Fun for all the Family…..Meet Clare Rawlings!
Towards the end of last year we welcomed another class into the mix which has proven to already be a huge hit for the whole family.
The family friendly workouts are run under the expert eye of Clare Rawlings, who has had mums, dads, sons and daughters jumping, skipping and basically having loads of fun while they move on a Sunday morning at our Lichfield studio.
Clare, who lives in the city with her husband and two children, is an excellent role-model for us all, and so we wanted to share a little of her story and why we think she is so fab….
Clare’s story:
My journey into teaching exercise began in Australia where I had my children and as a consequence found it harder to exercise at the pace I was training at before they arrived.
So I immersed myself in yoga and developing my practice further. I also took a teaching qualification in Australia and learnt a lot about children and how absolutely essential movement is for their development.
We then moved to the US and I studied for a family/kids yoga qualification and started teaching classes in my children’s school and the local High School, this grew to weekend family yoga classes and circus yoga, which is brilliant fun. I combined this learning with doing a personal training certificate in the US too.
The family fitness class has grown out of my family yoga class and the personal training. The family fitness class is all about moving in all kinds of different ways, challenging our bodies and minds and exercising as a family in a fun way.
No two classes are the same and I take a lot of my inspiration from the families I am training. So for example some of the kids like boxing, so one Sunday we are doing a boxing focused class, and I might then combine it with some Rocky music and skipping, who knows!
One week one of the children likes basketball so we did a whole session around basketball drills and skills…….you give me a theme and I can come up with a movement class!
We started the sessions in Autumn at Ambition PT and the feedback has been good. In the future I can see us getting outside a bit more, building some new friendships, building some good habits around the impact of movement on our bodies and how it makes us feel and just enjoying exercising with our kids.
I also offer personal training sessions with a difference. I’m really interested in movement and how the body moves all day and building exercise into everything minute of the day rather than those 45 minutes at the gym. I work with all kinds of people who are interested in breaking out of the same movement patterns, learning to use their bodies in a more productive way and see exercise through a totally different lens. I run a movement class on a Tuesday morning where we focus on getting muscles to work how they are meant to, improving range of motion and generally increasing mobility, so we take home a lot of moments to carry out during our everyday lives.
I also do private pt/yoga sessions both at Ambition PT and within people’s homes or in the park!