"Jump and Build the Parachute on the Way Down" - Jacquelyn Umof, Founder of Barre Definition

Content note: This episode includes brief discussion of a history of amenorrhea and a stress fracture connected to undereating during the guest's teenage ballet years. It is discussed as a resolved part of her past. If this is something you are navigating, support is available through the National Alliance for Eating Disorders helpline. Jacquelyn Umof trained as a professional ballet dancer before a fractured tibia at seventeen ended that chapter of her life. Her mom signed her up for a Pilates class to get her out of the house. She got certified at seventeen, walked into a USC gym with zero teaching experience, and asked for a job anyway. That is basically how she has done everything since. In this conversation, Jacquelyn talks about building Bar Definition from a beach camera and thirty videos into a real business, the years of bootstrapping before she would let herself spend real money on ads, and the moment her now-husband convinced her to make one good ad instead of a post every single day. She talks about collecting certifications not because she needed all of them, but because she didn't have a fitness degree and wanted to feel sure of what she was teaching. She also goes deep into motherhood: a genuinely painful pregnancy connected to hypermobility, a three hour home birth she calls the hardest and best thing she has ever done, and the recalibration of her relationship with her body and her time that came after. She talks honestly about the pressure to look a certain way after having a baby, and her decision to prioritize breastfeeding over getting her body back faster. And she goes back to seventeen year old Jacquelyn: quiet, introverted, more comfortable expressing herself through movement than words, competing only with herself, never her sister. The tibia fracture that looked like an ending turned out to be the beginning of everything she has built since. 🎙️ Meet Bridget | Season 6, Episode 161 Resources: National Alliance for Eating Disorders helpline