My life with movement
How it all began
I started my life on my family’s dairy farm in northen Poland. I was born with a deformed right leg and foot, moving was tiring, painful and embarrasing. Disability was seen as something to be ashamed of at the time and I and my family felt it. I spent a lot of time in hospital and I hid my leg as much as possible. As I grew the deformity became more pronounced and began to have a more serious impact on my mental and physical health.
In 2002, aged 20, I made the decision to remove the lower part of my leg. My knees, hips and back were suffering and as a farm worker in Poland, it wouldn’t have been long before I would have been confined to a wheelchair.
It was the hardest decision I have ever made, but I was hopeful that it would give me the opportunity to live a more active life and stay away from a wheelchair for longer. Rehabilitation was long and painful, but I focused all my attention on learning to move more like an able bodued person. I learnt to swim, to walk again and to use a gym to build my strength.
Lonliness and London 2012
I moved to the UK to pay back the loan I had taken to pay for my amputation. It was a hard move, I arrived on the bus, knew no one, had very little money and felt pretty lonely. I got a job as a cleaner in a gym, which meant I could work out easily. It was really important to stay active if I wanted to stay out of a wheelchair. The gym was my safe place. I felt equal when I was working out, I didn’t have to speak to anyone and I saw the same faces every week. It lifted my mood and made me feel strong. I really wanted to help others to feel the benefits I was feeling and once I’d learnt enough English to pass the courses I became a fitness instructor.
A few years later, during another bout of depression, movement saved me again when I received an email at work from a sports organisation advertising a disability sports event where people could try out paralymic sports. I attended and really enjoyed sprinting. I started sprinting where I lived in Cambridge and this progressed to becoming a 2012 paralympic hopeful. Being part of team GB was an incredible experience and I felt great. I trained at Lee Valley, alongside elite athletes, under the instruction of the world class coaches and learnt so much about the body, how to motivate and inspire others and the power of rest and recovery. I qualified as a personal trainer, inspired by my coach Dan, but unfortunately didn’t make it to London 2012.
On stage, on track
Not qualifying was a massive blow. I was so close and felt I lost my purpose overnight. Watching my team mates compete was pretty hard, but for me it wasn’t to be. Fortunately purpose and movement were just around the corner, as a friend suggested that I make the most of my sprinters physique and enter fitness modelling (like softer body building) competitions.
It was exactly what I needed, I had a reason to move, to train, I learnt about nutrition, how to train for short term results, for fat stripping, for muscle gain and how to help others do the same. It was a completely different to sprinting, but I was raising awareness of disabled athletes, working out every day, which I loved and winning competitions, which my ego loved.
After a several competitions I began to tire of the falseness of this style of training and eating. The supplements, the strict diets and training regimes and the focus being solely on how I looked. It stopped feeling good and it wasn’t the example to set to others.
Fortunately I was loving my work. I really felt I was making a difference to my clients lives for the better, so I left competing and focused fully on my clients and developing my knowledge and understanding of the body and exercise.
A new start
In 2016 a client and friend of mine died unexpectedly of a brain tumor. What mattered most was pulled into the sharpest focus.
Life. It is so precious, it’s such a gift, to be enjoyed, to be shared with others and I wanted to be an example to my two daughters.
I wanted to live, truly, peacefully and healthily. I had maybe forgotten that my body was my home, the only one I will ever have and that millions of years of evolution have shaped it to live naturally, not to be used as a toy to show off.
I yearned to be outside, as I had been on the farm. We wanted to live with less stress, more naturally and to connect more with nature, where we felt calmer.
As a result my wife and I made the decision to change our lives and we moved with our three children to Mallorca, Spain. On arriving in Mallorca I fell into a deep and unexpected depression. I hadn’t trained sinced leaving the UK and I’d left my clients - and my purpose, I thought - there.
I had experienced periods of depression throughout my life, but it had been 10 years since I ‘d experienced anything like this. After a few days I knew something had to change if I was to survive this move, I was experiencing suicidal thoughts which really scared me. I needed to get moving and I needed clients to train, to give me purpose and to support my family.
I began to drag myself out of bed early everyday and exercise in the living room. Then I started to walk in the mountains. I got up early to have a few hours alone. I read books by inspirational speakers and I joined a twice weeky cycling group. Moving seemed to reawaken my mind and my determination, so I found the balls to advertise and ask people to train with me, in my apartment.
After a few months, of exercising every day and training a few clients, I started to walk the streets of our village around 6am every morning, looking for places to rent. Each morning before my walk I closed my eyes and imagined myself training clients and how my dream studio would look. After 5 months of wandering we rented a space and now it is exactly what I dreamed of The Natural Fitness Studio.
Me and movement now
My training style and philosophy have changed over the years, just like my lifestyle. I move now to engage with life, to enjoy time with my family, to keep my mind healthy, my mindset positive and to nourish my body, so that it can work as well as possible.
My purpose is no longer about asthetics. I feel fulfilled when I help others. I also feel fulfilled when I’m moving. Walking up a steep hill, cycling with my kids through the countryside or exercising each morning with the A.M. Collective. Whether I’m helping clients to recover after giving birth or preparing them for an event or helping them build fitness for living fully, I train others because I love it and I train myself because it makes me feel good.
Our bodies have been honed for millions of years to move, naturally and frequently. Our minds and bodies work together and need each other.
I believe in natural movement, natural foods, fun and plenty of rest.
