MICHELLE CORDEIRO
ABOUT
Michelle Cordeiro is a graduate of the GOODBODYFEEL Movement Method, a current Peer Mentor of the GBF Teacher Training and teaches regular classes at the studio. As a long time lover of feel good movement, Michelle cues her classes in a way that prioritizes what intuitively feels good in your body, and works to bring these sweet kind of feels into each one of her classes.
Through completing GOODBODYFEEL’s teacher training in 2018, Michelle has fallen in love with how blending pilates with flow and music can leave you feeling strong and connected to your body in a big way. Through GBF she has found her voice, movement, and community, and is eager to share this in a way that is accessible and inclusive throughout Hamilton.
Inline with her movement style, Michelle is also an Intuitive Eating Counsellor and Nutritionist at Inland Island Community Wellness Center, where she works from a HAES perspective of abundance within our food choices rather than restriction, helping folks heal from the damage of diet culture.
Teacher Q+A
What is your astrological make-up?
Every time I’m asked this (which, working at GBF, is quite often) I have to look it up again.
My moon is in Virgo.
My sun is in Aries.
My rising is in Gemini.
How did you find movement?
I grew up playing all the sports, on all the teams, which had me running around to 4+ practices a week and (sometimes multiple) tournaments on the weekends. I looooved it and didn’t think about movement as anything but joyful during that time. But once I headed to university I stopped playing sports competitively and began forcing movement on myself in ways that I didn’t really enjoy (such as spending 2 hours on the elliptical at my school’s gym).
There were many factors that helped shift my idea of what movement could actually be - without the focus on weight loss being a driving force - and finding my own ways to move has been EVERYTHING. Goodbodyfeel has been the sweetest landing zone for me to continue this lifelong journey of celebrating how my body can move in the ever changing moments. Actively choosing strength and feel over look and punishment every damn day!
How do you find your own good body feel?
I ran a marathon in 2018 and felt mentally under-trained going into it. So I made a pact with myself that when things started to feel like too much I would “find the good”, meaning I’d look around and find things that could make me smile in the intense moments. And IT WORKED. I’ve been carrying that with me since, with a kind of “the Universe is on my side” mantra, which helps me to see the good instead of focusing on the bleh.
How would you describe your approach to movement?
Listen to your body.
There’s so many messages about what you should look like, how you should move, what you should (or shouldn’t) be eating...and these things pull us away from actually tuning in to our own body for the answers. There’s no one way to move for everyone, just as there’s no one way to eat for everyone, and I try to empower folks to let themselves relearn how to listen to their body, as it is, in the moment. Health has such a broad definition that means different things to different people, but finding freedom from food restriction AND finding freedom from using movement as punishment is the absolute best medicine.
If you could share anything to your 10 yr old self, what would it be?
The only thing I remember from that age is telling a kid in my class I loved his mom’s cookies when I really didn’t (she used orange koolaid to flavour the icing, it was pretty gross). Then at the end of the year he wrote in my yearbook that he thought I was nice because I said his mom makes great cookies. I felt pretty guilty. I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer.
How is your future self proud of you in this present moment?
This is the cutest question. Future me is proud of me for choosing to push through the fear that comes with growth.
