Kristy Ram­nar­ine

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

For many, the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic was a time of fear and hes­i­ta­tion. But for Hu­daa Mo­hammed it was time to take a bold leap. The qual­i­fied teacher launched Hi­jabi Fit Na­tion af­ter grad­u­at­ing as an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly cer­ti­fied per­son­al fit­ness train­er from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fit­ness As­so­ci­a­tion in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the In­ter­na­tion­al Sports and Con­di­tion­ing As­so­ci­a­tion.

The on­line sanc­tu­ary was set up for women seek­ing per­son­alised coach­ing from the com­fort of their homes.

“It was born as an on­line-based per­son­al fit­ness train­ing op­tion for fe­males on­ly who have lim­it­ed time and equip­ment,” she re­called. “This ven­ture was launched as I found the op­tions at this time for on­line coach­ing to be so lim­it­ed, es­pe­cial­ly for the one-to-one, woman-to-woman ex­pe­ri­ence. I felt like most per­sons were re­quired to at­tend a gym for a prop­er train­er.”

Mo­hammed caters to the busy woman whose sched­ule is tight and may not have time to dri­ve or trav­el to a gym and back, or the woman with many kids who is re­quired to be present at home since she does not have a care­tak­er.

“I al­so cater to the woman who does not feel com­fort­able just yet step­ping out to a pub­lic gym or the home­body woman who is just seek­ing that one-to-one fo­cus,” she said.

The pe­ole she serve val­ue their pri­va­cy, she said. “I cater to any woman who is will­ing to ded­i­cate an hour max­i­mum to im­prov­ing her gen­er­al health with ex­er­cis­es tai­lored to suit her par­tic­u­lar needs.”

Through a one-hour video ses­sion, which is held once, twice, or three times a week, pre-planned cir­cuits per­tain­ing to the fo­cus ar­eas of her clients are de­liv­ered to­geth­er with a week of ad­vice on nu­tri­tion.

“I demon­strate and guide clients through per­form­ing these ex­er­cis­es in the com­fort of their home. No one’s plan looks the same as an­oth­er as goals vary from per­son to per­son.”

Mo­hammed holds a Bach­e­lor’s of Ed­u­ca­tion de­gree with a spe­cial­i­sa­tion in teach­ing stu­dents with spe­cial needs. “I have tak­en a hia­tus from be­ing an ed­u­ca­tor to fo­cus on bring­ing up my own lit­tle fam­i­ly,” she said.

“I be­lieve when my kids have start­ed school them­selves, I shall re­turn to this ven­ture. I ini­tial­ly chose this ca­reer path be­cause I thought it to be the per­fect po­si­tion that al­lowed me to stay on my chil­dren’s sched­ule. I would leave for work on morn­ings with them and be able to re­turn home with them on af­ter­noons.

“Not to men­tion al­so en­joy­ing the va­ca­tion time in uni­son with my fam­i­ly. As a teenag­er, I knew I want­ed my ca­reer path to be some­thing no­ble, a way that I could help per­sons dai­ly and cre­ate a last­ing, im­pact­ful ex­pe­ri­ence.”

Lat­er, an un­planned for­ay in­to paint­ing led to Imag­ine Na­tion Artistry, prov­ing that some­times the most un­ex­pect­ed paths lead to the most ful­fill­ing des­ti­na­tions.

In 2018, Mo­hammed be­gan prac­tis­ing art as a cop­ing mech­a­nism to as­sist her through some per­son­al sit­u­a­tions that were caus­ing her great anx­i­ety.

“I did not study art, I am not of­fi­cial­ly qual­i­fied in the field, nor had I held any ma­jor in­ter­est in it be­fore 2018,” she said.

“I thought it would just be a sil­ly short-lived hob­by. With my re­search on art as a form of ther­a­py, I start­ed prac­tis­ing with acrylic, wa­ter­colour, and oil paint­ing and fell in love with this art form. It blos­somed in­to a pas­sion of mine and be­came one of the few times my mind would stay qui­et and fo­cused, so I kept re­turn­ing to the easel. I spent most of my days ini­tial­ly learn­ing new paint­ing skills and pro­duc­ing sev­er­al small and sim­ple pieces per day.”

Af­ter some time, Mo­hammed be­gan to share her work on so­cial me­dia. “To my sur­prise, the gen­er­al pub­lic had a pos­i­tive re­ac­tion as some start­ed to ask if I would con­sid­er sell­ing my art pieces,” she said.

“With this feed­back, I at­tend­ed my first mar­ket with 80 small pieces of un­framed art and com­plete­ly sold out over one week­end. I start­ed sales of my art­work un­der the name Imag­ine Na­tion Artistry.

“I con­sis­tent­ly en­cour­aged oth­ers on­line to pro­duce art, no mat­ter how great they be­lieved the re­sult to be be­cause the ob­jec­tive was not just to pro­duce some­thing unique and mov­ing, but to af­ford your­self to ben­e­fit from the joys of the cre­ative process it­self.”

Mo­hammed said the sin­gle great­est re­sult of Imag­ine Na­tion Artistry has not been the sales or the ex­po­sure, but the in­flu­ence it has had on her au­di­ence to take that leap in­to the un­known and break past the fear and wor­ry of how oth­ers would judge their prod­uct, whether it be art-re­lat­ed or not. To at­tack their pas­sions brave­ly, be­come bet­ter at them, and to cease lim­it­ing their be­liefs.