Nadine Bedford

With years of competitive gymnastics under my belt, I decided to stop the practice in my teen years and try new things.  Body Training Systems (BTS) arrived at my gym just after I finished high school and with little group fitness experience I decided to give it a try.  I was completely hooked and became a dedicated member of several styles including Group Kick, a high-intensity cardio kickboxing, Group Power, a challenging weight lifting class and Group Centergy, a flowing blend of tai chi, yoga and Pilates.  Being a regular in many classes I was soon encouraged by many of the instructors to become an instructor myself.  At the time I was finishing up university and was unsure of my abilities to lead a fitness class, but on a whim I decided to take the personal challenge to join the BTS Kick instructor training. 

            After training I began teaching for free to get as much experience as I could.  I slowly built up a small following and became a paid member of the Kent Vision Quest team.  As I got better I took on more substitute classes around the area and tightened up my teaching skills.  Besides taking a multitude of BTS classes I was also taking a vinyasa yoga class at a different gym when my yoga instructor highly encouraged me to look into teaching yoga.  Again, I was unsure, but signed up anyway for the YogaFit teacher training level 1 and again, I worked for free to gain experience.  I was soon rewarded a paid class and within 6 months the class exploded to three times the size of its original inception.  With such positive feedback and demand by the members, the gym asked me to teach more yoga classes.  My love of teaching and passion for learning continue to grow with each passing day and I recently took the YogaFit level 2 training with the goal of working toward the 200-hour Yoga Alliance Training Program Certificate.