So, let’s see what happens when Ime Ekpo visits Section 36 Forevers!
What can you tell me about your program “Walk With Ime”?
Walk with Ime is a pageant service designed to help aspiring queens take command of the stage with fundamental modeling and styling techniques. My goal is to help restore the lost art of poise that pageant titleholders are traditionally known for but which is sorely lacking today.
What made you decide to start that venture?
Walk With Ime was a happy accident born out of my sister's business, Mock With Me. Both my older sister Mweni and I were successful pageant girls years ago. So when I wanted to start a business utilizing my marketing skills, she founded Mock With Me - a service that offers interview practice opportunities and expert feedback to aspiring queens - giving them the confidence to command the interview room on competition day. Mweni had a client who mocked with her many times and was a great interviewer but who competed in several local pageants without placing or winning a title. After Mweni showed me a video clip of the client competing in evening gown during one pageant, I noticed some things about her performance that I thought she could improve on with proper guidance. So I offered to give the client some help with her walking. I also advised the client on how to restyle her hair to be more flattering and impactful. We worked on adding poise to her fitness and evening gown walks. And after only a couple of sessions with me, the client secured her first placement of the season – and it was First Runner-Up! After three additional sessions with me, the client finally won a title, and Mweni and I were so overjoyed! Mweni had observed my first session with the client, and she was very impressed with my knowledge and with how easily I taught the client. She suggested that I consider coaching, and before too long, Walk With Ime was born.
What has been the most rewarding part of the sessions?
Paying goodness forward. When I was a doubtful young woman, the goodness of the women who volunteered their time to my pageants was instrumental in helping me become confident, poised, and fearless. Years later, I remember and honor those women and am truly grateful for the knowledge they willingly shared with me and that I’m now passing on to others. So if I can impact another pageant girl's life the way I was impacted, that's reward enough.
What short or long-term goals do you have for Walk With Ime?
I'd like to see Walk With Ime serving queens in all 50 states and I aspire to serve 500 queens in 5 years.
What has surprised you the most about running Walk With Ime?
The poise fundamentals that I'm teaching queens today are the same fundamentals I learned well over 20 years ago. What's most surprising is that those fundaments STILL hold true today even though they are not universally practiced. And it surprises me how quickly queens can improve their performance enough to win a crown, simply by applying these fundamental principles.
What has been the most challenging aspect about running Walk With Ime?
It's difficult watching beautiful, talented, and intelligent girls and young women measure their beauty against others based on social trends. Some deal with so much pressure to look a certain way to align with today's beauty standards, even when those trends don't enhance their natural beauty. I wish more pageant contestants would have the courage to make choices based on what most flatters them rather than based on what everyone else is doing.
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