A love for anything health and fitness

A love for anything health and fitness brought Tristan Forbes into an industry he absolutely loves.  Recently starting both Witness the Fitness and Breathing Space, read what brought Tristan on this adventure into keeping people healthy and fit.

 

What brought you into the health industry in the first place?

As most health professionals, I had a love for anything health and fitness. Mainly sports but I did get into the ‘aesthetic gym scene’ during high-school due to being a rather pudgy kid even with participating in multiple sports at a time since middle school. I’d say my Mum & Dad definitely had an influence as well, Dad competed for Aus in rowing and was a mad-keen triathlete. Mum was into aerobics and workouts at the gym, so looking back at it now, seeing her balance “mumlife” and her health and fitness, would have helped me connect the dots later in life.

 

You build great communities around you, Witness the Fitness and now Breathing Space – can you describe your passion creating these places for people?

 

Witness The Fitness was created because we saw how easy it was to transform and help people if they followed a precise plan for 8 weeks. 6 years ago there wasn’t too much out there for anyone and everyone to have access to something like that, to become empowered through education and community/people around them to help change their lives. Because that’s exactly how I did it – I educated myself, surrounded myself with people doing the same thing and over time personal goals were achieved. Some people have had more to transform than others, some people didn’t even need to ‘transform’, a lot of people just wanted to be part of a fun and healthy community. Breathing Space is really an extension of that but more towards the wellness side of things. If you can imagine a scale from fitness (strength, speed, endurance) to wellness (health, balance, longevity), I found that Witness The Fitness really did focus on the fitness side of things – even though we do 10-15 minutes of mobility each session, have an infrared sauna in our gym and preach the importance of sleep and a healthy diet.

With Breathing Space, we can extend our community for one thing, we can shine a light on the importance of yoga and meditation and we can then have this amazing cross over where those who are currently well into their wellness side of things, can get the amazing benefits of introducing a little more ‘fitness’ into their lives and vice versa.

Above all of this.. it’s a passion to help people see and feel the positive side effects of health and fitness. So much so that they want to help their friends and family become healthy and fit. A healthy and fit mother and father is most likely going to one; produce healthy and fit children and two; help those children live healthy and fit lives so that they themselves one day produce healthy and fit children! We aren’t just helping our current members, we are literally helping generations and generations to come!

 

What drives you and motivates you day to day?

Pretty much everything answered in question one and two.. Ha ha. But also now creating the life I envisioned almost ten years ago now. A successful bunch of businesses that help people, give back to the community and provide my future wife (her name is Matilda by the way, totally envisioned that) myself and our kids our ideal lifestyle. Goals in both personal and business life are forever changing but that really is the one thing that remains day in, day out.

 

What drew you to open a yoga studio?

Ever since developing a personal passion for Animal Flow (google it!) two years ago, I have wanted to have a suitable space to run classes, year long intensives and workshops to show people how amazing it really is and how much it can help any athlete, father, mother, anyone! Since learning the importance of energy and vibe in a particular space, I knew that our current Witness The Fitness studio just wasn’t going to work. So when my now Breathing Space business partner, Adam from Nowhere Espresso, mentioned that a yoga studio would go great in the laundromat that was closing down next door.. we hit the ground running and before we knew it – introduced a beautiful space to a quite suburban community in Toowong.

 

We recently had you at our clinic for an animal flow workshop, explain to people who weren’t able to attend how you got into animal flow?

First, seriously google ‘This Is Animal Flow’.. That’s how I got into it. I watched that video by Mike Fitch, the creator and from there I was hooked. I travelled to the Gold Coast for my first workshop / proper introduction and totally geeked out on the intricate details of how developing animalistic movement abilities improved today’s Homo sapien body.

 

Where to from here? (things you’d like to accomplish next, where you see yourself in 5 years, any new ideas/ambitions)

This year is a big one.. Last month I secured a contract with W Hotel Brisbane where our trainers facilitate the PT sessions for their hotel guests and use their incredible rooftop areas for events, this will help our brand exposure and develop some international relationships for future WTF expansions. In September I am opening a second gym, this one is called FORME Fitness and will have the same health and fitness ethos as WTF but with a deeper focus on 1 on 1 coaching. Very fortunate to get a spot in the new Calile Hotel on James St, cannot wait to see it come to life! Apart from that, build the WTF and Breathing Space community plus ensure everyone is moving forward. Personally; if it were a Saturday or Sunday – watching over a couple of kids, in a house, with a dog or two, chilling after a flow and just be enjoying life really – most likely barefoot too – I like being barefoot.

As you know, Tristan recently conducted an Animal Flow workshop here at Barefoot Physiotherapy. Due to its popularity, we’ll probably be holding another workshop later this year.

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