Learning new skills in your 40s

You know when your brain just says no!?

Not just no to the whole thing, but no to even the entry level movements that would get you closer.

I had two main movement goals last year. I’m not a big goal setter, so I quietly had them in the back of my mind and didn’t tell anyone.

If you want organised, methodical, thoughtful and progressive movement goal setting, our Head Coach, Andrew, is your guy. Come to me for the “I’ll give it a go when I remember” school of practice.

Both of the movements I chose, scare the living daylights out of me. But they link a lot of other movements together, so I needed to get them.

1. Shoulder rolls
2. Kong vaults

I find it so hard to let myself fall and therefore to let myself do things that feel like I’ll end up falling. I’ve always been on cautious end of the scale when it comes to jumping (and falling). When I was younger I took up mountain biking, I liked it but bombing down the hills never really appealed and at the time I didn’t realise it was actually fine to be a sedate mountain biker. Similarly with skiing in the Cairngorms as child, the idea of jumping anything scared me so much that I eventually gave up skiing altogether.

So 2023 was my year to knuckle down and try and teach myself how to fall confidently.

I’m fairly useless as keeping to a schedule so I just wove in some entry level movements that would get me closer to my end goal as and I did them whenever I remembered. Generally this was in a WildStrong warm up or when waiting for the children to finish school.

So I had the foundations and my my brain and body were increasingly on the same same team. But it took being trapped in Florida for two weeks over Christmas with daily access to play park (and very little else to do) to finally get my kong vault.

I’m still at the stage where I feel nervous about it, but knowing that it’s possible is very exciting!

I’ve very quietly decided on my next two movements for this year. I won’t be telling anyone about them, so just tune in next January for an update.

Also, if you spend your entire time in Florida in the play park, you’ll meet some extraordinarily talented kids who will just vault the thing without thinking. No parents wanted to join in.

You know when your brain just says no!?

Not just no to the whole thing, but no to even the entry level movements that would get me closer.

I had two main movement goals this year. I’m not a big goal setter, so I quietly had them in the back of my mind and didn’t really tell anyone.

(If you want organised, methodical, thoughtful and progressive movement goal setting, our Head Coach, Andrew, is your guy).

Come to me for the “I’ll give it a go when I remember” school of practice.

Both of the movements I chose, scare the living daylights out of me. But they both link a lot of other movements together, so I needed to get them.

1. Shoulder rolls
2. Kong vaults

I find it SO hard to let myself fall and therefore to let myself do things that feel like I’ll end up falling. I’ve always been cautious.

I’m fairly useless as keeping to a schedule so I just wove in some entry level movements that would get me closer to my end goal as and when I remembered.

And finally, after MONTHS my brain and body got on the same page and I got my kong vault. I still at the stage where I feel nervous about it, but knowing that it’s possible is very exciting!

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Also, if you spend your entire time in Florida in the play park, you’ll meet some extraordinarily talented kids who will just vault the thing without thinking. No parents wanted to join in.

I now have my shoulder rolls too, the learning videos for that are pretty funny, I’ll share them when I’m feeling brave.