education for Health Professions and Professor of Exercise Science. Along the way, I learned something that’s stuck with me ever since:

  You can train the body all day long — but if the mind and spirit are overwhelmed, the energy is depleted, or support is out of reach, it doesn’t last.

  That belief is what built InnergizeU™. It’s what built the ComePassion Impact Fund. And it’s what this title now gives me a bigger platform to keep doing.

  This isn’t my first time holding a title, either — I was previously honored as Mrs. Kansas International and Ms. Northwest Fitness, both platforms I used to advocate for health, wellness, and community service long before this one. Plus, I thoroughly enjoy choreographing and judging local pagaents ~ mentoring young women to grow into platforms.

  That same work has continued to grow and evolve — InnergizeU™ has evolved into what’s now Ageless Strength™, my current framework for research and for helping people train mind, body, and spirit with purpose and age with confidence, at any stage of life. The name changed as I aged ~ leaning into aging unapologetically & seeking to find inner strength...becoming more of me as I age, leaning in and helping others do the same. The mission never changed.

THIS IS ABOUT BECOMING YOU...

Here’s what I believe, and what this whole platform is really built on:

You don’t need to become someone else. You just need to come back into alignment with who you already are.

That’s true for the people I coach. It’s true for the students I’ve taught for nearly 40 years. And it’s true for me, standing on this platform — not as a transformation into somebody new, but as a fuller, truer version of the woman who started teaching on her mom’s hip before she could even walk.

Becoming you isn’t a slogan. It’s the whole point — of this title, of my work, and of every person I get to walk alongside. Not more pressure to be someone impressive. Just permission, and support, to become fully who you already are.

And becoming you means making peace with all three parts of your story:

• A positive past — even the parts that didn’t go the way you planned. Mine includes a basement dance studio, a Doctor of Education for Health Professions degree, and raising three kids as a single mom. Every bit of it built the woman standing on this platform today.

• A positive present — showing up fully in the season you’re actually in, not the one you wish you were in or the one you used to be in.

• A positive future — not a fantasy of who you’ll become, but a genuine, grounded belief that there’s more growth, more strength, and more purpose ahead of you, at any age or stage.

That’s the same lens I bring to every classroom, every stage, every client, and now, this platform.

This is also the foundation of how I teach: Transformative Learning Theory, developed by adult education scholar Jack Mezirow, holds that real, lasting change happens when we critically reflect on the assumptions we’ve been carrying — often ones we never chose, just inherited — and allow our whole frame of reference to shift as a result. That’s not information. That’s transformation. It’s the difference between learning a new fact and becoming a new version of yourself in light of it. It’s the exact process behind every client who’s ever told me, “I don’t just move differently now — I think differently.”