I am sharing my story as I often get questioned about the meaning of Ligaya, and it translates to joy in Tagalog, the language of the Philippines where my family is from.

I was born and raised in New Jersey. I am the youngest of my generation of about 30 cousins on one side, I don’t speak the language and was one of the very few that were not born in the Philippine. I often was made to feel out of place in my own home.

At a very young age, I was bullied. I was told I was “too fat“ "too stupid“ “too dark-skinned“. Because of this, I denied my own culture for some time.

My first filipino friends embraced me as a part of their very large family, introducing me to their cousins, parents, aunts and uncles and that’s how I met Mama Del. Mama Del was a wife, mother and entrepreneur. She witnessed my journey from high school to my professional career and became a mother-figure to me. During a family trip she shared that she found joy in Zumba classes. She surprised me by offering to buy dance studio on my behalf because she believed I would make a great instructor who deserved their own studio. Despite my own accomplishments and her belief in me, I doubted my capabilities. So I ultimately declined her offer.

She didn’t want to push me to do something I wasn’t ready for but she reinforced her thoughts saying “Bilib na bilib ako sa iyo”, (in Tagalog. This is translated to “I really believe in you”). This was significant to me because even at this point at my adult life, these were words that I hadn’t heard before.

Mama Del suddenly got seriously sick due to breast cancer. After she left us, I became a Zumba Instructor part time to honor her and I experienced thousands of people from different corners of the world, that didn’t speak the same language, yet were able to dance together as one.

Time passed. I met my husband and we built our own family. I worked in multiple corporate settings and one year after our son was born, I got laid off from a the job that supported our family. As we began to navigate our next steps, a friend reminded me of the dream to open a studio. The Studio Ligaya was built in Mama Del’s memory with the dream to guide women to see their own strengths and inspire them to prioritize self-care.

I’m not just a fitness professional, I am a wellness catalyst. Through music and movement, I offer a safe space for self-expression. I help clients not only transform their bodies but also their minds and most importantly - doing this to add time and make room to share moments with the most important people in their lives.