2000 Rides

I just taught my 2000th ride at Motion. If you’d have told me when I was living in Paris in my early twenties that I would be here today, I would have screamed with joy. I loved spinning as soon as I tried it; it was my therapy, and it finally gave me a healthy way to exercise after years of hating my body. But to be an instructor, that was never on the cards. I was studying to be a translator, and before that I had studied writing, so spinning certainly wasn’t a viable career path for me. Except the way I fell into this job seemed too perfect to be anything other than fate.

I have always believed that things happen for a reason, and if something is meant for you it will not pass you by. I first went to a class at Motion Dubai in October 2020, when I was spending two weeks avoiding quarantine before I crossed the border into Abu Dhabi. Covid had disrupted my life; I’d left Paris and come home to the UAE to stay with my mum while I figured out what to do. I picked Motion because it looked the most like the studio I’d been riding at in Paris, in terms of aesthetic and riding style, and I picked Amelie’s class because she was French. I had no idea that she was the owner, or that Chloe, the General Manager, was sitting next to me in the front row. When I thanked Amelie in French after the class, she seemed surprised, and we started talking more. I just thought they were being friendly, and was oblivious to their in-depth questions about what I planned to do here and their interest in me moving to Abu Dhabi.

A few weeks later I was back in the small desert town of Ruwais, where I grew up, in the western region of the Abu Dhabi emirate, when I got a text from Amelie asking me if I would be interested in training to be an instructor for their Abu Dhabi studio that they were opening soon. I ran into the living room to tell my mum, not sure what to make of the whole situation. I was beyond excited, but I didn’t really understand why they wanted me. I wasn’t a fitness person. I wasn’t skinny. I wasn’t an instructor. But I pushed these thoughts aside as I agreed to meet with them.

The training I went through was the most brutal, soul-destroying time of my life. I was on the verge of quitting every day. I hated myself for not being able to do it, and I felt like a fraud for stringing everyone along while they were waiting for me to miraculously change. We trained once a week in the construction site of the Abu Dhabi studio (without AC), and I drove two hours each way just for one or two hours of training. The rest of the time I trained at home with online classes. After about 6 weeks of this I felt like I was getting nowhere, and the lack of progress was draining my spirit. I cried to my mum on the sofa that they were never going to take me, and I should just quit now before I made an even bigger fool of myself. She reassured me the way she always does and told me that if they didn’t want me then it was their loss, and that I may as well try before giving up.

I had a choice to make: throw in the towel and give up this path that was never my plan, or commit to it and see what happened. So I packed my bags and went to Dubai for a month, spending every waking moment in the studio before dragging myself back across the road to my hotel for a few hours a night. I think in that month I had one full rest day - I was doing 4 classes a day and doing my own training in between. I rode on stage with Amelie, I got to know the team and the clients, and I prepared myself for teaching alone in a brand-new studio. I cried most days at the pressure and the frustration at still not feeling good enough, and the isolation of not being able to share this experience with anyone else.

It seemed like I would stay in this loop of training forever, until Chloe told me I was going to Abu Dhabi the next day and she’d found a temporary apartment for me. They drove me across the border and left me alone at Ikea with a bag full of new bedding and cutlery. I’d been sent to Abu Dhabi to manage the setup of the new studio, doing everything from connecting the internet line, putting up signs and stickers on the walls, building furniture and shopping for decorations. All while still training myself and trying not to think about the impending dread of having to actually teach soon.

My first class was on the 6^th of May 2021 at 9:15pm (during Ramadan) and I was so nervous I couldn’t think clearly. My mum came from Ruwais, Amelie came from Dubai, and the class was full of brand-new clients eager to try out the hottest new fitness studio in town. I got on stage without my shoes, my voice started shaking as soon as I spoke on the mic, and after the first song I realised my playlist was on shuffle as the stretching song suddenly played. I forgot how to use the lights. I forgot the moves I had practised. I forgot the speech I had rehearsed. But despite every part of my body screaming at me to run off the stage and hide, I kept going. I spoke from my heart, and by the end of the class everyone was clapping and cheering for me. I couldn’t believe I’d pulled it off. I’d survived training, I’d ignored my self-doubt. And I had done what I’d thought to be impossible a few months earlier.

I always say that being an instructor is like driving. You only really start to learn when you’ve passed your test and you’re finally allowed to drive alone. The same was true for teaching - I had learnt the technical side, but the hardest part was figuring out how to bring my personality to the bike. The first two years I was constantly comparing myself to other instructors, and I was overly critical of the way I looked and sounded. I still didn’t believe how or why I was an instructor.

Then I went through a breakup that changed the way I saw myself, and it felt like I had woken up after a long time of putting myself second. I realised I hadn’t been able to fully express myself on the bike because I hadn’t even known who I was, as silly as that sounds. I spent the next year rediscovering myself, embracing my feminine energy, taking back my power. My classes mirrored this journey, and I finally felt so alive. I was starting to feel confident and comfortable in myself, which is something I never thought I would say.

This last year has by far been the most rewarding in so many ways. My classes are waitlisted. I have built a community of like-minded people who have also become my friends. I have stopped apologising for being myself. I go to work every day with the biggest smile on my face, because I love what I do; I love the magic of the dark room, where anything seems possible. I cannot thank Amelie and Chloe enough, for taking a chance on me in that first moment, for trusting me for the last 5 years, and for allowing me the space to grow into who I am today.

I am also beyond grateful for every message of thanks I receive from clients telling me I made their day a little bit better. Because that was the point of it all. Not to be liked and celebrated. Not to prove the haters wrong. Not even to feel better about myself. But to connect with people and help them feel less alone, like I once felt as that scared girl in Paris. And now I really can say I have made it. I am the best version of myself. And I am so proud of that girl who fought her way here. She deserves every moment of this life she built.