Movement was always a part of me.

Chapter 01 — The Athlete

12+ years of competitive tennis.

I started tennis when I was very little. For years, my body was trained to perform. Tennis taught me discipline, consistency and how much the smallest physical detail can affect performance. But it also taught me something else: what happens when your body can no longer do exactly what you ask of it.

I had to step away from competitive tennis because of a complicated ankle injury. This was one of the absolute hardest decisions of my life. I didn't know it at the time, but losing one form of movement would eventually lead me to another side of it.

Chapter 02 — Finding It Again

When tennis stopped, I had to figure out who I was without it.

For most of my life, movement had a purpose. I wasn't simply training. I was training for something. To compete. To perform. To improve. To win the game. And then suddenly, I wasn't. For years, I wasn't able to hold or even see a tennis racket without tears. It was too painful. It felt like a part of me had died.

I went on to explore academics, studying medicine and eventually fashion, embracing the creative side I got from my mum, and moving countries. I was trying to find who I was and what this new version of my life was supposed to look like. But losing tennis meant losing more than a sport. I had lost the reason I had always known for moving my body. Even heading to the gym to train became mentally difficult. I found myself asking: If I'm not training for a competition anymore, what am I training for?

Somewhere during that period, I decided to move and look for a job, and slowly, movement started finding its way back into my life. Sometime later, I was asked to offer a little help to a friend with their training. I loved it again, but from the other side of it — the training side. I did it little by little, client by client. I would find joy in noticing something about the way a body moved and instinctively wanting to help.

Friends. Family. My partner. Even people who happened to support me along the way. I remember them telling me the same thing: You should do this full time. I think part of me already knew. Maybe I was just avoiding it.

Eventually, my path led me towards helping more people, and for the first time since tennis, movement began to have a purpose again. Only this time, I wasn't training to become the athlete. It was more than that. I was becoming the trainer.

Chapter 03 — The Trainer

I never left movement. I flipped the coin to the other side of it, and I had finally figured it out.

Sometimes the end of a journey doesn't mean it's the end of the world. Sometimes it's the beginning of the other side of it.

I became increasingly passionate about it. It made me truly happy when a client I had trained for years could finally stand up and walk for the first time when she had been told she couldn't. That's when I knew I had found my purpose. My deep love for it.

There was something incredibly meaningful about watching another person become stronger, overcome something they had struggled with or achieve something they didn't think their body could do. Then something else started happening. People started to say: Why don't you do your own thing?

The career other people had once seen in me had finally become something I could see for myself.

Chapter 04 — IRY Wellness

Eventually, this became the reality. My experience gave me the reason. My clients gave me the purpose.

After years of teaching in many different studios, I saw so many injuries and issues. Someone would walk into a session wanting to become stronger, change their body or feel more confident. Someone else was returning from an injury. Another person was dealing with pain, posture, burnout or simply a body that didn't feel like their own anymore. Their goals were completely different.

Yet in a larger class environment, there is only so much we as trainers can do to help. And I understood this personally too. My own experience as an athlete taught me what it feels like when your body needs something more specific and you don't quite receive the help you need.

I wanted to create the kind of space I wished had existed for me and the same kind of space I could see my clients needed. Not bigger. Smaller. Not more equipment. More attention. Not a room where you disappear into the class. A space where your training can actually be built around you.

That's what IRY Wellness means.

The Space

Two Reformers. One trainer. Training built around you.

I deliberately wanted IRY Wellness to be small. With a maximum of two people training at a time, there is space to watch the person in front of me.

For some, that means becoming stronger and transforming their physique. For others, it means rebuilding after an injury, improving posture or learning to trust their body again. Both need time and personal attention. Because after everything movement has taught me, there is one thing I believe more than ever:

Your body is individual. Your training should be too.

IRY Wellness is the result of the athlete I was, the years I spent finding my way, the trainer I became and the years I spent being inspired by my own doctor/trainer parents. My dearest partner, who saw my passion. My friends. My biggest supporters. You.

I train you not because it's my job, but because I wholeheartedly want to be your biggest motivator. Because I believe in you.