Once upon a time in Swaziland...

When I was 17 years old, I moved to Swaziland in Southern Africa. My experience with gyms at this point was, to put it subtly, limited. I don’t know what makes a person who’s never gone to the gym tick, and suddenly decide to start going, but for me it was a close to two metres tall, severely bulked up kid from Africa, who said there were plenty of girls who would go to the gym, if the option was there for them. 

So I started going. I felt, literally, like a baby lemur in a male gorilla cage. These guys were growling and howling with their 20’s and 50’s and 100’s, and I stood there, in a corner, feeling like the most awkward person in world, struggling with three sets of 10, 2 kg’s in hand. But it got to me. Going to the gym is like getting the travel bug; it’s a lifelong obsession and once it’s got you, it never lets go. After a while, I was organising gym times for girls, and doing 150 sit-ups five times a week. 

It feels like an eternity since I got up at 6 AM twice a week to open the dusty, worn-down gym; the excitement I felt when the coach had bought a treadmill over one of our term breaks, and the happiness at the number of girls in attendance rising. I think back to the time before I started pushing weights and hitting the treadmill, and I cannot fathom how I ever didn’t. It seems like such an integral part of me now, like breathing or eating or watching films or writing. 

A few months ago, Ariz said to me: “I think you’re just going to have to accept you’re going to be one of these fit people who runs around in the forest and leaves the gym last at night.” This was a strange concept for me to take in. I never thought I would ever be able to even do a push-up, and now I can do five angled ones - ten if I really want to. Squats were an impossibility up until this winter:

“My knees are too weak,” I’d say to Ariz at Aqualife, “I can’t keep my balance and there’s too much pressure on them when I sit down.”

“If you do them more, and carefully, your knees will get stronger,” was his solemn reply. 

And he was right. Tell me to do 50 squats with 10 kg of extra weight? No problem.

I look at the journey the gym’s taken me and my body on, and I have to admit it fascinates me that the simple feeling of being tiny, and uncomfortable, and weak in a busted, African gym, is enough to get you hooked on a lifetime of strength, discipline, and fun. 2kg’s, I salute you.