I recently read that if the parent participates in sports or goes to training sessions with the kids, children are more likely to participate in sports themselves.
I can’t remember where I read this anymore, so I hope I didn’t make it up. But it did make me look back and reflect on where my love of sports came from.
As a child, Saturdays used to consist of my mum, sister and I visiting her friend and 2 daughters (or vice versa) for some play time, followed by a visit to the library and, afterwards, on to the swimming pool. My mum put a lot of value on swimming lessons, so as soon as we were old enough, we were signed up.
We were already swimming twice a week at a young age. I think the habit of doing sport on a regular basis set me up for the future. Later I did self-survival classes and then swam for the local swimming team.
The amount I trained changed over time, but I have memories of walking down the farm road in the dark to be picked up by my coach and taken to the pool before school. I never really excelled at the sport, but I enjoyed it for a long time.
🤸🏼‍♀️ The other sport I did was gymnastics 🤸🏼‍♀️
Mum enjoys watching sports, so I am sure she would have had it on the TV during the Olympics and other big competitions. And you are inspired by people who look like you. I pestered her to go to gymnastics, but there was no club, so I got to go to tap dancing and ballet classes instead.
The minute a gymnastics club was opened in my town, I was instantly out of the dance class and signed up for gymnastics. I really loved it and was committed to going every week without fail. As it was a relatively new club, I eventually hit an age where I couldn’t go to the club anymore, and we had to take a bus to the next village to continue training.
Eventually, I got to the stage where progressing further would have required travelling 50km away, so I decided to give up at around 16 years old.
My two sports took up many years.
I also enjoyed doing gym classes at school and was one of those kids who enjoyed the break from the classroom to do what I perceived as an easy class.
Looking back, it is interesting how once I’d made the commitment to the sports, I just went to every week. It was very much a habit to go to training sessions, and there was never any reason not to. I think this has followed me throughout my life. Once I got to university, I didn’t really do any specific sport but often, on Wednesday afternoons, I’d join my sister for a fitness class; I had a gym membership and used the swimming pool.
Then, in my last year at uni, I had a go at the university football team, which I am quite sure was never a sport for me. As I continued through life and onto my time in Amsterdam, I was more of a gym bunny doing all the fitness, yoga and pilates classes and would go into the pool for a swim from time to time. But as you can see, the habit continued from my childhood.
From Triathlon to becoming a PT
The transition to Triathlon came from my first job in Amsterdam and took 10 years. Asked to do the swim leg of a triathlon relay, I was exposed to the sport. I loved the look of it and started running.
That took me on a bit of a 10-year detour while I went from 5 and 10kms races to marathons and beyond. But that nagging desire for Triathlon was always there, and eventually, I turned up for my first Triathlon.
When I realised I no longer wanted to work in the IT world, I asked myself what else I could do. I did have a friend suggest PT as I liked sports so much. I didn’t immediately see myself in that role, but it stayed in the back of my head for a long time.
However, in the end, it made sense. I was already encouraging all my friends to join in 5km, and 10km runs, and I enjoyed seeing people doing well. So I headed to England for 3 months to gain my diploma in Personal Training and Sports Massage Therapy.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Author: Lorna Wilson
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06 460 377 74 / lorna@wilsonsworkouts.nl
