Play. Provide. Protect.
A friend of mine recently asked how training has affected my life. More specifically, how it affected my mental health. As I began to reflect on the question, I realized that training helped me get out of my head. Or at least get what I had in my head out and apply it. When I first started, I was a 4th year Phys-Ed student at U of T and felt I had nothing to show for it. I hadn’t applied what I’ve learned and had no idea what my future after school entailed. Though I didn’t feel I was career-ready, I decided I was going to chill on applying to another program (which many of my friends were doing) after graduation and try to make the most out of what I learned in the last 4 years. The following is a reflection on my journey with training over the last 10 years and how it has matured. Not only in content, but in context.
Growing up I was always a skinny kid. I lived in my own shell because I was timid, anxious, and self conscious. Because of this, I often held back and didn’t apply myself in things I wanted to do but were outside of my comfort zone. Mentally, I wasn’t strong because not only did I feel like I didn’t meet the traditional standards of “manliness” but I also felt like I didn’t have what it took to feed my own ambition.
grade nine
So when I started training, like most young men, my goal was to “get big”. I had reached a breaking point in my own dissatisfaction with where I was mentally and physically and stuck to a goal I set out for myself. As I started to gain momentum, I felt better. Not only did I feel healthier and look more like how I aspired to, I felt more confident. Confident because I applied myself and accomplished something I said I would, which was very empowering for me in my early 20s. Up until that point, I hadn’t accomplished much because I didn’t apply myself much. Confidence without skin in the game can be dangerous because it can fuel an inflated view of ourselves. Real confidence comes from accomplishment.
However, as I stuck with training (eventually becoming a personal trainer myself), my goals of getting bigger quickly lost steam. I developed my skill set as a trainer but lost sense of why I was doing it in the first place. When I started, I was tied to satisfying a societal pressure to look and feel a certain way about my “fitness”. Looking back, I realize what I lacked was purpose. I began to distance myself from the typical narrative of fitness for looks and parted ways with people and gyms that I felt cultivated that atmosphere and mentality. It wasn’t because I think that those intentions are wrong (though they have the potential to be toxic). It’s that I felt like that pressure was something imposed on me by society. Up until that point, I hadn’t defined my own standard. I realized I didn’t have a strong purpose or felt what I was doing was truly meaningful.
Utility, or the state of being useful to ourselves and others, is something I began to strive for. Much of this shift in mentality was cultivated with the help of strong mentorship.
“I got with a sick type clique and went all out”
Learning Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at an annual Trinity Collective Guild Retreat.
Finding the right people to surround myself with was a major catalyst. Enter two of my best friends and mentors: Kru Nick Bautista and Dr. Ashley Sweeney-Bautista. A martial artist and a doctor. I connected with these two in my first year of Chiropractic college. I had a skill set for training but was in need of a philosophy to guide it. At the time, when I started working with them, the bells and whistles of a fancy gym and clinic were not what drew me to them. They didn’t have that lol. What made me want to plant roots with them was how they inspired me to think. They challenged me without stunting me, guided me without controlling me. This was huge, because this was the type of relationship I sought after university.
Chip Conrad (of BodyTribe) with the paradigm shift…
Kru Nick and I often joke, reflecting on how many deep dive discussions we’ve had about the fitness / health industry—enough for a lengthy podcast series and how we should’ve been recording these talks from time. Anyway, during one of those discussions, he put me on to this trainer in Sacramento, Chip Conrad of BodyTribe. As I started researching his work, I came across the most potent gem that changed my view on my craft because he surmised what I was feeling so succinctly. He said, “the mirror and the scale don’t help you PLAY, PROVIDE and PROTECT.” And that stuck. Rather than trying to satisfy a forever changing societal standard of how we should look, I started to see training as a means to help me do those 3 things. At the end of the day, if this is going to be a part of a lifestyle, then the vision of it should be worthy enough. I believe that’s a strong universal mentality, that is applicable to folks in their 20s, parents, athletes, whoever. From a mental health standpoint, when I adopted this mentality I became more fulfilled. Because training for that purpose—play, provide, protect—was not only something for myself, but something to also share with others (my loves, my patients, my community). I started to enjoy the process of training again. And when we begin to enjoy the process, it becomes a positive feedback loop, pulling energy and perseverance towards a meaningful goal. A goal that goes beyond a moment, lasts longer than my 20s and something I will carry with me for a lifetime.
- DRJ
Teaching a strength & conditioning class in 2016 at the Trinity Collective. Looking forward to being able to do this again soon…