– Health and fitness expert
– Founder & CEO of Alexis Craig Fit
– Personal Trainer, Yoga & Group X Instructor
– Fitness Business Coach
– Harvard Graduate
I didn’t always know where to locate my sassy, sultry, uber empowered warrior goddess. For a long time, I didn’t even know she existed. Let me take you on a little journey… When I was a kid, I loved to frolic. play sports, cheerlead, and dance with utter abandon. In the moments of feeling at home in my body, I knew exactly who I was in a way that seemed unfathomable to me in the more cerebral areas of my life. My passion for cheerleading and encouraging others to shine their brightest followed me into college. I loved being a study in contradictions: the Harvard cheer captain who studied Economics and took a secret interest in spirituality. Upon graduating, I took a job as the sole female private investigator at a PI firm. The job was exciting, physically demanding, and more than a little bit dangerous. My inner warrior goddess loved it! I began to connect with my body in a totally new, fantastically empowering way.
Yet for some reason, I wasn’t quite fulfilled. In fact, something felt incredibly amiss. I recognized with sadness that my work environment was disempowering, restrictive, and not particularly woman-friendly. I also knew that my heart was yearning for something more. Slowly, I gathered my courage and made the decision to pursue my passion for holistic wellness and women’s empowerment. I envisioned a world where girls could know what it felt like to be a powerful agent of change from an early age; I wanted to give the next generation of women access to the tools that I had only just began to glimpse in my 20’s. It was out of this powerful intention that Ninja Cheer (http://ninjacheer.blogspot.com/) was born. As I watched the next crop of female leaders find courage and purpose through their mind-body connection, I also became aware of a calling within myself to offer these tools to people of all ages, fitness levels, and backgrounds. I decided to enhance my credentials with an NASM certification, knowing that this would enable me to work as a personal trainer. My life was flowing better than it ever had professionally. Yet on a personal level something a bit darker was still calling for me to acknowledge it. Without knowing it, I had equated being a strong warrior woman with being tough, indomitable, fierce and stoic in the face of pain and disappointment. I had devalued the feminine and immersed myself in the realm of the very male-dominated Krav Maga studio near my house. On a whim, I decided to try cage fighting and found that I was skilled at using this to release my aggression–I finally had an outlet for all of the feelings that I had shoved down for so long. Although physically, this felt like a great release–it was horrible treatment for my body. Yet it wasn’t until my 9th concussion, when I ended up having a seizure on the floor of a bus late at night, that I came to realize that something major needed to shift. Sometimes it takes a catastrophic event to help us really see the truth, and this was without a doubt my call to WAKE UP and start putting my own well-being first. I left the fighting scene, never to return. I vowed to find a way to access my peaceful inner warrior goddess, and set about finding ways to explore the gentler side of my strength. Slowly, I began to modify my diet, my daily practices, and the way I chose to think about my life. I made the decision to give myself the time and space to have my feelings, and to acknowledge them openly and honestly instead of earnestly wishing them away. I joined the Shamanic Cheerleaders, and before I knew it, I had an amazing crew of like-minded goddesses at my side. Through a series of synchronicities, I also discovered TRX and became actively involved in the fitness community–often teaching up to 10 classes a week. Although following my bliss was at times scary, once I had a taste of the freedom and adventure that accompanied it, I knew that there was no turning back! The shift didn’t happen overnight, but I am living proof that personal transformation is completely and undeniably possible–especially when you are immersed in an inspiring community of people who share your values. Together, we can change the world. As women, we can empower one another to manifest lives beyond our wildest imagining–one breath, one moment, one empowering workout at a time.