About me

For as long as I can remember I have hated gyms. Just another boring work like environment full of serious people who know what they're doing and have no time for fun.

Then there is the human impulse to compare. Whose running faster than me, whose lifting more than me, whose in better shape than me, whose judging me for what I'm doing, what I'm wearing, my fitness?

I bet I look like an idiot.

I've always been into fitness though, actually, that's not true. Ive never been into fitness.

I've always loved playing and I've always loved improving at skills. Often that means improving at the things that make that skill easier, like fitness or health.

Then I grew up and went to college and university and I was taught that there were categories that made up health. They were exercise, diet, sleep and rest.

Apparently now I was an adult I was no longer free to play, eat what I like and do things I love doing. I was to be responsible and carry the world on my shoulders. Given that my life so far had been doing my best to always do what I was told not to do and fight the things I was told I must do this was a tough pill to swallow.

For exercise I must struggle and work hard and do something boring something that felt like work. Grown ups have no time for play.

For food I must eat bland, boring, low calorie food and eat as little as possible and say things like "No, I can't, it'll go straight to my hips". I was to demonstrate some self-control. Like a stoic. My breakfast should no longer be something delicious no, It should be something dry that aids digestion.

For rest I must race, race to have more money, more free time, a bigger house, well behaved children, a good job, better holidays. Once I have enough I can retire and start to enjoy my life, rest a bit. Rest when you're done... The trouble is that we're never done. There is always something.

Sleep-once something I needed for growth "don't get a good night sleep or you won't grow up to be big and strong" was now something for wimps, I'm grown now, don't need it.

So now a grown up it was time to implement this model. For a while there life became pretty hard work. I thought that play was the opposite to work and I am a provider, I must work constantly. I was wrong though, play is the opposite to depression.

Just thinking about the joy that play brings and then multiplying the times in a week I get to do it by and average life span is enough to induce that depression.

I started eating like I was taught to, counting the numbers, measuring the food, and the carb, fat, protein ratios, I thought about food more than ever and not in an exciting way. It became a chastity belt for one of life's great pleasures. The very definition of hell if you ask me.

Then I started to watch my children, not marred by these stories of should or good and bad or obligation or right and wrong.

They seem to live their lives like there is this invisible pulse, the pulse that runs through the whole world. The pulse of our hearts and our breath. The pulse of the sea, the rhythm of the wind, the pulse of the seasons, of night and day. The pulse of a dog or any other mammal that runs fast then slow, then left then right. A hidden pulse that is working constantly to create balance without which the world couldn't survive.

This pulse sees them relax when tired but then also have seemingly boundless energy at other times. This pulse sees them eat loads of one particular food, then change then graze then not eat much for a few days then eat loads of meat, then reduce it for some reason like there is some sort of inner force controlling them, sometimes we even give them a chocolate bar and they take two bites and say, 'I'm full' and leave it.

This pulse is the way of the world and our perfect operating system but we lay our rules and our shame and our should's over the top of it. We try and second guess the pulse, to beat it with a plan or even with science.

We know it exists, science identifies it everywhere, we see it everywhere but we can't label it so we deny it.

We deny it yet we see the sickest or the fattest or the most in pain amongst us and we know that they are those who have moved furthest from their own rhythm. They are those that got suck on GO just like I did, they got trapped there by a story of should. By a story of some perfection that they must meet.

I think I got lucky, I think I found some of my stories by accident. Just by giving myself permission to fail, to sleep, to play. I enjoy helping other people to do the same.

Sometimes by just listening and asking questions, sometimes by taking a fresh approach to nutrition and removing some of those rules and offering some simple guiding principals and sometimes through changing exercise to movement and play. Sometimes it's all of the above but its always in a way that creates more freedom and more fun.

I also believe that I have created a gym that isn't like the others, I believe I have created an environment where people can come and play not compete and feel relax and comfortable and not worry about being watched and judged. 

If that sounds like something you'd enjoy then come and have a chat