Jennifer McArthur

About Jennifer

Where were you born? Yuba City, CA – it a small town north of Sacramento. I moved up to Seattle in 2004 to dance professionally with Pacific Northwest Ballet.  A year into my first season with PNB, I was walking through a restaurant, slipped and fell and broke my knee. That ended the ballet career. 

In your free time what do you like to do?

  1. Our family loves to spend time outdoors. Bike riding, camping, boating etc.
  2. I am a craft lover. I can sew (not very well lol) and my current craft of choice is making hand poured soy candles. 
  3. I love “girls night” getting to sit and talk with my friends over a glass of wine or cocktail. (one of the main reasons we have a lounge at the studio ha) 

What is your greatest accomplishment? My family (my kids and my husband) and this studio. 

Something others might not know about you: 

I started dreaming and planning for this studio in 2010.  I had a lime green binder that I would write down my ideas and put them in there for “someday”.  

Since breaking my knee in 2005 I have worked in several different industries. 

I worked for almost 5 years as a medical assistant and surgical tech in dermatology and cardiology.  After I broke my knee and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life… I thought I wanted to become a nurse…so I was going to school for that. 

I worked in the restaurant industry for almost 10 years, all front of house jobs:  hostess, server, cocktail server and bartender. My favorite job in a restaurant is a cocktail server. I have made some really good friends working in restaurants and that is actually were I met my husband Jerry.

Finally I work for a local property management/real estate company (VerraTerra Property Management)  as a property manager. I currently still work there part time. 

Jennifer’s Bio:

I started dancing at age 3. As a younger child I took ballet, tap and jazz, but the death of a beloved tap teacher turned my focus to ballet. At age 11 I was invited to join a regional ballet company that was part of a studio I trained at in Sacramento CA. Starting at 12 years old, I would move to Seattle every summer to train with Pacific Northwest Ballet. After 6 summers, (and graduating high school), I moved up to Seattle to dance professionally with PNB, but a year into living here, I fell and broke my knee. I went to rehab for over a year but because of the type of injury I had (chondral fracture) and the cartilage damage I did, I was never able to get back to being pain free in my knee.  Actually to this day I still deal with pain in my knee, hence why everything we offer at this studio is low impact exercise. Low impact is the only thing I can do with my knee injury, and I am a firm believer in types of exercise that do not cause injury and/or wear out your body and joints.  Working in a restaurant brought me to the Mill Creek area and I actually met my husband while working there…so Mill Creek holds a special place in my heart.   I started dreaming about this studio back in 2010. I had a binder that I constantly wrote down my dreams and plans for this place … all the while constantly bugging my husband to let me open a studio. In the meantime I became certified and taught for two different barre franchises. I also got my Schwinn cycling certification and taught cycle for a studio in Bothell….  In 2017 he finally gave into my constant begging, lol, and we started looking at commercial spaces. I was pretty adamant it had to be in Mill Creek since this is the town I met my husband in and we were raising our girls in. When I walked into our space it was a big empty shell, the building was still in the process of being finished…but I knew instantly this was were our space was meant to be. The trees, the outdoor space for a patio, the big windows for the barre studio. Everything about it is perfect.  My husband (who owns his own construction company, NightHawk Construction) built the studio space out and I designed it. I wanted this space to feel like home; comfortable and welcoming to everyone who came in, and I think we accomplished that. This little studio is literally a dream come true for me. I am so grateful to be apart of a community that I love so much and excited to watch this place grow and evolve.