My name is… Peggy Duffy

A people community

My husband Mike and I lived in Michigan all our lives. We came here because the mountains and sunshine offer a better, healthier lifestyle.

We moved here in June 2011. I love how people like each other here. It’s a people community.

We have four kids –; three daughters who are 25, 15 and 13; and my son is 21.

Miss Fit Girls

I run a yoga-based program for girls ages 12-17 called Miss Fit Girls. I started it in 2012 to help my daughter with the struggles of becoming a teenager in a very fast-paced world. When I saw my daughter struggling, I took a deep breath, and that’s when I realized what I could do to help her.

Miss Fit Girls started as an after-school program, and has grown to studios and rec centers. I run the program in Golden, Evergreen and Denver. It started with one girl, and now we’re at probably close to 1,000 girls who have been on the mat through the program. Because of its growth, we will be training new people to fill the need to help the girls in our community.

I was 28 when I started doing yoga. When I realized what yoga had given back to me, I wanted to give it to others. I had been teaching for 12 years when I started Miss Fit Girls, five years ago.

The village

With the fast-paced world that our kids are growing up in, they need space and guidance to reset their systems. We work on accepting, connecting, celebrating, encouraging and strengthening ourselves and others, on and off the mat. We do this through traditional yoga forms, cardio strengthening and relaxation techniques that focus on physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual/community connections.

Parenting a teen is hard, and it does take a village. Miss Fit Girls offers that village.

At the beginning of each class, we talk. It’s kind of vintage because they’re not on their phones –; they get that face-to-face feeling.

I always ask them their names and their stress level from 1 to 10. Then, at the end of class, I ask again, and most of the time, their stress level gets to a happier, more manageable number –; just by moving and connecting. It’s pretty amazing.

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