Turn my hobby into a career
After years of struggling with self-confidence, Corinne Murphy bounced her way to a happier life...
umping up and down to the beat, I put my hands on my hips and bring my knees up. It’s January 2018 and I’m working up a sweat during an exercise class I’m teaching, where the 20 participants and I have been bouncing on mini trampolines for an hour. I love that fitness is my job, but it’s not something I ever planned, and after 15 years working in the corporate world, it was the least likely career choice.
I’d struggled with body confidence since being a chubby 11-year-old back in 1980. People started making snide comments about the amount of food on my plate, so in January 1981 I started skipping breakfast, picking at my school lunches and at home would sneakily feed my meals to the family dog.
Within a few months,
Mum noticed I was losing weight and became worried, insisting I eat in front of her.
That’s when I discovered a love of exercise, and would do sit ups, press ups and squats in my bedroom. My struggle with my self-esteem continued as I got older though, and I was always on a diet, but after qualifying as a chartered surveyor at 22, I concentrated on my demanding career in London. By the time I married Patrick, then 35, in 2000, I was eating better and was a healthy size eight to 10.
Our daughter Ellena was born three months premature in June
2002 and spent nine weeks in an incubator.
JPatrick and I had devastatingly lost a baby at 20 weeks the year before, and it was a heartbreaking and anxious time.
Having this tiny baby who needed me so much made me make some changes, and I started working from home, focusing on Ellena and then Thomas, too, when he came along in October 2004.
In 2008, I was made redundant so started working with my dad, Gerry, then 69, at his outdoor kart circuit. Over the next years my confidence issues resurfaced. I didn’t eat properly, felt drained of energy and while I maintained a size 10, I didn’t feel healthy, and missed having a career.
I was at a real low when, in September 2017, my personal trainer convinced me to try a trampoline fitness class. I’d avoided exercise classes previously because the thought of walking into a room full of strangers filled me with dread. Yet, despite not being a natural dancer and struggling to jump in time to the music, I loved it. After just that one lesson, I had a crazy idea – maybe I could become an instructor too?
Not only would it keep me fit, it would give me a new vocation I could have fun doing. The following month I completed a day-long teaching course, and that December, I nervously taught my first class in Faversham, at the same studio I’d had my first lesson. Patrick came and said I was like a different person with the confidence I exuded.
Excited, I took on more classes, and the more I taught, the more my self-esteem soared. My diet naturally improved as I had to keep my energy up, and trampolining made fitness fun.
In February 2019, I used my savings, opening two trampoline fitness studios and a third in August. Now, I have two other instructors, and teach up to seven classes a week. I never thought I had it in me to stand in front of people and perform, keeping them active and making them feel good. The experience has taught me how much I’m capable of. Finally, at 51, I have the self belief I always longed for and am, quite literally, jumping for joy.
‘I DISCOVERED A LOVE OF EXERCISE’