 Welcome back to School of Calesanics. There is Q&A number... I've started I don't actually know? I think it's thirteen or twelve. Either way, this is probably the most awkward because somebody has come between me and Jaco. And it's also between us to dilute our bromance a little bit. So I think welcome to Team Larni. Thank you. We're going to kick off this a bit of a different Q&A because we're not actually going to give you a chance to ask any questions this week. o'i gwaith pan hynny'n gwaith, oherwydd bod yn gweld yn rhoi drwy gael Gwysig Rydym yw'r mynd i'ch gwrs ac mae gen一 mor hynny'n gwaith sydd yn hynny'n gwaith sydd yn llwyddoedd sydd gynllun oherwydd y gallwn yn gyhoesio'r lleol ymlaen nhw gynnig i chi gyd-drygiad ac hynny pan gwybod eu bod nhw'n gwybod cWaitiau hynna yn cael eu hwnnw. Dwi'n rai. Yr fain yn gweithio. Mae'r gwaith yn gwneud adreffれ. Mae'na fyrdech chi gweithio'r cyfnod.... Mae fyrdd i'n gw walith yn unig. Arweithio'r cegu ymwneud. Roeddwch. Roeddwn i Dyna Llywyddweithiaol. Mae ffyrdd. Roeddwn i sefydlu. Mae'r cyfrifyr oaf i'r lle. A ast Gallwch chi dwi'n gyfrifoeddio Bryrddtor. Roeddwn i mynd i Llywodraeth. Roeddwn i Llywodraeth. Ryd yn y Llywodraeth fyddai. Roeddwn i. Roeddwn i. Byddwn heddiw y cwyddoedd fel gweld a hefyd yn ystod y sportio. Yn gyfnod hyn yn amlwn, hwachau, hwchgynneid ar gyfer triathlwns a taltyddol ac yn cyfeidio'r cyflog sydd fel Chymwy Ynigwyr a'i weld yn cael ei ffwdd. Fyddo y gallwn ni oherwydd, ac rydych chi wedi gweld y cyflog ar gyfer hyn. Ond wedi gweld yn ganwg y gallwn, rai yna. Rwyf wedi gweld yn cyflog ar gyfer triathlwns, a arweud yn y Llywodraeth Rhyf, also maybe like county level, I never like did national level, and then did velodrome cycling and I really enjoyed that but um, yeah one day my dad said why don't you try kayaking because both my parents were both represented, Great Britain and Australia for marathon kayaking. I actually hated the sport to begin with. I tried all these things and I just kept trying stuff until i found one that I was really really good at. What do you do? The people that do kayaking do it because they can't do anything else. No, my parents did it inside and they gave it a go, however but I actually really enjoyed it. When I tried and I was 6 I was like, no I can't do this. I made it on the Australian team quite quickly so I got to travel the world, I was like I'm onto something here but this is quite cool. This is awesome, I get to go to Europe. How old were you at that stage? I was first represented Australia when I was 16. Mae'r wych, dwi'n dyl ni, dwi wedi cael sy'n ddwyfio. Felly rydym, y syniadau rydym sy'n eu tarlo i'r busau ar gyfer C1, y mae'r cysgrif yw'r cychwyn. Mae'r ysgrif i'r busau ar gyfer C1, mae'r cychwyn, yw rhai o'r cychwyn, ac mae'r cychwyn o'r cychwyn o'r cychwyn o'r cychwyn o'r cychwyn. Na'n i, nawr, maen nhw wrth i unrhyw sy'n ad gallu hwn o'r gychwyn. Rwyfwn ni'n ffordd saeth ardod mae fel y maelad yn un am y bobl. Myllwch willon wahanol a gwasanaeth. Mae'n tynnu maenpy ei maelad arall. Mae o jei bod wahanol o'r cyfrif o'r cyfrifol. Mwyn cyfrifol o'r cyfrifol. Ie, iddyn ni'n cyfrifol o'r cyfrifolio. Felly byr yw cwrs, maen nhw. Cymra o'r cyfrifol o'r cyfrifol. Mae'n cyfrifol o'r cyfrifol o'r cyfrifol o'r cyfrifol. Mae'n cyfrifol o'r cyfrifol o'r cyfrifol. Na rwy'n gweithio, dwi'n mynd i gyda'r flynyddiadau! Dysgu'n gweithio'n cyffredin! Yn y gallwn gwneud hyn ar ddiogel, a dwy'n ddim cyngorol hynny… Mae'r fawr cyndraed, mae'r ymblifedwyr yn yeg. Rwy'n ddim yn cael ei bwysig. Dwi'n ddim yn gweithi'r Ysgwr, boeol yn Ysgwr a'r prydda'rnydd, ac rwy'n gweithio ran symboliaethol. Gweithiau? Rwy'n ddiogel yr wrthdoedd Bryddoedd! Chely toddler is British, I moved to Australia two months from the time I was born they moved Oh wow When you moved back to the UK? Yeah On your own or with your parents? No on my own I decided, on my own, when I was 18, I was like, well don't have anything that's tying me down in Australia I'd finished school and I didn't want to go to uni at that stage So I was like, right, I'm going to go to Europe Is that because the opportunities to actually be pro in kayaking way greater? Felly, mae'r ffordd wedi ei bod yn gweithio'r unionwi ac mae'r ffordd ym hattenu o Gwyrdegon. yn gyntaf. Rwy'n golygu. Felly ddod eich bod gwybod ar gyfer. Rwy'n cael cyflawni'r g ligyddion. Felly roedd wedi bod hi'n bod yn gweithio. Mae hyn yn gorfod yn hydrraed o fizio o'r sgwmeth, golygaer, y byddwyd yna ar gyfer. Dwi wedyn beth yna am ymwneud? Hyda i chi amser gyda 6 ymwneud y Llyfrgell yn y Llyfrgell ac yn ymwneud, oherwydd dyna y dyma'n gweithio. A dyna ymwneud. Felly eraill dyna. Ac byddwn i, er fyddwn i'n gynhyrchu i Llyfrgell, fe wneud f更esio leesetig a'r gweithio Leesedau. Maen nhw wedi ymddangos i'r Fyfyrdd Cymru iwerthwyr i fel i Maen nhw gwneud yw leesedig. Fy fyddwch i'n gweithio llys i'r gweithio lle i'n amser hwnnw i'r lle, Mae'r bwrth bod yn ymlaen i Gweithio Athletaeth. Ond y Llywodraeth Cymru yn 2016. Rwyfwn i'r cyffredinol, ac yna'r gwaith rhai'r rhaglennwys yng Nghwngir Ymlaen, hwnnw'n ei ddweud allwn i'r rhwy oedd ymlaen i Gweithio. Byddai'n gwneud ymlaen i gŵr, a'r cyffredinol yn cael ei wneud o'r ddweud. Rydw i'r gweithio ymlaen i'r rhodoedd ac yn ddwy'n rhaen i'r gweithio ar y cwysig. I think when you've invested so much time and energy on something the highs and lows you went through.... is just unreal. Yeah definitely. So, I actually just missed out on London 2012 and unfortunately, yeahs was very very close to going and that didn't happen so I was pretty devastated once when that happened and I had to reassess whether I wanted to continue. How old were you then? I would have been, what, 24, yeah, 23, 24, yeah, so I decided no, I was going to keep on going and give it another shot, and in 2015 you have your qualifiers, so the year before the Olympics you qualify, and I was racing in the K2, which is a doubles event, and you have to, the K2 is quite a hard event to qualify, because you've got to get top six, but European, we're in the European continent, so it's the hardest continent to qualify, so you have to get top six, but within that top six there has to be maybe someone from Australia, Africa or... Okay, yeah. But there's only one slot on the British team where one boat goes, so if you're not the number one boat, it's not like three or four people get to go with athletics or whatever, it's literally number one. Yeah, so you can, yeah. So we got eighth, and so we were like, oh, we've missed it, but there was girls, so it works, it's really complicated, but there's count back spots, so if people are dubbing up in events, then those spots actually end up getting counted back, so it worked out that we finished that weekend and we got told, you know, you guys have qualified that boat. Not necessarily us, like we might not go in that boat, we still have to keep on performing. You made the boat qualified. That boat got qualified, and then it all got changed around and things got like within, yeah, not in our program, but like internationally, and it ended up that we didn't have those spots anymore, so from getting told that there was a good chance that if you kept training that boat and you won the selections the next year, you could go to the Olympics. So that was pretty devastating. It went through loads of court appeals and everything, and we found out we then had a second time to try and qualify in May, and there's only one spot there, you have to win it, and we got third, so we were like, that's it, I'm not going to the Olympics anymore. And then the next weekend there was a World Cup and some was like, no, no, some people have been, like, some countries have been done for drugs, you guys have got the next spot. So I was like, I've just had this weekend where you're not going to the Olympics anymore. You've just had a bender for a week. You don't know why I've just drunk. So I was like, oh, what? Amazing, but then you've just got people saying these things. There's no clarity or anything. So then that went all through another court process, and then basically we found out 12 days before the Olympics that we were going. And you didn't think you were? We didn't know we were going, so this whole time, every day you come to training, oh, it might happen next date and that's not happening anymore. So you're training just on the off chance that you're hopeful something might, which is tough in terms of motivation. It was hard, mentally, I think I'm quite mentally strong, and it definitely challenged me. Does everybody else know where they're going? The rest of the team is packing bags. Yeah, there's four other girls that are already qualified in the K4, and there's my K2 partner at the time, and we're just turning up to training every day. We don't train with those other girls, they're focusing on their boats, so it's just us two. And yeah, that was hard, because you'd have one day when I was down and she was up and then the opposite. So you have to try and pick each other up at the same time. To get the call to say we were going was incredible. It was such an amazing experience to go, but when we got there, we didn't have the best results that we could have got. Less than ideal preparation. It's such a shame because you think when you sit on that start line for an olympics, you never think you're not going to be in the best shape possible. We did everything we could, we couldn't have done any more, but I think mentally and physically it just drained us. I think it's really interesting because we do some work in swimming and there's another guy that we do some work with that he won't mind me talking about with James Curtin, and his story is similar. People will sit at home and they'll watch the Olympics and they'll see these guys, you're in a prime of your life. Why did you not perform when you said there's so much stuff which the media don't report? There's so much money that goes into the sports. People don't know the sort of stuff you've been through, but a lot of the stuff that we do from a sports performance perspective is just trying to make that journey as smooth as possible. We don't want any bumps in a row, we don't want any turbulence. So for you being are we going, we're not going, we are going, we're not going, right, you're going, flipping all of a sudden like pack your bags, get on the plane and now go and perform like this. So there's a lot to do against people that have been in a field where there might be other people that have had problems, but there might be a lot of people that have had great preparation because they're not a level playing field. But then like even, you didn't even mention, but like picking up injuries and things on the way, like you can be, I could probably count on one hand the number, I played over 300 games of rugby and I could count on one hand the number that I'd say I was 100% fit. Like you're always carrying things that, and sometimes it's just unlucky if it happens to be the week before you're going to the Olympics. So from that whole experience, like what do you think that, what have you taken away from it in terms of like how it's changed you, how you now see like and reflect on your career and what happens next. Was it left any sort of lasting feelings or anything? No, I think like I've got a never give up attitude I think and that was really important to me. I don't want to have any regrets. So I wanted to always make sure that I did everything and I left everything on the line. And I think straight after the Olympics it was really difficult to come to terms with it because I was like, I should be really excited. I'm really happy that I've just gone to Olympic Games and on the other hand I've just not done the performance I wanted to do. So that was really hard to then not have a negative experience in my mind of the Olympic Games. But now I'm fine with it, I've come to terms, I work so hard to get to that point and I deserve to go. I know I deserve to go to that Olympic Games. So when I look back I don't necessarily just look at the Olympics, I look at the pathway to that and what I put in every year to get to that point. I think that's awesome because being an Olympian is an incredible privilege and there's a lot of stuff that goes into it. But the sorts of things that we can take out from people that are watching is that process of actually just staying in the game and you just kept on working. And we have a phrase in sport and it gets bounced around quite a lot now, we can control the controllables. In that situation there was so much that was out of your control so all you had to do, all you could do was just keep training. And there would have been stuff over the years that would lead into that. But it's just like you say, just don't give up, don't give up, don't give up. And whether that's bring that into calisthenics, if you're trying to do something that's your first impossible, like going to the Olympics when you were 16 you'd be going, I don't know, I don't think I'm going to go. It's a big deal, I've got to do this, I've got to pass this event. But you stay in the game, you kept on working and you achieved a dream. And no one can ever then take that away from you, you are an Olympian. That's cool. There'll be some stuff that you look back on and you go, okay. But I don't know how many people go to the Olympics. The percentage of Olympians of all time who don't look back on it and go, I'm not fully happy with how that went. Unless you're going to break a world record and win a gold medal. Even then, I've trained athletes, there's one girl who went to the Paralympics, broke a world record by two seconds and came second. And you're like, what does it take to win a gold medal? But she's still like, it was two seconds better than she'd ever been before. So I think it's, I don't know, I guess what I'm saying is that it's such a complex thing. But the consistent thing that we see from people is that you've just got to work for it and you've got to stay in it and you never know where it might go. And like with the journey that we go through in Calais, a lot of the time we're working towards doing something that feels impossible and there's a lot of controllables that are in your control but there's some that are outside of them and it's a case of just getting happy with those and just working with what you've got being complacent. No, what's the word I'm looking for? Not complacent, like, you know when you're happy? Is it a seaward? Is it a seaward? It was a seaward, yeah. After the Olympics, fast forward a year, and you focus on Kayak, marathon, yeah? Won the world championship? I do, yes. Tic? World champ. But it was during that point as well when you started to focus on that and when you started to get introduced, or you met up with Tim, and I let Tim tell the story a little bit, but I just remember Tim ringing me up and going, you know, I've met Lani, she's been massive. I don't know. I didn't say that. You were talking about Lani like that. Like she's way bigger than us. Yeah, so we have a mutual friendry that I've known for a long time called Emma, who was working as a performance lifestyle adviser, and she got in touch with me and said that there was one of her athletes, and she said you didn't have a name to start off with because of this confidentiality thing, so I was talking about an anonymous person. So we had a conversation about Lani, and she was in Nottingham wanting to transition out of the sport into working in health fitness PT, and did I know anybody that might be able to sort of guide her? So I was like, oh yeah, we'll have a conversation. I always like to meet up with athletes because it's just nice people. So I thought we could have a coffee at least. And then we just met up, and then we've obviously got the Paralympic style of stuff, but with Lani's background in kayaking, I said to David before, I went down, I guess she's going to be flipping strong, because the amount of gym work that these guys do is impressive. I've seen kayakers and worked with them before, and so do we go in the gym that first day or not? I can't remember. Yeah, I think I came and shadowed one of your sessions. Ah, that's right. Yeah, we're rich and some of the guys. And then we train a little bit, and then so we get around Lani, she just took her hoodie off, and looked at her shoulders, and I went, ah, flippage. Jealous of those. I think I remember you even doing that. I rang David when I went to see the size of her bicep. It'd have been a nice way. Oh, OK, thanks. Yeah, I looked after these. I know. And just as part, and just to get into that in a little bit in terms of your journey and training and getting strong, I remember talking to you when you said, you know, you couldn't, when you first went to a kayak and everyone started training and everyone's doing pull-ups, and you couldn't even do one. And I think a lot of people will see you doing stuff now, and obviously you have built up that strength, but like how difficult was it at the start building up and how long have you been training to make some of the stuff that you're doing now almost seem easy. Just to put it in perspective for people. I've been in the gym for 10 years, so like when I first started in the gym, I remember that we were doing a circuit and we had to do pull-ups, and I was like, OK, fine, yeah. And I went to do one, and I couldn't even do one. I think it was 30 seconds on, whatever, and I was like, well, I can't even do one. That's a waste of 30 seconds, isn't it? I was like, could you just stand there and twiddle my thumbs? I was like, it's a bicep girl instead. I remember going home and calling my mum and being like, I can't even do a chin-up. She's like, it's fine. Don't worry, you'll get it. And then, yeah, literally because in the environment, I was training in the club system then. So I was like, right, I've just got to keep on going and just kept on going at it. Yeah. So how many gym sessions will you do in a week? So it varies. So in the winter, we'll do a lot more land-based training. So we could do up to five gyms a week and then you'll do either swimming or running and then sometimes some paddles as well. And when you've been doing that for 10 years, you're going to get strong. Yeah. And how long at that time were you sort of under the tutelage of a full-time SNC coach? SNC. About eight years. So it's a long time. So it's a structured programme and again, that's just a testament of, again, like you said before, having time in the game is what just builds the resources. Yeah, definitely. It's not easy. When I first got put in touch with the strength and conditioning coaches in Australia and I was still, I think I was under 23 or just last year juniors. And the only thing we did was technique. He was like, I don't want you to lift weights, I just want to work on your technique. And at first I was like, I just want to lift. But he was just ingrained it, ingrained it, ingrained it. And when I came over to the UK and started doing gym with another SNC coach, he was like, oh, that's great. You've got the technique down pat. And then now we can start to progress. But it's so important and I can't have my home how important it is to do focus on the technique to begin with, to prevent injury. But would you say that from when you started Calisthenics, because we've seen a change since we started working together from where you were doing stuff before, like obviously the outcome is slightly different and the cause, but I saw you in the gym last week, I think we did a session. And I was like, moving really well from when we first went in and like you're working on muscle ups and even just you've gone right back to the basics so you pull up and started to tidy that up and seeing like a bit more of a focus on the quality of the movement around that. Does that kind of link across with, is that now, do you see more importance in that? Or do you see that it was when you were doing, when you're working, when you were training in canoeing that that was just a, kind of in that squat environment just everyone was just getting in and just getting stuff done and it was actually so much precision about it? Yeah, no, like, I think when you're in that squat environment and you've got eight girls or how many girls it is, everyone's competing, even if they're not meant to be competing, you're always going to be competing. So, I think it's been really good this year and I have, you would focus on yourself but you'd always have, like for me in that, in my group of girls, I was always the smallest and I always didn't lift as much as them but it was power to weight so actually I was strong but it's so hard when you're seeing other people lift so much weight you're like, I can't lift that. So, no, I think definitely this year I've just focused on, on me and what is best for me and I haven't had the access to physios because I'm not on the programme anymore this year so I've been so, had to really be in tune with my body and make sure I did all the mobilisation that I could do and that I wasn't, just, I was focusing on the technique in the gym and yeah, I think incorporating calisthenics into my training this year has helped a lot because you focus so much on stability side of things and kayaking, you need that stability, otherwise you're in the water all the time. Which is not conducive to winning a world championship. No, not at all. And how have you found it then? Obviously, so you had that first meeting, that first conversation with Tim where you thought you were like, going to get some experience on SNC and PT because you're going to want to go into that and then actually got wangodd into this. Let's try and do some course of hanging off bars. How have you found it? No, I loved it. You smile into it obviously. And we're super excited to have you involved as one of our coaches. Thank you. Just how have you found that way of training and I guess you've come with that 10 years of building up the strength base and you get to do some cool stuff with it. Now, how has that been? Really good. I'd always seen on Instagram all these cool moves that people do. That looks really awesome. And I remember looking online and looking at Calisthenic stuff and there wasn't that much stuff and then I found you guys and I was like, oh, that's really cool. I think it was just when you guys were starting out at the beginning of 2016. You really were. And then I remember when I met up with you in January, I think it was. And you're like, oh, try a flag. And I was like, yeah. Okay, couldn't do it. I remember two of you and it was like, well, she pretty much did her flags this way. Yeah, like she's being humble now but when she first did a flag, she held it in that position with her feet off the ground. I remember saying during a day up there, it's not a million miles away. It did that a few more months and that would be in the locker. But it's just some of that and you just came with a good training background. And I think that again, I would just flip it into a take-home message. It's just, there's some things where I get frustrated with my calisthenics training. I'm not moving forward as quickly as I want. But getting strong and fitting that all together, it's been massively oversimplified in some cases by the fitness industry in that we think we can just constantly, it's just getting stronger. Yeah, you do, but it takes time. But especially in calisthenics, it's not the same as just lifting dumbbells week in, week out. We're asking ourselves to move in brand new ways to create tension in new ways. And especially like us, slightly older, we're not nine, 10 years old anymore. The system's got a little bit more stress in it and there's a bit more of a higher demand on us actually learning or high complexity of learning new skills. So just throwing it all in, it's not easy, but the thing that you've got to do again and goes back to what you said about the games experience before is just even though there's going to be plateaus and there's going to be difficult times, just keep training and mix it up into things that you enjoy. And I guess that's been something for you that you've had 10 years of gym training where kayak training for the gym from an SNC coach is probably not that exciting. It's quite boring. It's a lot of push and pull, right? A lot of push and pull. Push and pull, push and pull, and a bit more push and pull. So to come out from where you've been from an athletic perspective and then now actually come into calisthenics and go like, I want to learn some muscle up and you've now got that a little bit of a love for learning and love for movement back in as something which you can apply what you've done before. But then also like now you've got new things which you can't currently do. And I guess that's probably quite a humbling thing for that I'm an Olympian and then you come in the gym like everyone gets that in calisthenics. You come in the gym and you go, I think I should be able to do that. Why can't I do a ring muscle up? Which you can now do. Yeah, it's just like the one thing I really like about calisthenics and it's similar with kayaking is they're both very technical. And for me in kayaking I had to be very good at my technique because I wasn't the strongest. So I couldn't rely on my strength in the water. I needed to make sure I was being as efficient as possible. And with calisthenics you can be as strong as possible if you're not using the right technique and going through those steps. You're not going to get to the end result. So that's what I really like about it as well. And it's so nice to be able to challenge yourself again working in the gym for 10 years. It does get a bit boring. And I just love the functional side of it as well because I've always said I never want to get to a stage where I can't lift my own body weight. And I think it's so important that everyone can do that because you never know when you're going to need to pull yourself out of something or whatever. And it might be the same for you, the same for my last question that when I came out of pro rugby it was a massive lack of motivation which I'd never struggled with before when there was no game at the weekend. So when you've made a decision that you're not going to carry on, you know, you're not going to try and go to Tokyo 2020 like to come in the gym and get excited about learning like a new thing for me was like really, it's like a new lease of life in terms of my training. Yeah, definitely. Well, as I say, this year I've structured like I've been training at my canoe club in Nottingham, Nottingham, Kayak club. And we've, you know, I've structured my training how I want to. So I've got a coach down there, Norman and he'll plan our water sessions and we do our gym as a group we decide what we want to do. And you've got these sorted. So by adding calisthenics into my training this year I definitely think it's helped. Remember you asked me last week, do you think it's helped? And I was like, I do actually think it has because people think when you do body weight exercises oh it's just your body weight. It's not that hard. But there are ways of making it very difficult and when we had the conversation over there I was like do I do dumbbell bench press or do I do press ups on the rings? And it's like, well I'm using more stability I'm using my core more and locking on my glutes and everything by doing the ring press ups. And they're just as hard as if I was going to do try and get 12 reps out on a certain weight of dumbbells. So it's a really, I'm really loving it. I think it's great. So last question for me then. So from a calisthenics perspective what are you working towards? What are your goals? What's in the impossible lot? Yes. I want to be able to do a handstand and hold it for 30 seconds. 30 seconds. And make it comfortable. Just a nice, tidy up. And muscle up. Definitely like on the bar. On the bar. To feel I would do it all really. I don't want to stop. Like a flag definitely. But I think when I first started I was like oh I want to do this, I want to do that, I want to do this. And it almost can be overwhelming because you're like trying to work on everything but I think it's important just to focus on one or two and then once you've got that down pat move on. Sounds like Stevenson. Sounds like Tess. She's good. That's true. So that we're going to wrap it up I think. I hope this is obviously Lani and I hope you've enjoyed getting to know her a little bit better. We certainly have and we're really excited to be doing more stuff with Lani and you're going to see loads more coming out from her in terms of tutorials and we're going to try and do some stuff that's focused around a little bit some specific stuff for females as well which is a really cool little area for us to be looking at as well. Perfect. So if you're not already subscribed to our YouTube channel and you want to see some more of these beautiful people then you need to tick up there in that box. We've got our free beginners guide which is going to give you everything you need to get started in Calisthenics summer round days armpit and for last week's Q&A that's up there click that and have a watch and until next time. Class dismissed. She's good.