with Alicea Amburn
Born and raised:
Winchester, Va.
Resides:
Upper Montclair
Favorite athletic activity:
Running
Hobbies:
Photography and scrapbooking
Favorite TV show:
"The Sopranos"
Food obsession:
Chocolate
What does a fitness instructor who teaches aerobics, kickboxing
and other heart-pumping classes do to relax? Yoga, of course.
It's hard to imagine the extremely upbeat Campus Recreation Fitness Coordinator,
Alicea Amburn, slowing down long enough to breathe. Coming directly from
teaching a step aerobics class to sit down for an interview, she barely
looks like she's broken a sweat and begins without missing a beat. "In
case you can't tell," she said with a laugh, "I'm kind of a
high-energy, high-strung person, so yoga was something I shied away from
for a really long time. But I figured I'm in the fitness industry, I need
to try this. I ended up loving it. Now I do it at least three times a
week. If I don't do it, I get really stressed out."
And fitness instructors aren't allowed to have a bad day. Alicea has to
be "on" at all times when she's in front of a class. So even
if she's having a stressful day, or is tired or sore, she has to get motivated.
"There are definitely times when I'm not in the mood to teach, but
as I go toward Russ Hall, I give myself a pep talk and say, 'You're going
to feel so much better after you work out,' " she said. "When
everyone comes in, any hesitation I had just disappears."
Alicea recently celebrated her one-year anniversary at Montclair State.
She warmly recalls the feeling she had when she interviewed for the position.
"As soon as I got on campus, I felt that I was supposed to be here,"
she said. "I called my mom on the five-hour drive back to Virginia
and said, 'If I don’t get this job I was not meant to work. This
job is for me.' "
Over the past year, Alicea's responsibilities--as well as Campus Recreation
itself--have grown immensely. "Group Fitness didn't even exist when
I got here," she explained. Last semester we had only about 10 classes
a week. Now we have almost three classes a day." In addition to the
average 12 classes a week she teaches, Alicea oversees the Fitness Center,
the aquatics program and the open recreation programs.
Aside
from her day-to-day activities, Alicea is always searching for ways to
increase participation and awareness of what Campus Recreation has to
offer, not only to students but to faculty and staff as well. That's no
easy task not many people have time to spare. "Getting people to
come to a class is the hardest part," she said. "Once they get
there and feel the camaraderie, they get addicted to it. It's a time when
people can let go of work, be with their colleagues or friends for an
hour, sweat a little, raise their endorphin level. Once I get them there,
they get joy out of it and stay with it. I tell people to schedule it
as they would a meeting, only it's a meeting with themselves. I'm proud
that we have a lot of faculty and staff participation."
Alicea encourages people not to be intimidated by a group exercise class.
"I have participants who are over 60 years old working out in the
same class with 19-year-olds," she said. "That's what I strive
for: a comfortable atmosphere where everyone can feel successful."
Alicea is proof you don't have to be athletic to take part in the classes.
"The biggest joke of the office is that I'm the fitness coordinator
and I'm so uncoordinated," she said. "They'll try to get me
to play kickball or volleyball, but I stumble over my own feet. I rode
horses for 17 years so that was my only athletic venture in high school.
I wasn't a star athlete."
That's why she believes everyone should give Group Fitness a try. It's
an opportunity to open up to new experiences and another reason she finds
her job so rewarding. "The University environment is so great because
it's all about growth and learning," she said, "not only in
an educational way, but also in a personal way."