Today we’d like to introduce you to Karolina Williams.
Karolina, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I was born in the Czech Republic and all my life I’ve been doing some kind of sport- started with gymnastics when I was three years old. Followed with ice figure skating, ballet, basketball, ski, dance – dance was my main thing for many many years. I earned Bachelor degree at The Masaryk University in Management of Sport. My fitness instructor career started in 2010 when I attended Zumba® instructor training and a year later it became my full-time job. In 2012 I became Zumba® Jammer (choreography specialist) and I traveled the whole Europe teaching workshops for Zumba® instructors and helloing Zumba® Master Classes. The same year I was also invited by the founder of Zumba® Beto Perez himself to be a part of annual Zumba® Convention in Orlando, FL. Together with another 12 Zumba® Jammers we tough a class in front of 7000 people. It was a great experience to learn from Beto! I was adding more formats and certifications – for example pilates, Piloxing®, yoga, PortDeBras® and many more. I loved to attend any kind of workshop or conference to learn new things.
In 2014, I moved to Houston, TX and started my classes here. A year later, I got pregnant and I was actively teaching group fitness classes through my whole pregnancy until 39 weeks (when all my fitness clothes was too small to fit in, haha). After my daughter was born, I started to teach prenatal pilates & fitness and prenatal yoga classes at The Motherhood Center and also started to teach postpartum workshop named Bounce Back at the same place. I was still teaching Zumba®, barre classes, etc. at big chain gyms but the prenatal & postnatal way became my real passion. In 2017, I finished my Personal Trainer Certification and started to work with private clients, specializing in prenatal & postnatal but the range of my clients is very wide and I also have male clients. This year 2019, I started with Life Time which is awesome opportunity for me because they have a great education program and I’ve already learned so much and I feel it makes me to become a better instructor and deliver the best to the people in my class.
But back to my prenatal & postnatal path – I JUST finished a certification named Prenatal & Postnatal Corrective Exercise Specialist (which has been on my bucket list for a while) and I can’t wait to apply everything what I learned in the course to my current or future clients. I absolutely love working with pregnant mamas, to see their journey when they live completely changes when they have a baby and helping them on that journey stay active, become stronger, prepare for labor and actually make their postpartum recovery much easier. The postpartum fitness is very specific and I believe in personal attention because everybody is different. I’ve seen so many wrong tips on social media and I don’t believe there is one instant recipe for every new mom how to recover after having a baby. I see the body as a kinetic chain and it fascinates me every day.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It would be too boring without struggles, right? 🙂 But I try to learn from mistakes and do the best to avoid them in the future. I believe everything happens because of some reason – even if it’s not clear or visible immediately, sooner or later there will be the “aha” moment when everything clicks together.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
As I mentioned before, my main specialization is prenatal & postnatal exercise. I teach both group classes and have clients who are pregnant or postpartum. Seeing the body as kinetic chain helps me to make their bodies fully functional for everyday life. I have the experience of being pregnant and recovering my body after labor and I definitely draw from that experience because I know how bumpy the road can be. I love to teach the group fitness classes as well – it’s very different kind of energy and I like learning new formats to challenge myself and the people in my classes.
I’m proud of starting the classes in Houston, TX after I was pretty successful in the Czech Republic / Europe and left everything there. I knew nobody besides my husband and his family when I moved here and today 5.5 years later, I built a solid base and I touched many lives. It is a big honor for me when some moms from my prenatal classes come find me and continue with me postpartum and some of them even followed me to a “normal” gym and take group classes there. I’m always trying to be more than a personal trainer you hire for one or two hours a week – I have a very friendly relationship with most of my clients.
I believe in functionality – even in everyday life, I rather look for things which are functional rather than only good looking. And I like to help people build fully function bodies – the “good looking” thing of course comes with working out but I would rather see and hear people tell me they feel better, stronger, more energized than focusing on shaping the body. I also come from a slightly different culture where we have maternity and parental leave. It’s a big topic for me and it is very connected to what I do. I believe in integrating the babies/kids in everyday life and if you need then make them part of the workout. It all comes together with the functionality.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
My parents were a big support for me and supported me in doing some kind of sport. They were not forcing me, they gave me the options and when I really was into something they gave me the full support – I’m trying to apply same principles when raising my daughter. We always did something – we did a lot of trips to nature, castles, went to ski, etc. We went to natural parks for walk or hiking (which is something I miss a lot because things like these are not really possible in Houston).
Contact Info:
- Phone: 281-813-5095
- Email: karolina.matouskova@gmail.com
Image Credit:
Thomas Chen
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