Jordan

We’re running a series on our instructors – but the side you don’t see in the studio every day. Get to know our team even better through these interviews and hopefully we can all connect on an even deeper level.

Jordan helped open Liberty Station back in 2017 before moving to the east coast. She moved back to San Diego in February, only for this pandemic to sweep the world. She’s back in Florida (just for now) qurantining with her parents and we talked to her there. As you’ll quickly see, Jordan is one of the coolest, most motivating, and genuine people and we loved hearing from her and majorly related to what she shared.

You were just settling back into life in San Diego and then this happened. How are you doing?  

It’s a weird time for everyone. I just moved back to California in February and I was feeling good about it and was feeling reintegrated into the community. I decided to fly out to Florida to stay with my parents and I’m so glad I did; I love spending time with them and being out here with them, but I’ll be on the first plane back to San Diego as soon as it’s safe to come back and work. 

In terms of my day to day now, every day is different. Some days I’m like “this is not bad, I got this” and then some other days I wake up and I just want to get out and I feel like I’m losing my mind. It is a stressful time, sometimes I’m feeling productive but then some days I have crippling anxiety wondering when I’m going to be able to work again. 

I signed up for some online classes so I’ve been focusing on those or I’ll sometimes do an online workout. 

Awesome!! What online classes are you taking and how are they? 

I’m taking Psychological First Aid, the Science of Wellbeing (which we recommended here!), Demystifying Mindfulness, Social Psychology, and Buddhism and Modern Psychology. They’re all online through Coursera. 

I like getting back into school because I know I want to go back to school and think I want to go into therapy and now I have the time to dive into that.

How cool — I can definitely see you doing that. Have you done any work like that before?

I was a sexual health counselor in college through the University of Maryland health center. It was kinda crazy, like I would give lectures to 250+ people on really intimate sexual health acts. I did so many different presentations and would hand out cards of sexual behavior and we’d rate the risk of getting an STD/STI from low to high. It helped normalize everything (sex acts or not) and just focused on safety which was really cool. 

Based on some of the (unpublished) NSFW stories I heard, I’m sure that was a crazy (and informative) job. How do you feel working in fitness now? 

I initially told myself fitness was what I wanted to do until I figured out what I really wanted to do. But I realized that I love being in fitness and like the health counselor job, I love being in front of people and educating people. I’m not shy and I’ve noticed that in many classes (in school or fitness or any learning environment), the teacher isn’t that engaging and lacks a general presence. If you think about your favorite class you’ve ever taken, I’d bet you liked it primarily because of the teacher and secondarily because of the subject.

I love empowering people and I love the opportunity and passion in fitness. Of course I care about form and science behind it but what I love about SPARKCYCLE is the mental aspect of it and the psychology around moving together and motivating each other and the community. I’ll always teach fitness and am so grateful to work in it. 

So speaking of fitness, when you moved back to D.C. in 2017, you worked at [solidcore], the very intense/kinda pilates studio that’s all over the east coast/most of the country now. How was it? 

It was a crazy journey. I started for the company when there were only 4 studios; when I left there were almost 60 locations. I started as a coach and then I moved into training the new coaches and then into overall coach development. I liked that everyone came in with different personalities and experience levels and anxieties. I learned how different things work for different people, like you can give feedback one way to someone but that same feedback to another person will cause them to respond totally differently. I loved the challenge of figuring out how to connect and how to make someone see something differently and giving trainees the skills to empower clients. In the time I was there, I ran 12 training groups full of all different people and all over the country and did ongoing coach development. And I got to coach Michelle Obama. 

Obviously all fitness studios are closed so what have you been doing to work out at home?  

I’ve been doing workouts that are different from what I’m used to. It’s super hard for me to motivate myself at home; it’s really easy to press pause or just stop. I believe in the power of doing things together (thus group fitness) so it’s been challenging for me to be motivated and stay motivated. 

There’s a sports conditioning gym in D.C. called Cut Seven that I liked but could never go to as much as I wanted when I lived there but they’ve been putting out a ton of content for at home workouts. 

I majorly relate to that. Okay last thing put your therapist hat back on: any advice on getting through this time?

Do what the universe is asking you to do: sit with yourself and figure out how you can find peace. See what comes up for you, what your fears are. It’s a different experience for everyone but make sure to take care of yourself. 

Look at what you’ve said you don’t have time for, and if you’re not doing it, look at yourself and be honest with yourself. I’m not saying to do those things, but look at why you aren’t. 

There’s a movement now to support local businesses, which is so important. But I also hope people remember that focus and when everything is open again, think twice before going to a bigger store or ordering something on Amazon and ask yourself if you can buy it locally/support a local business.