Bill Mays and Faye Stenerson’s Karobics: How a Phoenix Gym Sparked a Fitness Revolution

Shape Shifters: The Phoenix Instructors Who Launched Karobics a Decade Before Tae Bo

“People were excited about getting fit, and we were at the top of the curve,” Bill Mays says, recalling the electric atmosphere when he and Faye Stenerson first introduced their hybrid workout to Phoenix. PHOENIX magazine reported that in 1983, Mays—a former Phoenix resident, fitness instructor, and fourth-degree black belt—walked into Joe Weider Gym and shared his idea with Stenerson, a fitness director there. He proposed folding karate moves into an aerobics class, creating a discipline they would soon call Karobics.

When Mays approached Stenerson, he wasn’t just pitching another exercise routine; he was proposing a movement that fused self-defense with aerobic rhythm.

Karobics Takes Shape in 1983

Mays brought the technical precision and physical discipline of a fourth-degree black belt to the aerobics floor, but it was Stenerson’s background in dance that transformed raw karate strikes into something mainstream audiences could embrace.

“Faye was fascinated by the movement and the self-defense aspect,” Mays says.

Stenerson brought a rhythm and grace to the routine that made it more palatable for people. The two named their creation Karobics, and it quickly became part of a broader wave of exercise plans that blended fitness with self-defense during the early 1980s.

The concept resonated immediately in Phoenix, where Mays was establishing himself as an instructor who understood both combat and choreography. By 1993, the duo had scaled far beyond the local gym. They made several appearances on ESPN, lending their routine credibility on a national sports network, and they produced a mail-order workout video that shipped directly to homes across America—a cutting-edge distribution method in the years before streaming.

It was also in 1993 that they encountered their most formidable competitor: Billy Blanks, the Los Angeles-based trainer who was developing his own martial-arts-inspired routine for the masses. The rivalry turned legal when Mays discovered that Blanks was using the Karobics name for his workouts. Mays says he had already secured the trademark for Karobics, so he brought a suit against Blanks. The legal action forced Blanks to rebrand, and he eventually changed the name of his program to Tae Bo—a title that would become synonymous with 1990s home fitness through relentless infomercials.

In the marketplace, Tae Bo ultimately enjoyed greater staying power than Karobics did. The rebranded program dominated video shelves and television screens for years, becoming a cultural touchstone. Yet Mays remains proud of the fact that he and Stenerson helped launch the trend that Blanks rode to national fame. They had, he says, accurately gauged the moment when Americans wanted to get fit through high-energy, combat-style movement rather than traditional aerobics alone.

The trademark dispute highlighted how valuable the hybrid fitness concept had become by the mid-1990s. While Karobics faded from the mainstream spotlight, its DNA persisted in every kickboxing-aerobics class that followed. Now living in Oklahoma, Mays still remembers the 1983 meeting at Joe Weider Gym that shaped his career.

“She had a dance background, and she brought a rhythm and grace to it. It made it more palatable for people,” he says.

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