Keeping on with last weeks theme.
I was sitting on the couch one day after a rough break up, my job was going nowhere with the mining crash and I was feeling blue, I asked myself the age old question “What am I going to do with my life?” half a second later and the AIF add popped up on the screen and I figure “f it” that’s what I’ll do. I rang up the next day, booked in a consult and 2 weeks later I was enrolled for Cert 3 and 4 in health and fitness and a business diploma and attending my first class. I was working full time and studying full time, I decided to go with 2 afternoons a week after work and a full day on Sundays I think, 3 months later I qualified with AIF’s Master Trainer Certificate in Cert 3 and 4, unfortunately the business degree was not to be as AIF became increasingly harder and harder to get hold of, I got to the final assessment and it just became easier to not continue to try and get AIF to help me finish it off.
3 months later I was still trying to make bootcamps work from my home in Belmont, I was getting a couple of friends to turn up for $10each and lets face, that’s just not a successful business model ha, but I had no idea where to go or what to do next.
I had met a guy called Jason Dick at one of the AIF fire nights and I can’t remember how we got in contact after that, I think maybe he called me to see if I wanted to do a kettlebell course with the AIK (Australian Institute of Kettlebells), either way we got to chatting I mentioned to him that I was lost and I asked him for some guidance and he said No. Apparently Im persistent because a few months later we met and I started and apprenticeship with Jason at the Wesley Sports Club in South Perth, I had picked up my first regular client Ryan who would be training with me for the next 4 years and the PT journey had begun. I was still working full time at this point then in the afternoons running PT privates and classes, we moved after a few months to some space at Inner City Crossfit, a quick competition to pick up some new clients and I left Westrac to join the Self Employed PT world, I registered the name “Earn The Right Personal Training” and we continued to grow to the point where I signed a lease for a small space of about 100sqm out the back of Inner-city and we were looking for a 3rd coach, along came Nash and this is where my philosophy for training began to change.
Now at this point I feel I should mention, that its super hard to even begin to list the upskill work and courses that went on from the point of finishing PT through to the modern day so I won’t list the qualifications or workshops, but over the next few years I would be introduced and become friends with some of the greatest minds and athletes in there respective fields in WA and have my whole perspective shift on what I felt training was all about or even what health and fitness is at its core.
The Loss Of “IT”
Everything we do is built around something we believe in, I guess that this thing could be called the “IT”, I love IT, I hate IT, I’ve got IT or I don’t understand IT. All I know is I lost IT, the business was failing, I lost clients and didn’t gain new ones, I just no longer had the drive to continue to put the time and effort into the business that it needed to survive. I just couldn’t do IT any more. I was exhausted. After a hard conversation with Jason we came to the conclusion that if we were to do the best by the clients and to be able to keep an income for ourselves that it was best for me to hand over the reigns to Jason and for me to become a subcontractor again until I found my Mojo. It took a while but I realised that with the removed stress of running a business I was able to do 1 thing and that was focus on what I loved to do and that was get people results, to focus on the very skill that I had grown to love and become the best coach that I could be. Fck being and entrepreneur, fck being a business owner, f*uck all those titles I just wanted to coach, develop myself into learning how to guide people and chase 1 thing and 1 thing only. PERFORMANCE.
Some of the more memorable gym focused achievements that the dedicated soles that I worked with performed over the next few years.
TB - 200kg Deadlift for his 50th birthday.
AM - Double Bodyweight Pull Up
TS - From shoulder dislocation to pressing 32kg single handed overhead
CD - 25kgs weightloss
RC - From not touching his toes in 20years to cold toe touches every time
LF - 99kg deadlift at 48kg bodyweight
These are some of the people who have inspired to me to become better as a coach and have help me realise that’s performance and progress is what drives my coaching style and my own personal life.
Somewhere in there I came to the conclusion that ETR was no longer the right place for me to continue to work, the vision for what ETR was to help people achieve was not the same vision I had for myself or the people I was coaching, so I moved the equipment home and coached from my garage until I was clearer, while this time was closed off from outside development and challenge in comparison to working in a gym with other coaches it also gave me time to practice my craft without distractions or other influence, to be able to make mistakes and fix them myself along the way. I think to many people start a Self Development journey or continuously upskill but never put the time in to make mistakes and practice what they have learn, to cut out what doesn’t work for you and to improve the stuff that does.
The Beginning Of Climbing Coaching.
At this point I had been climbing for a about 4 years and I wanted to know more I wanted to start becoming involved with climbing coaching and chase Performance for climbers. I was climbing regularly at the Hub and approached them about starting some strength classes to get my foot in the door towards working with climbers, after a few months I was back in the “I Lost It” bucket, lifting weights just wasn’t where I was being driven anymore, I wanted to coach climbing, to be involved with on the wall development of athletes.
I was approached by Portside Boulders to become a PT or strength coach at a new gym that was opening in O’Connor, my terms and conditions were simple, as long as I can coach climbing. And so Boulder Stronger was born, A mixture of on the wall training and weights, a one stop shop for v2-v5 climbers who want to progress faster or are stuck in a plateau.
At this stage I didn’t want to coach kids, I wanted to focus on adults and improve my skills as a climbing coach through a means that I was reasonably skilled or comfortable with.
Almost 2 years later and I had applied for and been accepted as the head coach for Portside’s Youth programs, with climbing classes from 4 to 18 years old and skills from playing climbing games to competition climbers or Outdoor Weekend Warriors, I have the opportunity to directly or indirectly coach over 100 climbers per week either through coaching the other coaches at Portside or working directly with the climbers themselves and I love the work just a little more everyday.
Climbing Legends
Some of the notable legends I have work with over the last 2 years on the wall.
IB - 2018 Open B National Womens Champion
AL - 2019 Youth B Womens State Champion
AB - 2019 Youth B Womens 3rd Place
So What Am I Focusing On Now?
Well my first child is about to be born so that’s the one big thing Im focusing on now I suppose haha. From a coaching perspective I am finding my balance between Development Coaching or the skills of giving people their own tools and Performance Coaching just plain old getting results SON!
Special Mentions
Along the journey there have been some absolute legends who have helped guide and shape who I am as a coach, each of them were there to help me when I needed it even if I didn’t realise it at the time or they are no longer influencing me or my coaching style. Thank you to each and everyone of the following
Nash Davis (Kazokukai Martial Arts)- taught me that among other things I like hard style kettlebells better haha. O and quality movement comes first.
Nathan Baxter (Baxter Strength Systems) - an amazing philosophy mind and all round legend, the nervous system and a basic understanding of how it functions or how to manipulate it to better performance.
Ross Field (Fieldwork Health) - nothing quite like a coffee with Ross and discussing the mysteries of life, the human body, pain management and a good walk in the park.
Jason Dick (Earn The Right) - My first mentor, without you I would probably still be working on engines.
There are probably more than 100 other people that I have come into contact with through workshops that have changed my perspective on how the body operates but I have left this list short with a few regulars in my life that have had huge impacts.
Thank you to everyone who has been along for the journey and to those who stepped in and stepped out at the right times.
