I am at such an exciting time in my life right now! Personally, professionally and physically. Think about this, we all have a body and a brain, no one person is any different or more special than the other, inside each of us there is the ability to do anything, provided we put the time in and educate ourselves better.
At one point someone had to invent everything, and that someone can be anyone. When gymnastics was invented, someone started it, then people started participating in it and making it better, growing it until it has became the sport it is today and it is STILL evolving.
What I mean when I say I invented gymnastics is that after I invented yoga for stretching, I decided I wanted something that would not only challenge my core stability but also strengthen all of my joints though their full ranges and keep me strong and mobile. I went to a gymnastics club a few years back and basically found out I didn’t have any of the physical requirements to do any of it. I could only do the basic progressions, a badly out of alignment handstand walk and just about climb a rope…. So clearly gymnastics was for losers……
Those basic exercises I was shown didn’t really seem important to me until I decided to start my flexibility venture. I had started striking out with all my lifts and ended up with a serious back injury. I couldn’t get stronger, I didn’t have the capacity because although I looked ok, my body was broken.
Skipping forward to now, I do daily mobility, I have learned so much stuff over the years and only recently has it clicked that actually it’s all the same stuff. Everything is angles and either push or pull or isometric. Body dominance has now became my goal. It started off with a few shoulder circles and hip rotations but all of a sudden my creativity started to flourish because of the daily approach and wanting affirmation from random Instagram followers to justify my awesomeness. These shoulder circles have since became front levers and L-sit to handstands, advanced gymnastic movements, how were they created? By asking myself the question “What happens when I press on this thing and rotate? Oh look! That was fun”
Devoting time to experimenting with your body is something I am very passionate about now and teach at my courses. You can invent logical progressions over time that will lead you to better things later on down the road, which is what training should be about. Don’t just do things for fatloss, have a goal in mind and lose fat as a by-product because you’re having fun, you’ll have more chance of sticking to it!
Obviously it has taken over 6 years of training and building a good foundation to be able to safely apply ‘my’ ideas, and know that I won’t hurt myself. So always seek out trainers and teachers,. If you’re not sure about something then draw on someone else’s experience, but there has to come a time in your life that you have to trust your knowledge and own experience that YOU can then create and make things better.
You’ll be surprised at what you can find out about yourself.
