My journey starts as a Denver native of two loving parents who showed me so many wonderful things life has to offer like barrel racing, taekwondo, sailing, and camping, just to name a few.   

Without knowing it, my journey as a martial artist was igniting my passion for health, fitness, and supporting others on their quests.  Things in my athletic career got exciting in high school when I got world class coaching in both taekwondo and sport performance training.   The combination led to some wonderful memories and accomplishments.  This is saying a lot for me, considering I couldn’t make the freshman baseball team for running too slow and was a member of weight watchers in high school. 

Between 2002 and 2012 I achieved some of Taekwondo’s highest honors including national champion, multi-time collegiate champion and team member, AAU National Team Member, and bronze medalist of the 2012 Collegiate World Championships.  We even won Family of the Year from USA Taekwondo in 2009 as a result of my parent's commitments to maintaining their high-level status as referees at all the major events and my sister’s world class abilities. We had the chance to share memories representing our state and country all around the country and world.   

I studied exercise science and got my first personal training certification in 2005 and began training while still chasing my olympic dreams.  I was lucky to be a part of the highest level of a sport for two reasons.  One, it allowed me the opportunity to work with and learn from the best tactical and technical coaches that the US had to offer (none better than my coach Master Georgie Martinez).  But also, I was exposed to the lack of skill and knowledge from these very same coaches when it came to strength and conditioning.  Once this lightbulb went off for me, I realized that I wanted to pursue teaching others how to train smarter using science for not only better performance, but decreased injury and chronic inflammatory conditions.   

So, I did just that and clawed my way up from a mildly informed but thought he knew it all 20-year-old, to a coach who could keep people safe and be a friend to people at the very least.  I’ll spare you the list of letters behind by name for my various degrees and certifications, because knowledge is useless if you don’t put it to practice.  The part that any even the best textbook or certification program can’t teach you is the art of coaching.  And if there’s one thing I’ve learned it is that things will go wrong.   Without academic fundamentals, I wouldn’t stand a chance, but what continues to intrigue me is the constant need to adapt, get creative, and understand people’s psychology in order to support them in their lifelong wellness journey.   

First comes love, then comes the burning desire to get the girl at all costs.  Part of the story is that I had become quite insular doing my own thing and wanted to work with some of the best trainers the industry, another part is that I fell in love with Manhattan and needed to try living somewhere totally new, but the biggest part was the girl.  So, I set off to work at the nicest gym I could find in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.  I was in for a rude awakening when I saw the training going down.  One trainer even started all of his sessions with burpees for no other reason than he said so. WTF!  I made a couple really good friends there, but of the 50 trainers that worked there, I’d only let 3 of them train my mom (which is always a good barometer if you’d recommend a trainer to someone).   

The combination of some dumb luck on a craigslist ad and over a decade of investing in myself led me to become a private school teacher at a vocational school where I began what would end up be an 8-year run as a teacher.  My formal teaching role ended at the National Personal Training Institute of Colorado where I now was back at home in Colorado.  This allowed me to explore health coaching and lots more school.  Through all the things I’ve done, I’ve always been a coach learning how to better serve people and after all this time, I know it’s what I want to do.