Leaders Spotlight : Julia Baas

In our 10th year of sweating and connecting we are sharing stories from our dedicated and passionate volunteers.

Introducing Julia Baas, who has volunteered with FitFam Beijing since 2020 and also leads FitFam Virtual workouts as well as helping to manage the FitFam Beijing community.

Tell us about yourself

I am Julia from Germany, I moved to Beijing in February 2020 and I was longing to find a community of like-minded people who share the love for movement. In June that year, I discovered the FitFam Summer Challenge and after my first workout I knew: these are my people!

Your first FitFam workout

FitFam is such a welcoming community, open to embracing new members like me! My first session was at Junwangfu square where we did a lot of animal moves, touching the ground with our bare hands, when the session ended we all looked like we needed a deep clean. I cleaned my hands thoroughly and came back for more workouts.

The FitFam Impact

Through FitFam, I’ve gained not only a healthier lifestyle but also friendships with people from all over the world who share the same passion for sports and pushing their limits. This sense of belonging and connection is exactly what keeps me coming back.

Becoming a FitFam leader

During the infamous COVID times, the number of participants at the sessions were limited and it felt like a lottery win if you got a sacred spot. 10am daily signups meant there were many people interrupting their work days to sneak out of work meetings or having ‘bathroom breaks' to make sure you hit that sign-up button right on time to secure your spot. This is the level of commitment and motivation FitFammers have to sweat together in the early hours. Later on, I joined the Beijing leader’s team and ever since, I enjoy sharing my passion and putting energy into planning and leading early morning workout sessions with our FitFam community. There's a commitment and motivation level of people who will show up at 6am to engage in challenging and fun workouts together. This is truly inspiring and compels me to return daily.

Favorite Sweat and Connect moments

What I love about FitFam is that there are so many FitFammers all over the world and we get to connect through virtual sessions. I am part of the virtual Core Blast leaders’ team and introduced virtual challenges to FitFam like the Everesting challenge where we master an elevation of 8848m (which is the height of Mount Everest) or the 4x4x48 challenge by David Goggins where we run 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours. Simple concepts but not easy. But together we can achieve things we never expected.