| “I love muscle.
I love watching it move. For me, muscle represents life and vitality. It’s graceful and sensual. It oozes health and confidence. So when I gave birth to a child with a muscle wasting disease, my world went upside down.
My own dark night spanned eight years when my son was diagnosed. My body, which had once been my pillar of strength, became the focal point for all my anger, fear and confusion, and I lived in constant pain. I was to overcome this so that I could pay it forward. This I know for sure. For me, my sport of choice has always been weight training. The skills required to build a strong, shapely body with weights are the same skills needed to overcome intense challenges – skills like strength, tenacity, focus, dedication and faith. The simple act of grabbing a weight and lifting it up is life-affirming. It’s simple, clean and succinct. There’s a start and an end. It doesn’t get any more basic than that. And this philosophy forms the basis of ALL my programs, from my Monthly Warrior Woman Program to my 10 and 12 week Challenges. Life is hard. Few of us get through life unscathed, but surviving your own dark night means opening up to what is. It’s about the intimate dance between holding on and letting go, and embracing its lessons. You learn to live fearlessly and with an open heart, and you learn to muscle into every moment like it was your last, because it just may be. This my son’s journey has taught me. THIS is what I aim to teach all my clients. Fitness is what I do: it’s my springboard to reach other women. But teaching how to live a Spiritual life and stay healthy is my true calling. Life isn’t always lived in giant leaps and bounds. It’s often lived in the small steps in between, the good and the bad ones, the glad and the sad ones, and the ones we often take for granted. Sometimes life is lived just one step at a time … and one rep at a time. We must learn to live in the ebb and flows of life…THAT is real living. THAT is real life.”
Excerpt from One Rep at a Time, by Karen McCoy |
I have spent most of my life teaching women how to build strong, shapely muscle, yet I gave birth to a child with a terminal muscle-wasting disease. The irony has not been lost on me.
