Did the title 'grab' your attention??? Hmmm?
As we come to our 14th Annual Open House, I thought I'd author a post on how this whole journey began...
Once upon a time a girl who'd done "J" since she was 17 moved to MA for school and, well, for a boy. (Wrong boy, BTW... but that's a whole other story!) Anyway, she gained 89lbs. and took 5 years away from the "J" to marry the wrong boy and gain all the weight. Good times.
Flash forward to 1990-new job, new life. The girl was losing weight but needed to add exercise to the nutrition part of weight loss. So, she looked up "J" in the Boston yellow pages and found the 800 number. Thank God. Started new job on Monday and went to "J" that night for the first time in 5 years.
Well, I thought I'd die (I didn't) but I did stand in back wearing a huge tee shirt and bike shorts (whoa, that was the style then...). The instructor asked me if I'd done it before and I said I had...I was there every class thereafter and after about 2 weeks of coming every class and arriving early, they made me a class manager.
Then, one of the other class managers was going to be certified and I thought, "Well, the instructor tells me I should do it and I think I can."
Flash forward to months later when my original instructor needed to resign to have her 2nd baby and I ended up in Newton "J". One night we met a sub instructor whom everyone called "The Olympic one". I wondered what the H that meant...(it was K, BTW and she had a 'Dorothy Hamil' do back then) I introduced myself and let her know I'd take any and all feedback on my movements for certification. She was liberal with her comments and very helpful. In less than 2 weeks, we were fast friends. Oh and she made sure everyone knew I was leaving EARLY that first night (it was my 30th bday) to have lobster with my family! (My face went red-but I laughed anyway). Little did I know that was only the 1st time she'd tease me.
Pizza after class, laughing, teasing(let's not forget the mudslides on weekends)...her busting my a** teaching me movement, cueing-all the stuff I needed to know (though I still want to know where carrying her bag to class, rewinding her cassettes (and, whoa, that's what we used back then) and getting her coffee had to do with teaching. She has yet to explain that! (haha)
She took me to classes everywhere and taught me what to do, what not to do, what to wear, what to say...she showed me, by her example, how to teach, really teach, how to connect with the students...She also taught me to drink coffee. Yes, that's right. I hadn't drank it at all until I was 30 and had to learn to keep up with her! (Though, as she'd say I drink that 'girly' coffee-hazelnut!)
In return, I put her back on the stage she started on, where she belongs! (Our Center was a Center WAY back when-not well managed but empty and I had my eye on it from day 1 to get K back up on that stage!) She thought we'd never get the space, she thought J, Inc. wouldn't allow us to go into Chelmsford (there were small classes held at the HS way back then) but lo and behold, they did. K's original video (before certification) was taken on our stage and I wanted her back there. She was the best instructor there when she worked at the 'old' place and we had a little bitty score to settle, right K?
Flash forward 15 years.
We've been through it all.
Marriages, kids, fights (more than we can count)...all to bring us to our Center. We started in a Church Hall in Westford with no parking, no A/C and about 12 customers. We moved to a dance studio (you can thank little K because if K didn't get pregnant with her, we might not have moved when we did-we needed A/C for the summer!) and grew our classes so big, people were dancing in the bathroom! (No kidding!) I had my eye on our Center all that time. I used to sit in the parking lot wondering if we could do it, watching the traffic pattern and dreaming about all the people who might see our place and come to class. We made our move at the perfect time, when the building was bought by a local man who was moving his daughter's liquor store from across the street. Mr. K, what would we do without you! (BTW, is daughter is now our landlord and she is the BEST!)
The first day I took our DM there the parking lot wasn't paved yet, every window was covered in mud and there were 4 businesses in the building. It was a mess. She looked at me and said, "Do you swear you can make this work?" And I swore we could. Did I think we could? I wasn't sure but I was sure I wanted to be in THAT space at THAT time. It just felt right. And, as you can see-it was.
Every single day was worth it. It was worth all the blood, sweat and, yes, many tears.
I took what I learned from K mentoring me, put my spin on it and have mentored 20 women to become instructors. We've grown from 11 classes a week to 30, from a manual system to computerized and from records and cassettes to ipods. We've grown from a single girl and her married best friend to a family of 4 and a married couple with 1 furry kid. We've grown from 29 year old silly girls into 44 year old silly women. And we did it all together.
The simple basis of our business has always been 2 friends who sat around Bertucci's in Newton one night and said, "Wouldn't it be cool if we had our own Center?"
And you know what? It is cool.
And now we give you our 14th Annual Open House.
It all started as an oh so simple conversation over pizza-and they said it wouldn't last.
Well, as the poster in our Center (signed to us by Judi when we opened says)
When they tell you that you can'tShow them that you canWhen they tell you that you won'tShow them that you willAnd when they tell you it's impossible...Prove them wrong.And if you know us-that about says it all!We hope to see you ALL at Open House-where we celebrate the beginning the next year of our dream!
