Recently, my husband and I were out on a hike when we stumbled into one of those unexpectedly revealing conversations.
“Why do you actually like hiking?” I asked him.
His answer came quickly. He loves the adventure—the unpredictability of uneven terrain, the satisfying challenge of rock hopping, the feeling of tall grasses brushing against his legs as he moves through them, the feeling of getting lost.
Mine was completely different.
I like the wide path. The clear trail markers. The reassurance that I know where I’m going and that I’m not going to suddenly find myself lost or in over my head.
But here’s what we do share: we both love those moments when a shaded trail opens up to reveal a view or a waterfall. We both want to explore new places. And we both come back to the trails we know we can trust.
That conversation has stayed with me, because it’s a clear explanation for what Wavemakers has become, and why it works for people who’ve often struggled to find movement that fits.
Adventure Means Different Things
For some people, like my husband, adventure means intensity, challenge, pushing limits.
For others—like me, and maybe this includes you, too—adventure means something different. It means feeling safe enough to explore. Having enough clarity to trust yourself. Building confidence without constantly second-guessing whether you’re doing it right.
Neither approach is better. They’re just different. And most fitness programs are designed entirely around the first kind of person.
Wavemakers is built for both.
At its core, this isn’t really about pool workouts, even though that’s often where people first discover the Wavemakers magic. It’s about learning to listen to your body instead of overriding it. It’s about building whole-body strength—not just physical, but mental and emotional—at a pace that actually feels supportive.
Everything we do is grounded in how bodies actually work: balance, gravity, how you respond to force. These aren’t abstract exercise principles. These are the forces you navigate every single day—when you’re stepping off a curb, carrying groceries, reaching for something on a shelf, or yes, heading out on a trail.
This isn’t training for a workout. It’s training for life.
Why We Start in Water (But Don’t Stay There)
People often assume Wavemakers is “just” water exercise. And I understand why: water is our primary training partner, and for good reason.
In water, something remarkable happens. You feel resistance and support at the same time. You get immediate, honest feedback about where you’re putting effort, how aligned you are, whether you’re compensating somewhere. You can explore strength, power, and mobility with far less joint stress than you’d experience on land.
But here’s what matters most:
The goal isn’t to exercise in water.
The goal is to learn something from water that changes how you move everywhere else.
Water teaches you to notice things you’ve probably been ignoring for years:
Where you’re actually strong—not where you think you should be strong.
Where you’re compensating—using force to muscle through instead of moving efficiently.
When effort is genuinely helpful, and when you’re working harder than you need to because you’ve learned to mistrust your body’s signals.
No instructor, video, or textbook can tell you how movement feels inside your body. Only you know that. But most of us have spent so long ignoring that information—or being told it doesn’t matter—that we’ve forgotten how to trust it.
Wavemakers is designed to help you trust it again.
A System, Not a Set of Workouts
Everything inside Wavemakers is built around a movement framework that keeps you out of extremes—the extremes that cause injury, burnout, or the creeping sense that you’re failing because you can’t keep up.
We use something called the 6–7 Formula, which ensures you’re not doing too much or too little of any single movement pattern. We use a feel-based measurement system so you can gauge your own effort—so you know whether you’re working in a range that supports strength, balance, power, or pain relief.
And everything has built-in options, because your body isn’t the same every day. Some days you have more capacity. Some days you need gentler support. The system adapts.
Here’s what that means in practice: you’re not chasing the perfect workout. You’re learning how to adjust in real time based on what you’re actually feeling.
And over time, that skill—the ability to adapt, to notice, to trust yourself—becomes far more valuable than any single class or program could ever be.
A Different Way to Think About January (and Beyond)
January comes with a lot of pressure.
I’ll do better. I’ll change this. I’ll finally stick to it this time.
But pressure rarely leads to lasting change. In my experience, it mostly leads to exhaustion and the overriding belief that maybe you’re just not cut out for this.
Wavemakers offers something different. I think of it as a system of ease.
Instead of forcing motivation, we focus on grooving new movement patterns, so your body starts to crave the feeling of moving well.
Instead of rigid plans that shame you when life gets complicated, we build curiosity. What happens if I try this? What do I notice today that I didn’t notice last week?
Instead of dread, we aim for something you actually look forward to. Not because it’s easy, but because it feels purposeful. Supportive. Like something that’s working with you instead of demanding you become someone you’re not.
When movement feels good—when it genuinely supports your life instead of adding to your burden—you don’t need willpower to show up.
Your Adventure, Your Terms
Adventure inside Wavemakers isn’t about doing the hardest thing. It’s not about pushing past your limits at all costs or proving something to anyone.
It’s about discovering what actually works for you.
That might mean trying something you’ve avoided for years because you assumed it wasn’t for you.
It might mean revisiting a familiar movement with fresh awareness and realizing you’re stronger than you thought.
It might mean learning how to feel confident in your body even when you don’t have access to a pool or any equipment at all.
My role in all of this isn’t to push you off a cliff and hope you figure it out on the way down.
It’s to be the trail markers. The reassuring arrows that help you feel safe while you explore. The steady presence that says: You’re not lost. You’re exactly where you need to be.
Over the coming months, my goal is to guide you along your own path. To help you build trust in your body. To gently challenge the old beliefs you’ve been carrying—beliefs like “I’m not strong enough” or “I can’t do that anymore” or “this just isn’t for people like me.”
Because here’s what I know: those beliefs aren’t true. They’ve just been reinforced by systems that weren’t designed with you in mind.
What Wavemakers Really Is
When you think “Wavemakers,” you might still picture pool workouts. And yes, that’s where many of our lessons begin, because water is such a powerful teacher.
But Wavemakers is really about learning how to feel what your body needs. How to move in ways that support real life, not just exercise for exercise’s sake. How to adapt, season to season, pool or no pool, good day or hard day.
That’s a skill you can use anywhere. In your kitchen. On a hiking trail. Getting out of a chair. Picking up your grandkid.
And like any good adventure, it starts with curiosity, not pressure.
It starts with asking: What if I didn’t have to force this? What if there was a way to move that actually felt good, and made me stronger because of it, not in spite of it?
If you’ve been asking yourself those questions, even quietly, even without quite knowing how to say them out loud, this is your trail marker: you’re headed in the right direction.
