Hey Team,

We’ve….made it!  For us at least all the craziness of the ‘Christmas’ period are over and we are finally back to normal this week – we are celebrating this with the introduction of the new 7:30pm Boxing classes (Mon-Thurs) AND with the start of a brand new training Cycle in the Functional Fitness classes – you can read more about that here:  https://round1fitness.com.au/functional-fitness-outlook-jan-march-2024/

Whilst you’re checking out that blog post, you also might want to have a bit of a look around our new website…after way too much work the updated site went LIVE late in December 23 and I’m pretty happy with how it all turned out…there is ONE problem I’m still trying to resolve (if you can figure out the problem, let me know your guess.)

Before I go on with this week’s blog post, I did want to quickly make mention of the annual 28-Days-Later challenge which will be kicking off in the first week of February.  Without messing with the ‘proven’ formula of the challenge, I have built this years challenge up to be ‘DIFFERENT’ in a few ways:

Overall, I’m pretty excited in the way the challenge has come together.  It’s been a lot of work trying to ‘step back’ and really create something new whilst still maintaining the ‘vibe’/’essence’ of something that has been so effective for almost a decade…anyway, I’m looking forward to it kicking off and everyone killing it (as always!).

Anyway – now – on with the show!

The last few weeks have been, ummm, interesting.  We have been open pretty much every day and I have been in the gym working.  The sessions still had to be written and run, the floors needed to be swept and vacuumed, bathrooms cleaned, memberships followed up…it’s been ‘business as usual’ I guess.  But at the same time, NOT.  Little things have been different – and it’s been the opening hours I guess but not just that…staff have been away, footy has been on break, at home, Vanessa and Dempsey have both been on leave…somehow, the normal ‘rituals’ of my life have been ‘off’.  And I’ve gotten to thinking that it is the little moments in each day that not only provide us with comfort and ‘certainty’, but just the fact that they are *THERE* is what enables us to be who we are.  Does that make any sense??

I mean, in the craziness of an average daily life in 2024 it’s easy to overlook the potential hidden within the seemingly ordinary moments. We are all rushing through our routines from day to day – and we really don’t get to pause and acknowledge that – if we want there to be – there are spiritual undertones woven into our ‘average’ daily tasks.  That is, until those things aren’t there anymore (in my case, because of a change in work hours!).  What if, in the midst of our hectic schedules, we could find a sanctuary of peace and balance just through DOING simple and everyday things??  I guess what I’m trying to understand is how our perspective can be changed if instead of BRISTLING at the fact that the morning coffee hasn’t been made (I mean, it wasn’t ‘MY TURN’) or that the kids need a lift to school and TRAFFIC…we could instead step-back and identify the rituals around simple everyday tasks as key parts of our day and who we are?

My day starts pretty early.  My alarm goes off around 3:45am – and I start making the coffee straight away…then into the shower and into a pretty simple stretching routine before pouring the coffee and ‘starting the day’.  What I’ve realised over the past few weeks as this ritual has disappeared from my life (later starts, lack of rhythm in my morning routines) is that this morning coffee isn’t just a beverage – it is an opportunity to set the tone for the day ahead…I go through the checklist of the things I need to do, check my calendar and notes, make a couple of notes – all of these things are connected and without the ritual my day doesn’t work.

I’ve tried to think outside my (current) life for my next example – my kids are pretty much grown up and there is not much of a routine to my current parenting situation…ring the kids and hope they both answer the phone and are ‘of a mind’ to speak to me.  For those people with kids in their late teens and above, I’m sure you get what I’m saying…for those with young kids, well, those days are coming!  Regardless, parenting with school age kids is 100% a life of chaos with the daily “Let’s get them out of bed and out the door” school run chaos followed a few hours later with the “Let’s pick them up, get them to footy training/swimming lessons etc and, umm – is someone gonna cook dinner???”.  Amidst all these challenges are a series of opportunities to embody patience and PRESENCE – you need to think of these moments as ‘great’ moments with the kids (believe me, when the kids have moved beyond needing you to help get them around you WILL miss it!!) and embrace it, rather than just be overwhelmed by stress and traffic and ‘who is going to cook dinner??’ thoughts.

Transitioning (of course) into the realm of physical activity, let’s step into the gym.  Now, I think I’ve mentioned a few times that when I was growing up, there simply were NO GYMS (I’m very old), but times have changed.  Now, since I’m a gym owner I like to think of the gym as a bit of a modern day a place where the physical and spiritual converge…and I’m 100% convinced that for me the ‘ritual’ of putting on my hand-wraps and hitting the bags really does help me put the troubles of the world behind me (for at least a little while).

I guess I hate to think of Round 1 as a conventional gym and whilst I do understand that there is a rhythm to running on a treadmill or moving between machines doing 3-sets of 10-reps…BUT when I see people on their phones between sets, I really do wonder HOW this is mindful…HOW are they combining the spiritual and physical when they are still thinking about problems at work or cat videos?

If you move BEYOND the conventional and think of the classes we do at Round 1 – where you are forced to CONCENTRATE to put together combinations and really establish a strong mind-muscle connection…it really is a good feeling when you feel yourself moving smoothly from one punch to the next, your feet moving in time.  Or if you move next door into the strength gym and you are really focussed on movement because without 100% concentration that next set of deadlifts will NOT LEAVE THE FLOOR…you get out what you put in and to really establish a physical-spiritual connection in the gym you need to give yourself over to it…

Over the past few weeks, Tracey and I haven’t been able to do classes – the gym has been closing early and we have been running sessions side-by-side throughout the opening times…sure, we have been getting together AFTER close to train together…and SURE, we have been ‘doing’ the daily sessions in either Funky or Boxing.  But something has been missing for both of us.  Training with Tracey is awesome – but I’ve been missing my group, I’ve been missing being told what to do.  I’ve been missing that real mind-muscle connection and my training has suffered as a result…

There is (100% there is) a spiritual element to the rhythms of our everyday lives – if you want to see them and if you want to embrace them.  Even more, there is a key part of your time in the gym that is all about giving you a mental/spiritual circuit break to the rest of your day (life) where you are forced to focus on the PHYSICAL and everything else just fades away.

See you in the gym,

Michael.