UW Fitness Day: Meet Your Coaches from Community Partners
After introducing our UW Fitness Day coaches from UW Recreation last week, this week we are thrilled to be introducing our coaches drawn from The Whole U’s community of partners!
With backgrounds in yoga and strength training to tai chi and rowing, our community partner coaches will be with you the whole way on May 8, helping you celebrate the best version of yourself and showing you some great exercises to take with you beyond UW Fitness Day!
Dan Druliner
Web Manager/Yogi/Teacher
University Marketing & Communications (UMAC)
Favorite food: Baked potato with yogurt and avocado.
Favorite quote:
“You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day, unless you’re too busy. Then you should sit for an hour.” – Zen Proverb
Favorite thing to do besides exercise: Service work!
Yi Jiao Hong
Tai Chi Instructor, Chinese Wushu & Tai Chi Academy LLC
Role model:
My Chen tai chi teacher GM Chen Zhenglei who is 70 years old and still travels around world and teaching tai chi.
Favorite thing to do besides exercise:
Traveling around the world and experiencing different cultures. It enriches my mind and spirit.
Favorite quote:
“Cultivating the root, leaves get exuberant by themselves. Moistening the source, a stream become longer by itself.”
Melissa Maxwell
Senior Graphic Designer, UMAC
Role model: All of the amazing women on my competitive rowing team, many of whom are in their 60s. They’re all Wonder Women!
Favorite food: Pizza! (With cauliflower crust—delicious and nutritious!)
What do you tell yourself when you’re on the home stretch of a workout to finish strong? As a member of a competitive rowing team, it’s easy for me to finish strong every time. I simply remind myself “you’re doing this for your team.” I apply that to every workout, as every improvement I make to my mind and body benefits the whole team.
Kevin Ng
Yoga Instructor & Mindfulness Coach,
Kevin Ng Yoga + Mindfulness
Favorite food: Pizza
What do you tell yourself when you’re on the home stretch of a workout to finish strong? I don’t have to do this; I get to do this.
Role model: Dominic Toretto (one of the protagonists of The Fast and the Furious franchise, played by Vin Diesel).
Neal Haley
Assistant Manager and Group Fitness Instructor
Fremont Health Club
Favorite food: Mexican food. Sopes are the way to my heart.
Favorite thing to do besides exercise: Naps, cuddle my boyfriend, try to pet all the dogs.
Favorite quote: “Then you toughen up or shatter. You do not merely stretch rhino leather over your own fair skin, for that would deflect pleasure as well as pain, and you do not permit your being to turn stinking inside a shell, but what you do is swirl yourself in the toughness of dreams.” – Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Manny Dunham
Personal Trainer/Boxing Coach
Fremont Health Club
What do you tell yourself when you’re on the home stretch of a workout to finish strong? One more round!
Favorite way to stay healthy besides exercise: Read my Bible.
Favorite food:
Jackfruit with chicken and rice.
Lo Shdo
Personal Trainer/Bootcamp Instructor
Fremont Health Club
Favorite way to stay healthy besides exercise: Eating healthy and sleep!
Favorite quote:
“Our hero status is not dependent on our human might or power or even our human spirit; it comes from the power of His spirit.” – Lisa Bevere
Favorite thing to do besides exercise: Painting.
Stephanie Morey
Operations Manager & Bootcamp Coach, IanFitness
Role model: I admire individuals who persevere the fear of not being good enough and take action on their true purpose in life.
Favorite thing to do besides exercise: Planning events! Even if it’s just a fun board game night with close friends. I love being the hostess with the most-ess!
Favorite way to stay healthy besides exercise: As much as I exercise and diet, I like to balance my activeness with recovery days. I recently strained my hamstring, and I hadn’t realized the lack of stretching I was doing after my workouts.
Finding this balance has made me understand my body that much more.
Bryan Arnold
Bootcamp and Personal Training Coach, IanFitness
Favorite quote:
“I can do this all day.”
What do you tell yourself when you’re on the home stretch of a workout to finish strong?:
My nephew and niece look up to me.
Role model: Actor Tom Hardy
Favorite way to stay healthy besides exercise:
Sleeping!
Jill Von Buskirk
IanFitness West Seattle Manager & Coach
Favorite food:
Eggs any style, any time #eggsallday
What do you tell yourself when you’re on the home stretch of a workout to finish strong?
Keep going. It’s always worth it in the end! You’ve come this far—push harder, go farther.
Favorite quote:
“If you’re still breathing there’s still time.”
Kathleen Conroy
Fitness Entrepreneur
The Seattle Gym/FitDefense
Favorite way to stay healthy besides exercise:
Getting time in nature and preferably at the beach, with my pup and my sweetie.
Favorite food: A margarita. Followed closely by broccoli.
Role model: My dad, the Renaissance man, who long ago taught me the value of sound body, sound mind, and the importance of the whole individual.
Alex Rosenblum
Group Fitness Instructor/Personal Trainer
The Seattle Gym/FitDefense
Favorite thing to do besides exercise: Spend time with my family.
What do you tell yourself when you’re on the home stretch of a workout to finish strong?
Finish stronger than you started.
Favorite way to stay healthy besides exercise: Meditation.
Brandyn Harvey
Multicultural Manager, Be the Match
Role model:
Nipsey Hussle.
Favorite quote:
“Every day starts with a vibe.”
Favorite way to stay healthy besides exercise:
Proper nutrition.
Rachel Henneck
Personal Trainer/Group Fitness Instructor
The Seattle Gym/FitDefense
Favorite thing to do besides exercise: Love on my niece and nephew, get out to the Olympic Peninsula or mountains, or enjoy great food and my loved ones around Seattle!
Favorite food: I love pungent, vinegary flavors mixed with gently sweet. And bubbly wine.
What do you tell yourself when you’re on the home stretch of a workout to finish strong? I can be challenged and it can be hard, and I am safe. Also, a bunch of curse words.
Mindy Pedersen
Regional Head Trainer, Orangetheory Fitness
Favorite way to stay healthy:
Love exploring the trails of the PNW or getting on the tennis courts at Nordstrom Tennis Center
Favorite quote:
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”
Role model: My mom and Dad for sure. They have taught me to work hard, be kind, gratitude, and to smile and enjoy the little things in life.
Karen Stein
Regional Head Coach
Orangetheory Fitness
Favorite quote:
“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hold on.”
Favorite food:
Steak and avocado.
What do you tell yourself when you’re on the home stretch of a workout to finish strong?:
I came here for a reason.
Chris Cuffee
Regional Manager, IanFitness
Favorite way to stay healthy besides exercise:
Keeping my mind healthy and engaged is as important to me as my physical health, so I spend a lot of time reading and learning about topics that I find interesting outside of health and fitness.
Favorite quote:
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.” People are so much stronger, smarter, and capable than they realize and I honestly believe that most anything can be achieved with the right focus, drive, and determination. Mindset is everything.
Favorite thing to do besides exercise: Spend time with my daughter. Her smile lights up the entire world and theres nowhere I’d rather be than with her.
Next week we’ll be unveiling the rest of our UW Fitness Day coaches from UW Athletics!
Thank you to UW Athletics, AT&T, US Bank, BECU, UW Recreation, Dansai Water, KIND Bars, Pacific Coast Harvet, UW Bookstore, IanFitness, The Seattle Gym/FitDefense, Orange Theory Fitness, Fremont Health Club, Chinese Wushu & Taichi Academy LLC, Kevin Ng Yoga + Mindfulness, and Be The Match for sponsoring this event!