No Creative Brain

I’ve just recently come back from a week up in Liverpool where the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest was being held. And to say that my mind was completely fucked up with a mixed assortment of emotions is, quite frankly, an understatement.

Yes, there are the usual posts on social media from people gushing about how their week was so unbelievably positive, amazing, mind-blowing, best week ever, insert your own choice of embellishment here. But for some of us, it was not always like that…

Let me just start by saying that Liverpool (to use a tired Eurovision cliche) put on an absolutely amazing show 😏. No, seriously, they did. The effort that Liverpool put into hosting this year’s contest on behalf of Ukraine was incredible, and certainly unrivalled compared to some past host cities in recent years. The enthusiasm with which Liverpudlians embraced Eurovision last week was second to none, and is a great case study from which future host cities can learn.

However, for me it was not entirely glamorous…

Finding A Place To Stay

Back when Liverpool was confirmed as the host city last October, all available affordable accommodation was immediately snapped up. For those like me on a tight budget, it instantly felt like a door slamming shut on us.

Being a hardcore Eurovision fan means you need to know how to play the game – in this instance, it means having multiple screens and apps open ready to pounce on the first available hotel room that you can afford and making the booking. And kudos to you if you actually succeed in doing that.

In the usual rules of the game, rooms should start to become available and affordable once delegation numbers are confirmed and tickets are released (as people decide to cancel their bookings). Unfortunately this did not start happening until the actual week of the contest itself, by which point it would have not been worth the trip to Liverpool anyway.

Additionally, folks suddenly found their bookings cancelled for inexplicable reasons, only for rooms to be made available again at highly inflated prices. Much fuss was made over this, but nobody seemed to want to do anything about it.

This led some, including myself, to look outside Liverpool for any available accommodation. Luckily enough, I was able to score a dorm bed in a quite dingy hostel right next to Piccadilly Station in Manchester (some people turn their noses up at the mere thought, but seeing as this is how I lived my first 2 years in London, this was totally nothing new for me – a bed was a bed).

On the plus side, including the daily commute between Manchester and Liverpool, it turned out to be much cheaper than what a room in Liverpool itself for a week was costing at the time. Conversely though, the availability and frequency of train services between the two cities during the week of Eurovision left a LOT to be desired (including the lack of all-night services), and severely limited the options I had to enjoy myself to the fullest that week.

For example, in the lead-up to the contest, I had bought a weekly pass to the OGAE EuroClub at Camp & Furnace, however due to the aforementioned limited travel options, was only able to go three times during Eurovision week. Which was a shame, because the club setup was actually really good, and credit needs to go to OGAE UK for exceptional organisation.

It also meant that I spent an average of 90-120 minutes each day commuting to and from Manchester, which is time I could have spent doing other things in Liverpool itself. Whichever city ends up hosting next year, please please please ensure there are both ample supplies of accommodation and transportation!

In fact, I wrote a Twitter thread about this very thing…

Disaster slightly averted – still limited services running between Manchester and Liverpool tomorrow and Saturday. *However*, I am still left with a couple of issues… https://t.co/ihJ7M8uTyG

— Patrick Mougin 🇪🇺🇦🇺🇫🇷🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ (@patrickmougin) May 11, 2023

Friendship In A Eurovision World

Eurovision is commonly presented by many as a celebration of diversity both in music and in people. Likewise, its fan community portrays itself to be one that is welcoming and respectful of all different types of people as a result of that diversity, no matter who you are or where you come from.

Unfortunately, this has been far from the truth on many occasions in recent years…

Prior to COVID, I was what one would consider an extroverted introvert – I was very outgoing within the UK Eurovision fan community especially, and wanted to get along with everyone. What I learned quite quickly though was that this community was an amplified microcosm of wider society – it had its own set of hierarchies, with certain circles of people who would either respect you or look down upon you depending on how much of a fan you were. Indeed, the amount of disrespect I saw from certain members of OGAE UK towards new members was utterly shocking for me.

However, I still attempted to stay on good terms with the rest of the community, as it was a nice social outlet for me to get into as I had not long relocated to London from Australia. And this was mainly succeeding, until I had a breakdown during the first COVID lockdown (I speak about it at length here:

https://nocreativebrain.wordpress.com/2020/08/02/lessons-learned-in-a-london-lockdown/

Without overly repeating what I wrote in that post, the main takeaway from my recovery was that a lot of the “friends” I thought I had in my life were not actually friends – they were more acquaintances. And for me as an autistic person, I’m quite deep when it comes to these things – if you’re an acquaintance, you may as well be a complete stranger. Another consequence was that I leaned way more into my introverted side – the extrovert in me only came out on rare occasions, and only with people around whom I truly felt comfortable.

The following year, during the ESC National Final season of 2021, I started to finally realise how completely toxic the “fandom” actually was via my time on Twitter, and it had got to a point where I almost had another breakdown – thankfully though I recognised the signs straight away and removed myself from Twitter for several months. When I came back on six months later, I did a full reset of followers, ie. I unfollowed *everyone* and rebuilt my account accordingly. Nowadays it is in a much healthier state, and so is my own mind.

When “normality” started returning in 2022, the difference in my approach to my fellow Eurovision fans compared to pre-COVID was quite stark. A lot of people with whom I had been somewhat close were now virtual strangers, and the connection we had was now somewhat faded. I don’t begrudge them for that – on the contrary, I take full ownership of wanting to reset my brain so that I didn’t necessarily have to rely on other people for my own happiness. If that meant some former friends drifted away, then so be it – and I can honestly say that what I lost in quantity, I gained in quality with the people who did stay in my life post-breakdown.

And yet at times, you cannot help but feel isolated from everyone else, no matter how beneficial it is for your own happiness and integrity in the long run…

One of the consequences of staying in Manchester during Eurovision was the physical distance I had from everyone else, even those people in the fan community with whom I am actually quite close. On the one hand, I was happy that I was getting the chance to just experience Eurovision as my own person and absorb the atmosphere on my own terms.

But on the other hand, the times that I did spend with the really genuine people in Liverpool (especially my Aussie friends) did help me immensely to feel connected again to the Eurovision community, and I’m not gonna lie, I had never been happier. At the same time though, I did not want to fall back into the trap of relying on them to keep myself happy – I had come too far on my post-breakdown journey to compromise that now, and besides, I did not want to feel like I was burdening them (thank you imposter syndrome).

I also met a number of other people along the way, some of whom I bonded with straight away, and others who just didn’t quite connect with me the way I had wanted and/or hoped. Then again, that’s pretty much a reflection of the difficulties of being autistic and not quite having the social game down pat like the neurotypicals. Even some others I already knew (and thought I had a good relationship with) were a mixed bag – they were either quite excited to see me, or they were like “meh” and went on their own way.

On a special note though, there was one person I met in Liverpool via Twitter, who hung out with me for a couple of afternoons during Eurovision week, especially when I was feeling a bit low and aimless, and helped to cheer me up somewhat. If you are reading this, thank you for being so supportive and I am glad I met you.

To add some more context to this, I used Twitter a lot over Eurovision week, especially when I had a lot going on in my brain and I needed to get stuff out. A couple of them are below:

Today in #eurovision land has been a chance to just chill away from people and collect my thoughts on various things – the higher than usual amount of social interaction over the last few days has just drained me, to the point where I feel almost alone, in a weird fucked up way.

— Patrick Mougin 🇪🇺🇦🇺🇫🇷🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ (@patrickmougin) May 10, 2023

It’s funny (read: not really) being #ActuallyAutistic in such a supercharged social environment like #Eurovision week – I’m now at the stage where I’m feeling two different emotional extremes almost simultaneously, to the point where I just want this to end…

— Patrick Mougin 🇪🇺🇦🇺🇫🇷🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ (@patrickmougin) May 12, 2023

A Growing Class Divide Within The Eurovision Fan Community

A common observation that gets made by Eurovision fans around the world is that Eurovision itself is a quite expensive hobby, especially for those who commit themselves to travelling to the contest every year (and my fan friends back home in Australia come to mind particularly as I write this). Whereas in the past, people would have been saying this as a joke or somewhat ironically, in more recent years, the cost of attending Eurovision has become an actual serious issue – indeed the cost of tickets over the last few years has risen so high that it has become somewhat financially prohibitive for even some of the most hardcore fans to attend.

To put this into more specific context, as a member of OGAE UK, I was lucky enough to be able to get a package for the Afternoon Previews, aka Family Shows this year for around £360. Compare this to last year, where I paid €350 for a *Jury Show* package in Turin – the equivalent package in Liverpool this year was around £700. You can see why there are concerns – and it is not something that the EBU nor the host broadcaster has been willing to address for some years now.

It also ties in with the accommodation issues I discussed at the beginning of this post, where prices in Liverpool were so artificially high for a lengthy period – they only started to go down during the week of Eurovision itself, which didn’t help someone like myself with somewhat tight financial constraints.

Because of these general cost increases over the last few years, a bit of a class divide is presenting itself, where attending Eurovision in person is something only for the privileged few who can afford it. In my opinion, that goes against the very ethos of Eurovision itself – all people should have the opportunity to enjoy the contest equally. Yes a host broadcaster needs to recoup costs, etc., but having barriers such as high ticket costs and expensive accommodation supply does not resolve the issues of inequality that have arisen.

And you can see that privilege amongst a number of fan circles within the community, even if they may not be aware of it themselves. Awareness of that privilege and using that to push for more equality is always the best way that the less privileged can find a voice and enjoy Eurovision to their fullest.

The Result…

Let me start by congratulating Loreen for winning Sweden’s 7th Eurovision victory with “Tattoo”, which she won fair and square within the rules of the contest.

Ok, now we have that out of the way, let’s talk some real talk…

This result is without a doubt one of the most divisive and polarising results in the history of the contest, and especially since the split jury/televote allocation started in 2016. It cannot be overstated just *how* much the crowd (and indeed the voting public) got behind Finland, who was being represented by Käärijä with his song “Cha Cha Cha”.

From where I was watching in the Eurovillage in Liverpool’s Pier Head, just about everyone there was rooting for Finland, especially after his performance. It would not have escaped the EBU’s attention just how much even the audience in the arena were behind Finland, to the point where both Graham Norton and Hannah Waddingham were struggling to keep them under control.

The big divide between the jury opinion and that of the public has never been more stark. While Loreen’s jury vote was extraordinarily high, Käärijä’s televote was exactly the same magnitude as that of Salvador Sobral’s back in 2017 (and second only to Ukraine in 2022) – and Sobral had also trumped the jury vote that year to gain the most number of total points in Eurovision history, something which Loreen failed to attain this time around.

So how do we even begin to address something like this?

Firstly, it has to be said that juries DO serve a purpose at Eurovision. Indeed it is readily observed that the overall song quality of the contest has markedly improved since the reintroduction of juries back in 2009, and has seen a dramatic shift from the televote-only era of the 2000s. The EBU also experimented this year with ditching juries for the semi-finals, which appears to have been received somewhat positively based on the quality of this year’s Grand Final – so we may well have that again next year.

But in the meantime, what can be done to better improve the juries themselves? Right now, each national jury contains five members – there have been suggestions of increasing this number to nine, whilst also in turn increasing the diversity characteristics of the individual jurors to better reflect the country they represent.

Could there also be a revamp of the criteria that is used? The current criteria, in my opinion, are sufficient on their own (but perhaps could be more specific):

• Vocal capacity of the artist(s)
• Performance on stage
• Composition and originality of the song
• Overall impression of the song

In any case, I do believe the EBU needs to have a serious discussion about the role of the juries and how they can be improved to decrease the chance of a polarising result in the future.

Promoting Inclusivity In Future Eurovision Results

Apart from the headline discussion of Sweden vs Finland in this year’s Grand Final, there is also a lot to be said about recognition (or lack thereof) of a number of other performances in the same final. And it is something that particularly struck me with this year’s contest…

As everyone knows, since 1975, Eurovision has had the famous 12/10/8-1 scoring system that each country uses to score their favourites. However, as someone who is very much about equality, equity and inclusivity, there are a couple of things that strike me hard about this. For example, due to the nature of the scoring system, if you don’t score within a country’s top 10, you may as well just not exist at all – you could be 11th or 12th with an amazing song, and yet it will instantly be judged as crap simply because it didn’t receive any points under the system.

On the one hand, it does motivate countries to strive for strong entries – however, music taste is subjective, and what might be strong to one person may not be as such to another. And quite often, the fandom will react wildly to a particular song, only to see it crash and burn during the contest for a variety of reasons.

But on the flip side, as explained above, anything below 10th is simply not recognised whatsoever. And for someone like me who values inclusivity, that goes right against the very concept. It also pushes the contest factor way too heavily, when again this is meant to be a celebration of diversity.

So what could we do to get around it?

Personally (and probably controversially), I think drastic action is needed – scrap the 12/10/8-1 system altogether. Give *every* song points from 25 all the way down to 1 – in practice, for each jury on the night, the bottom 22 rankings and points are displayed immediately, with the top 3 remaining blank, and the spokesperson will announce which of their top 3 gets the maximum points.

This way, EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY is recognised, no matter how many or how few points they receive. And by the time all countries have voted, we have a more accurate picture of where every country actually ranked from a jury perspective. The same points system would naturally be used for the televote, completing the overall picture. The chances are, countries who would be scoring last or close thereto in the current system may find that they’re actually truly higher than first thought.

Epilogue – Post-Eurovision Depression (Or Lack Thereof)…

Usually around this time I would be thinking back on what an amazing time I had during Eurovision week and wishing that I was back there just enjoying myself, as I did last year after Turin and in 2016 after Stockholm. However, I have not actually felt that this year – I remember being in the coach back to London the day after the Grand Final, with my brain incredibly fucked up on a combination of lack of sleep, the disappointing result (for me personally), the experiences I had had during the week in Liverpool. I wanted it to all be over.

When I went back to work this week, I literally just dove right in and used it to distract me. And it has served its purpose, in the sense that I now have enough emotional and mental distance from Eurovision week to be able to write this.

I recognise that for many people, Liverpool was truly an awesome week with many incredible experiences, and this post is not meant to take away from any of those – we are all individuals and interact with the world around us in different ways, and take those experiences on board accordingly. This is merely a long-form upload of all the thoughts and feelings that I personally felt and experienced during my time in Liverpool.

And for some of you, this may well resonate in some way, and I hope that if you had been feeling something similar during Eurovision last week (or indeed at another point in your life), this post reassures you that you are not alone.

Until next year…

This is something I have carried with me for a long time now. I have told various people about it in various conversations over the years, but had never gone fully public with this.

Until now.

I thought that I could just put it in the back of my mind and move on with my life, which I have done to a great extent. However, the memories, and more importantly the lingering and residual trauma, still haunt me to this day, and I believe keeping it mostly inside me has held me back somewhat, for a number of reasons.

I refuse to let that happen any longer, which is why I am now publicly calling out the Les Mills BODYSTEP Program Director Mark Nu’u-Steele for the bullying and intimidation that I suffered at his hands over an 18-month period during 2010 and 2011. Even though I am not as actively involved in the Les Mills community now as I was back then, I still believe it is my responsibility to speak out and ensure that this kind of situation never happens to any other Les Mills instructor out there.

Being on the autism spectrum, gaslighting happens to us on an almost daily basis (even for the most routine things), and at the time being undiagnosed, I did not know any better and I felt a whole heap of shame and guilt for “bringing this upon myself”, as a lot of bullies and those in power like to put on their victims. And even in the years since my diagnosis, where I do know better and am a lot wiser, those thoughts still come back now and then – even more reason for me to speak out now before it consumes me again.

How did it all start?

I first met Mark Nu’u briefly when I had my photo taken with him at a Les Mills masterclass filming after-party in Auckland in May 2009. I had just done my instructor training in BODYJAM about six months prior, and was still a starry-eyed fresh rookie instructor who had been drawn into this seemingly magical world that I never knew had existed.

I then got to know him a bit better when I came back for the following round of filmings in August 2009 – it was the round of BODYSTEP release 78, which ignited my love of BODYSTEP for the first time (and ended up being the release I would train on a few months later). I had also met and got to know other people like Sarah Robinson, and I felt accepted and welcomed into this ever-growing extended family.

I saw him again at a local instructor workshop in Melbourne that November where he was making a guest appearance, and I remember having a really good chat with him – I recall he was a nice guy and very down to earth.

I had skipped the next round of filmings and wouldn’t come back until January 2010, where they were preparing for the BODYSTEP 80 filming (it was a milestone filming as it was celebrating 20 years of the program). I had managed to get along to several of the trial classes, so I almost knew the release back-to-front before it had even been filmed.

Unfortunately I had to abruptly leave Auckland the week before the filming, due to a storm of clashing catastrophes in my life at the time (some of which I will write about another time). I remember messaging Mark on Facebook to tell him what had happened, and he made a comment about how I had suddenly disappeared.

I would not see him again until May 2010, and that’s where things started going downhill…

The Snide Comments Begin…

I had gone to the FILEX Les Mills workshop in Sydney in May 2010, to see the releases that I had missed at the filmings the past January, including BODYSTEP 80 and also BODYVIVE 15. It was the latter where Mark’s treatment of me took a very insidious turn.

I was in the front row as he was presenting a strength track, and while he was coaching about eye gaze, he then looks at me directly in the eye, and says,

“Patrick, stop looking at my crotch – I’ve heard things about you”

I had to do a double take just to make sure I had heard that correctly. But surely enough, that is what he said, over the microphone, in front of around 100+ people in the auditorium at the time.

The whole time afterwards, I was asking myself, “what the fuck was that all about?”. I even said as much to Carla, his wife at the time, but it was laughed off as “Mark being Mark”. If this were now, that in itself would have raised alarm bells for me, but me being the naïve instructor I was at the time, I just smiled and nodded, even though inside I was feeling really grossed out by the experience.

The next time I would see Mark was at the November 2010 filmings – I had come up just for the weekend, and had managed to get to a few filmings, including BODYSTEP 83. As an aside, that BODYSTEP release is my favourite of all time.

About a month or so later, one of my close friends in Auckland at the time had asked if I would provide a write up of my experience at the filming, and I was only too happy to do so seeing as I loved the release so much. I obviously did not talk about the music or songs, but I did discuss some of the choreography in light detail. I had also talked about the experience of one of the presenters battling an achilles injury against time to make it to the stage.

I made a link to it on my Facebook at the time – and that’s where I saw a really nasty side of Mark that I had never seen previously. He had made a comment on my Facebook post along the lines of,

“What and who the hell do you think you are to be posting about a release like this?”

Here’s the thing – there was nothing negative in my blog post whatsoever to suggest I was criticising the release – indeed I was gushing praise over it the whole time. And other people on that Facebook post basically called Mark out for that comment, after which he deleted it. But still I could tell something wasn’t right…

2011 – the bullying continues…

In January 2011 I came back for the following filming round, which I would end up doing for all four quarters that year. That particular round was BODYSTEP 84, where they were starting to make the program more athletic.

The first trial class I went to for it, there were a few presenters on stage in Studio 2 – Mark, the other presenters, and also the filming coach. Right before they started the class, Mark suddenly bellows out over his microphone almost randomly,

“No posting on Facebook or anywhere else about this, do you understand?”

I can remember the other presenter being “WTF” on stage and having to make some funny remark to keep things on track. I knew damn well though to whom Mark directed that comment, and my suspicions were confirmed a few hours after the class when I got this private message from him on Facebook…

“Ok, I’ve said my bit now. Enjoy your filming :)”

Not to mention that it was creepy to begin with, something inside me continued to feel very uneasy about the whole experience. But there was more to discover still…

It was also during this particular filming trip that I had discovered that Mark and a group of NZ and international instructors had started a little bitch group about me, using the code name of “Bambi” to describe me. I had also learned they were mocking other people as well, but their venom seemed mostly directed at me. Some of the people involved included:

* A local somewhat high-profile member of Les Mills Auckland (who sadly took his own life only a few years later);

* An up-and-coming presenter from Slovenia; and

* A BODYSTEP and BODYVIVE instructor from the US who was somewhat close to Mark following their collaboration on a specially-themed BODYSTEP release a couple of years prior.

I’m almost certain there were more people involved in this, but these are the ones I can confirm from screenshots that I saw at the time. Now I don’t know what I had even done to these people to warrant this treatment, but at that time it was quite distressing to read, and showed me a very ugly side of Les Mills that I had not seen previously.

Over the next couple of filmings in May and August that year, things were somewhat civil between Mark and myself. I even tried to get along with Mark, as in my eyes, he was in a position of authority and I wanted to make sure everything was ok (because of course I was thinking I had done something wrong, even if I actually hadn’t). That’s how insidious gaslighting can be, especially towards those who are neurodiverse.

But little did I know the worst of this was just around the corner…

THAT Filming…

I have mentioned this filming on a vague level in previous posts and the events that happened there. But now I feel ready to tell everything…

It was November 2011 and it was the BODYSTEP 87 filming. And it seemed to be one of those filmings where everything just went wrong – multiple retakes, you name it. But the thing that was the most wrong involved Mark himself…

I was a few rows back, and the filming had just started. We had got into Track 3, and there was a particular part of the track where two combos were being put together, and somehow it had not quite clicked for me and I missed the cue. And that’s where my life got turned upside down…

I suddenly heard Mark’s voice over the microphone booming with quite a hint of malice,

“Were you listening, Patrick? Clearly NOT!!”

Just like at that BODYVIVE workshop the previous year, I had to blink a few times just to made sure I had heard correctly. And then that uncertainty turned into pure horror, then immense embarrassment and, finally, complete shame. He had literally said this out loud in front of 200+ people in Studio 1 during a *live filming*.

It was the culmination of his campaign to belittle me, to make me feel worthless. I got to the end of the track, and then I escaped to the back corner of Studio 1, and just hid away a complete emotional wreck. I remember posting on Facebook at the time immediately after it happened, “No words”.

He had won. He had secured his sadistic victory in making me feel insignificant. He had officially broken me.

After the filming had finished (after what seemed like an eternity), two of my instructor friends found me in that back corner absolutely distraught, and they knew – they had heard the comment as well, and had noticed I had disappeared immediately after that track. My mind was in a total fog, and I was still processing everything in my head – the way Mark had treated me the past 18 months, the snide comments, the outright abuse on Facebook, and it finally came to a head in that one single moment.

The SHBAM 7 and BODYJAM 60 filmings were about to follow, and I didn’t feel up to it, but thankfully my friends who were there supporting me convinced me to stay. It just so happened that two Les Mills Asia Pacific presenters were on the SHBAM filming, and the amount of love that they showed me that night after what happened at the BODYSTEP filming did help to lift my spirits. You will see and hear one of the presenters give me a shout out in Track 7.

I managed to maintain enough energy to go to BODYJAM 60. If you watch, I’m in the front row, and that night I danced like I had never danced previously, if only to temporarily escape the hell that I had found myself in only a few hours beforehand. That alone is why release 60 is my of my favourites ever.

The Aftermath

Right after those filmings had finished, I headed off to Denny’s a few blocks up because I just needed to get away from everyone. I was on a high after SHBAM and BODYJAM, but was also still grappling with what Mark had done to me at that BODYSTEP filming. To say that there were many emotions going through my head at that point would be an understatement.

My friend found me at Denny’s a little while later, and not long after, another instructor friend found us and had brought along a senior LMAP representative. They just sat there and let me recount and regurgitate everything that had happened, including what Mark had said at the BODYVIVE workshop the previous year. They were shocked, and promised me they would make representations on my behalf to Les Mills International to lodge a formal complaint.

I felt good enough (although still quite emotionally raw) to come back down to the restaurant downstairs where the other LMAP instructors were, and spoke to a couple of them. And then, just as we were talking, I got a Facebook notification – Mark had had the nerve to “like” my “No words” post. I almost lost it right there, and my friends could see I was upset. So I showed them what he had done, and they said the usual things – “don’t let him get to you”, “he’s trying to intimidate you” etc.

Running in parallel with this, the following day, the filming coach for that BODYSTEP filming had also been in touch with me, and I had also told them exactly what happened. They would make their own representations directly to senior LMI representatives, who were also overseeing the filming process at the time.

And then I started getting messages from more people, including other LMAP trainers, asking me what had happened. And I was completely honest and told them everything. Little did I realise that some of these people didn’t have my best interest at heart and were just wanting the gossip. But me being the naïve instructor who just wanted to get along with everyone, I believed the concern at the time was coming from a good place.

And then to make things worse, I received yet *another* private message from Mark…

“Really??? I’ve watched the footage, and I think you’re being dramatic!!”

And thus the nightmare continued. The filming coach messaged me a bit later to say Mark swore that the comment was not made with any malice intended – no apology or anything, just Mark trying to absolve himself of any responsibility.

I had a coffee with another friend of mine that afternoon down by Auckland Waterfront, and I told them what had happened the previous night. Their paraphrased response:

“Well Program Directors are under so much stress and pressure, sometimes these things happen!”

This was the partner of a LMAP RPM presenter saying this to me, and I was just thinking “this is fucked”.

Another US instructor friend who was at that BODYSTEP filming said to me afterwards: “Oh I thought that was funny”, oblivious to what had been going on behind the scenes, but nevertheless it felt like yet another stab in the heart. I haven’t spoken to that instructor since then.

I had also put up a post that day showing my gratitude for the support I had received following the incident. And to indicate just how poisonous the whole thing was, a senior LMAP trainer left this very simple but all the same callous comment:

“Oh for God’s sake”

Not surprisingly, I ended up unfriending this trainer not long after, and lost all complete respect for them – and believe me some of the treatment I received from this particular trainer over the years warrants its own post.

Interestingly enough, I had also received a message from a local Les Mills Auckland member, who had told me that people had complained about Mark’s comments in classes all the time, but nothing ever seemed to be done, as it appeared that LMI tended to protect their own.

I eventually made it back home to Melbourne, to pick up the pieces, so to speak. LMAP maintained contact with me over the following days to keep me updated on the situation, and then I finally got the text from them:

“Any and all reference to yourself has been removed from the DVD”

And just like that, it was over. No apology from LMI, no acknowledgement of the harm and hurt it had caused me, just a simple wipe of the comment, as if it had never existed – and dare I say, almost as if it had been swept under the rug.

The Years Following

As someone who had been avidly going to filmings almost every quarter, it won’t come as a complete surprise that after the events of that filming, I decided to exile myself from Auckland for the foreseeable future. And the ensuing fallout from the whole experience also led me to move away from and deactivate my Facebook account in early 2012. I ended up deleting the whole account a few months later – something which was traumatising in itself at the time, but also quite cathartic.

That filming experience also shattered my faith in the Les Mills brand and group fitness as a whole, and during 2012, I needed to dig very deep to find alternative motivations for my continuing to teach. Thankfully it was right in front of me – my members. If it had not been for them, I don’t know how I would have survived as a instructor, and I owe them a whole heap of gratitude.

I skipped FILEX entirely in 2012 as there was no way I was going to expose myself to anyone from Auckland so soon after that filming. I made minimal and fleeting appearances at LMAP workshops, and tried to not interact with any other instructors unless necessary. Ultimately though, I chose to focus on myself and my own development, ending up finally getting certified in BODYPUMP in December 2012.

2013 was the year I finally felt confident enough to come out of my shell after a year of almost hiding from everyone. I went to FILEX that year and reunited with a lot of the friends who had been at that filming only six months before, and it felt ok.

However, one thing that made me feel ill at ease were the attempted justifications of Mark’s actions by certain people at FILEX, one of which included “I guess he’s had a stressful time coming out”. I mean, more and more it just felt like I was being made the issue rather than him, as if I was making a big deal out of nothing. In a sense, it was almost victim-blaming.

I had also noticed at that and subsequent FILEXs that some of the good relationships I had had previously with other Program Directors and International Presenters had suddenly gone cold, and included some very awkward interactions which not only left me feeling uncomfortable, but also left a lot of questions in my head. I had starting thinking in the back of my mind, “Had I done something wrong? Was I being ostracised? Was I being punished in some way? Is this how they treat “troublemakers”?”

As time went by, those events fell away to the side, albeit temporarily, as there was something else on the horizon that would ultimately take my focus over the next few years – my autism diagnosis. Ironically enough, it was the diagnosis that helped me to finally realise that I was not to blame for any of this happening to me. I was a victim as much as anyone else who has been a victim of any kind of bullying and harassment.

I actually returned to Auckland for a filming round in January 2016, as I was supporting a friend at the time who was presenting for BODYVIVE. Incidentally, Mark also happened to be one of the presenters there – he never once acknowledged my existence, not a single word, not even one glance of eye contact, but with my being in the front row, he knew I was there. The only difference was, I was a lot stronger at that point, and a lot more confidence in myself, and that gave me more power and control over the situation.

Having got to that point where I could kinda sorta put it behind me, I pushed it to the back of my mind as other life events took precedence – I left Australia at the end of 2017 to start a new life in Europe, and ultimately the UK and London. The events of November 2011 were not forgotten though, but were somewhat tolerated in my head.

Nevertheless, I still saw the random posts on social media from people praising Mark, and gushing over what a nice guy he is – everytime I saw something like that, it killed me a little inside. These people include ones who had supported me at that filming and had seen and heard firsthand what he did to me, and had even said at the time that they had lost respect for him – that killed me a little more.

I knew the cycle had to stop sooner or later – it was just a matter of finding the courage and headspace to confront it head-on.

And as life started to settle for me this year in 2021, I had a sudden realisation that it had been ten years since those horrible events. And it also made me accept that I had never fully come to terms with what had happened to me, mostly because there was never any satisfactory outcome or set of repercussions – just an erasing of a comment off a masterclass DVD as if it had never happened in the first place.

Why Now?

So I decided to do what I had got into the habit of doing the past few years with any thoughts that had been plaguing my mind – write this post. It was (and is) time for me to call out the atrocious behaviour that I had experienced all those years beforehand.

A very close friend of mine whom I had spoken to about this only a few day ago said to me, “think about what you hope to achieve by speaking out, what do you want to happen as a result of this, and what do you think will realistically happen?”. All very legitimate questions.

Throughout my whole life, but especially in my time as a dedicated Les Mills instructor, I have been called every name under the sun (sometimes to my face, but mostly behind my back because people are gutless like that) – attention seeker, trouble maker, loves the drama, overambitious. You name it, I’ve most likely been called it. And sadly it is something that seems to happen to neurodiverse people more than anyone else – that needs to stop now.

Back then, I still thought of the Les Mills community as being supportive of each other and wanting what was best for one another. So hearing those things said about someone like me who only wanted to do what he did well, those were multiple daggers through my heart.

And yes, I have thought about repercussions as well. How certain people will react to this – how will they react to me? These include LMAP trainers whom I also consider good friends or at least am on good times with.

To be fair, in the eyes of some other Les Mills trainers and presenters, whether LMAP, LMI, or elsewhere, I was always considered an outsider, an interloper, not worthy of climbing up the Les Mills ladder, amongst other things. That might have mattered to me back then when I was craving acceptance from everyone around me, and indeed it was a big reason as to why I initially didn’t speak up publicly for a number of years (I was afraid of wide-scale rejection).

Nowadays though, different story. I am confident enough in myself and my abilities that what other people think of me and my actions doesn’t hurt me anymore. Since my autism diagnosis in 2015, I’ve used that framework to better navigate my strengths and opportunities, and know what my limits are as a person. I know that being different is ok, and in fact is something I actively embrace nowadays – diversity is a good thing. I know what I will and won’t tolerate.

More importantly, I found my voice – the voice that had been stuck inside me for all those years fearing rejection if I were to speak out. I don’t fear that anymore.

If certain people want to continue calling me names and throwing dirt at me (and I know they will when they read this post), then by all means let them. And believe me, I know there are still those instructors and trainers out there who will defend the Les Mills name to the death, in the absence of any reason or logic – whether people acknowledge this or not, there is a cult mentality within the Les Mills universe.

Which is why, most of all, it is my responsibility to speak out against the sadistic behaviour that I had to endure totally unnecessarily. This kind of behaviour by people in places of power is still pervasive no matter which industry, which profession, and it is up to us all to stand up against it.

I don’t wish for any type of revenge – I just need to have my voice heard on this, the suffering I’ve endured recognised, and the acknowledgement that none of this was ever my fault. Validation is a powerful thing – it ensures that we are not alone in our suffering. And to have validation, there also needs to be empathy and compassion – traits that have been sorely lacking in the Les Mills leadership structure for many years.

Hence why I am speaking up now. I hope that this gives other people reading this the courage and strength to also make their voices heard about any ill-behaviour they have suffered at the hands of peers and/or people in positions of authority.

As I said in my first couple of blog posts on this site, the truth will set me free. To those of you out there still suffering in silence, I stand with you.

When I wrote Part 1 of this back in early August, I was only beginning to properly recover from the breakdown that I had experienced in late April. The whole ordeal had left me very emotionally raw and quite empty, and it was going to take quite some time before I could get back to that state of equilibrium that I had prior to the breakdown.

But also as I wrote in that first part, the rebuilding and recovery process meant that I had to start fresh. I had to press reset on all on my friendships and relationships, and start to rediscover life more independently. I realised that I had come to depend on way too many people in the last few years, most of who seemed to disappear when the bad times came about a few months ago. They say you can never have too many friends, which is true, but what they don’t say is that they need to be of quality. And I’m at a point now where quality matters to me more than anything else.

On that note, my usage of Facebook has gone down to virtually zero. I don’t even really post on Instagram either. I realised that having been on Facebook as much as I was prior to lockdown had a detrimental effect on my mental and emotional wellbeing. I was depending on Facebook and my posting on there for my emotional support. In hindsight, it was one of the factors that led to my breakdown.

I find Twitter to be best suited to my intellectual needs nowadays. It’s not so much an emotional crux as Facebook was, and it’s how I get most of my world news anyway. As I touched on in Part 1, I did a cathartic clear-out of a lot of “friends” and “follows” across all of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I took away a number of people whom I felt had not been there for me as much I had been for them. They were disproportionate relationships that were draining me detrimentally, and I knew that if I hung onto those, it would get worse for me. So I drew a line.

New friendships have formed, and some old ones have been rebuilt with stronger layers. I’m getting more used to standing my ground and ensuring that my voice is being heard more in those one-one relationships. One of the things I resolved myself to do following my breakdown was never to be taken for granted again, and while that has resulted in the quantity of my friendships decreasing, the quality of the remaining ones has increased a lot. And that has given me a great deal of satisfaction.

On the employment front it has been a fascinating journey, with a number of eye-opening moments. Obviously with the gyms being shut over lockdown, I had no work. In fact I was having to rely on the self-employed grants from the UK government to survive. Sadly though, it wasn’t all roses after lockdown was lifted.

When gyms reopened in late July, I got treated quite appallingly by one of the gym chains with whom I had had permanent classes prior to lockdown – in fact they had unceremoniously terminated my contract, and deemed via an algorithm (I kid you not) that I was not worthy enough to continue teaching the classes that I had owned for six months. Another gym chain with whom I had permanent classes had changed their music policy post-lockdown, which meant that I could no longer teach from the immense back catalogue of music that I had accumulated over the years, and thus dampening the experience for both myself and my members (and for any Australian instructors of a certain era reading this, you will know exactly what I mean – I still bear the battle scars ten years later and was not willing to compromise myself again).

So the resultant lack of work left me with two options – either I leave the UK entirely, never to look back, or put my name out there and start to look for office work again. So I did something I never thought I would do – I created a LinkedIn profile. And it actually felt really good completing it, reflecting on all the experience both fitness and corporate that I had gained over the last 17 years or so. I even responded to a few job ads. Those of you who have been unemployed will relate to the feeling of sending your CV out to 10+ recruiters daily, and just literally crossing your fingers and hoping for the best, which is especially not easy in a pandemic situation with multiple workplace restrictions. Sigh. But it was not all bad as it turned out – indeed, there was a highly unexpected silver lining…

In mid-August (a couple of weeks after I wrote Part 1 of this tale), I received an unsolicited call from a recruitment agency who had discovered my CV on a website that I had applied through via LinkedIn. They explained to me that they had a role available within the Civil Service that required an immediate start. I had never worked in the Civil Service before, or any public sector job for that matter. But with all the setbacks that I had experienced with the gyms, and the fact that the economic situation in the UK was about to get *much worse*, I gathered the universe was trying to tell me something. And if there was one industry that was guaranteed to keep functioning throughout a recession, it would be the Civil Service.

So I duly accepted. At the time of writing this, it has been almost three weeks since I commenced. And I am relishing all the challenges that it is providing me so far. I won’t go too much into the role itself, but I will say that it is working within a part of the Civil Service that is under a lot of pressure right now, and I don’t envy anybody who has to deal with that at the present moment.

On a social level, I have only just recently started to physically socialise with people again, albeit with a few caveats. Social distancing being a must, only within my local area, and always outdoors (the third one might get a little tricky though as we head into the winter months). In a sense I am still keeping my movements limited as they were during lockdown, as I believe that is the best way to keep the wider community safe. In fact (and this may be considered too much information for some of you out there, so just warning you now), it has meant that I have been celibate for quite some time. Not an easy feat by any means if one is a gay man like myself, and yes it has been rather challenging at times, thanks for asking. But believe it or not (and this is the reason why I bothered to mention this at all), there was another unexpected silver lining…

I was at a point in August where I wanted to do something worthwhile. And then I thought one day, just totally randomly,

“Hey I haven’t slept with anybody in six months – I can donate blood!”

You see, being a gay man, there are still a number of activities, even in 2020, that I am restricted from doing that most straight people would have no issues with partaking in. One of those activities is donating blood.

These restrictions date back to the days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, where some blood supplies were inadvertently contaminated with HIV, which in turn led to a number of people becoming infected with HIV as a result of blood transfusions. This also led to a number of lawsuits against the Red Cross, which in turn resulted in a number of restrictions against men who have sex with men (MSM) in giving blood, as they are still deemed to this day a high-risk category.

BUT there are ways around this. These days, MSM *can* donate blood, provided that they have not had any sexual contact with other men within the last three months. Still a bit restrictive if you ask me, especially with the multitude of screenings that the blood goes through these days before it is even deemed worthy of donation, but it has certainly improved over the last 30 years or so.

So that’s what I did a few weeks ago. I donated blood for the first time ever in my life. And I can honestly say that it was one of the best things I’ve done where I felt I truly gave back to the community.

And a bonus silver lining that came out of the donation – my blood type is O negative, which means I am what they call a Universal Donor. Only 7% of the population have this blood type, and it is the one used by emergency services when an urgent transfusion is required. So I consider myself extra blessed that I can help the most number of people out there.

As we move into a new month of this highly unpredictable year, I look back on the previous six months, and I realise that my life is incredibly different now to how it was even that short time ago. I wouldn’t say it is better, but it is nevertheless different, and I’m deriving a lot of joy from discovering this new life of mine. And for me, that is the ultimate unexpected silver lining of all.

It would be an understatement to say that the last four months have been eventful. For me personally, it has been an insane rollercoaster ride, with many ups and downs, both emotionally and mentally. I never imagined at the beginning of lockdown just what a personal internal journey it would ultimately become for me.

I realised in the first few weeks of lockdown that I was putting myself out there trying to connect with people, asking if they were ok, reassuring them that their feelings and emotions were valid. And yet hardly anyone was doing that for me in return. I actually felt alone, aimless, insignificant. And it got me to thinking just how much I had been take advantage of during my 40 years of living. To be so dependable and kind-hearted that people automatically think that you’re just going to be there as if you have nothing better to do with your life.

When I went through my diagnostic process for autism, I started writing and voicing a lot more of what I felt and what I had experienced during my life. For me it was (and still is) therapy. But I also saw it as a way to educate people on how life can be as someone who is on the spectrum, especially one who was diagnosed late in life. I wanted others to see what I saw, to experience what I experience, to develop empathy and compassion for situations similar to my own. Unfortunately, I have learned that a lot of the time it is like screaming into an abyss, and you wonder if anyone actually hears you.

I look upon my diagnosis as a mark of validation for the person that I am, as a way for myself to realise, “this is why I have felt so different and alien to everyone else in my life for such a long time”. The sad thing is, I came to the realisation that I still do feel somewhat alien, even now.

One day towards the end of April, something inside of me finally screamed “I’ve had enough!”. Enough of being taken for granted by people whom I cared about. Enough of being spoken down to and patronised after talking about my personal experiences. Enough of having to fight at least twice as hard as everyone else for the last 40 years just to feel the same level of social respect and acceptability. Enough of feeling like I’m screaming into that abyss every time I open myself up. It just became too much.

As a way of trying to release some of that internal pressure, I wrote a long post on Facebook and Instagram about my frustrations of being a square peg in a round hole. It’s still up there if you want to take a look, actually.

But by that point, the sail had already sailed, so to speak. I ended up having an emotional breakdown that same evening. For a while now I had been trying to find the right words to describe it – breakdown, meltdown, semi-meltdown/breakdown. But I realise now that it was indeed a breakdown of my emotional regulation, of what had kept me going and surviving up to that point.

For weeks on end, I went virtually incommunicado on all social media (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter). I felt just about foetal. I did not want to talk to anybody at all, let alone at length. There were those who messaged me, wanting to know why I was so silent, wanting to know that everything was ok. I didn’t reply to them, I needed to cut myself out completely and be on my own, otherwise I knew I would fall back into the same cycle of thinking about everyone else over myself. Some of them even tried to call, but all I said was that I was alive. That’s all they needed to know at the time.

In my head, the support network I thought I had built so well had let me down so badly. I was well and truly alone, in my body, in my heart, in my mind and in my soul. I went through a long period of self-reflection, reliving just about every horrible memory in my life associated with being different and not knowing why, and reopening a number of old wounds that I thought I had closed long ago. Every moment was me wondering how my life had got so messed up as it currently was, thinking about “what if” my autism had been diagnosed years earlier – would I be happier, more stable, would I be considered more acceptable by everyone.

Those of you who know me also know that I’m very much about emotional intelligence and honesty, not being afraid to express what you’re feeling and letting yourself feel what needs to be felt at that moment. For me blocking any emotions is quite unhealthy and leads to many issues further down the line. In the same vein, I abhor toxic positivity – being positive for the sheer sake of it, not because it’s something you genuinely feel. And using that to guilt everyone around them not to feel anything else. Quite frankly, that is dangerous, especially in uncertain times like these.

Sadly though, a number of folks whom I thought were my friends were going down that route. And it made me realise that I didn’t want to associate myself with people who try to whitewash problems with such proclamations of “positive vibes only”, and “don’t worry things will get better very soon”. I remember commenting on Twitter just after my birthday that those things are probably the worst things one can say to someone who just needs to be heard and listened to, but that is for another time and place.

As such, no one understood or wanted to understand what I was going through. No one in my life had the capability to acknowledge and empathise with what I had experienced. They smile, they nod and they try to offer solutions – without actually *listening*, without *hearing* what I was trying to communicate. It’s almost as though they do not want to be present with me in that moment and they keep me at arm’s length while trying to “say the right things”. And I’ve allowed that to happen to me over so many years, perhaps as a matter of keeping the peace or not wanting to cause trouble. It’s only now that I can see and feel the damage that it has ultimately caused me.

Recovery & Rebuilding

So these last three months have been about rediscovering and rebuilding myself from a pile of emotional rubble. And it has not been an easy journey. I knew (and still know) that I could not go back to the way things were, to me constantly self-deprecating, to me subconsciously adjusting my behaviour and my mannerisms, just to be liked and accepted. That would be lying to myself as well as to everyone else.

It’s quite strange in a way that one of the biggest sources of support and understanding came not from my existing friendship base, but the strangers I chatted to on the gay social apps. They exhibited so much more empathy than the people I actually knew in real life – they listened, they understood, and they didn’t judge. They took the time to get to know me, without all the pre-loaded emotional baggage. At long last I felt heard. And it was from those conversations that I began to once again draw strength, slowly but surely. I managed to get myself chatting to people again, although still not on the level that I was pre-lockdown.

But what about my existing relationships? I’ve essentially pressed the reset button on those. As I was reflecting on my past life after the worst of the breakdown, I made a conscious decision to wipe the slate clean on all the friendships and relationships I had pre-lockdown. It doesn’t mean that they’re strangers now, but more that the relationships need to be rebuilt with new layers of trust, honesty, respect, understanding, empathy, and of course compassion.

I managed to get myself to attend a few Zoom parties while I was still in recovery mode. And the great thing about being in recovery after something like this is that as you are still feeling somewhat raw, you get to observe how you truly react and deal with the world around you. And the Zoom parties confirmed one thing for me: I don’t do groups very well, not unless I know and trust *every single person* in that group. If it is a gathering of lots of people whom I don’t know, I will instantly become lost amongst the voices, no matter how much effort I make to contribute to any conversation. I will simply retreat into a corner and enjoy my own company. I came to the realisation a while ago that I do not possess the innate skills required to interact in a group setting like that – I tend to shut up and listen.

On that basis, I made a decision that if people want to get to know me, they need to do it on my level – one on one. It ensures that I have their focus, as they would mine. And from there true connection occurs. It’s no longer enough for people to say “hey, come and join us, you’ll have fun”. Not if I don’t know or trust those who are attending. If I do end up going, it will be for another reason, and you will find me once again in the corner.

In the same token, I also came to realise that I had accumulated many people throughout my life, but especially in the last few years, who simply just didn’t give a damn about the life that I led, or the person I had grown to become. I had found particularly after I left Australia to go to Europe, a number of my friends just drifted away. Now that in itself is natural – friends come and go, etc etc.

But I also turned 40 during this lockdown. I knew that I was not getting any younger. And especially coming out of the breakdown, I wanted my life to have more meaning. And that included friendships. The saying “quality over quantity” carries for me a stronger meaning than ever. I had many people message me wishing me a happy birthday that day, and yet for me I didn’t feel like celebrating or responding to anyone. In fact a lot of the time, it felt rather contrived for me, although I do know that they meant well in their own way.

Throughout these past few months, I have put myself at arm’s length from just about everyone I know, and not just in a pandemic-induced socially distanced sense. Over the last few weeks especially, I have been going through my social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter), unfriending and unfollowing people whom I felt no longer contributed anything of real value to my life. Those people were just *there* – relics of another time, another place, but which had no relevance to where I was today.

Some won’t even realise that I have unfriended them. They will just move on with their own lives as if nothing has happened. And so I must do the same with my own life. I’ve always been one of sentiment, holding on to the good memories, the good times. And I know I can still look back on those, but I can also be ruthless at the same time.

Some of you may be curious as to how I survived on my own all these months. Thankfully I had a lot of things to occupy my time and energy – Animal Crossing, Duolingo, Eurovision, just to name a few. I even stopped exercising completely, apart from the suggested daily walks. And for someone who had been teaching group fitness almost non-stop for over 11 years, being sedentary for four months does help give one another perspective. When I was at the gym the other day covering a class, I weighed myself for the first time since before lockdown, and was stunned to discover that I had put on about five kilos. It literally was the heaviest weight that I have ever been, and for someone who has had trouble putting on weight since forever, this was actually a happy moment for me.

On the Eurovision front especially, it has helped me a lot through this rebuilding journey, particularly the #EurovisionAgain evenings where I managed to discover a lot of music that I had not previously appreciated. Most of you know that I had been intending to go to Rotterdam for the contest this year before it was cancelled, so having a virtual Eurovision to re-watch every weekend was something to keep me motivated. Some songs even made me cry a lot, which in turn helped released the emotional burden I had been carrying. Some of them are even helping to inspire me on my way forward from here, in fact.

Where to from here?

If I am going to live my life truthfully and honestly, and not compromise myself or my integrity, the way I live it will be very different to how it was pre-lockdown. I use Twitter a lot more these days just to keep myself within the current affairs climate, but at this point, I will still not be posting much (if at all) on Facebook or Instagram. I am on Messenger and WhatsApp though. Those who want to keep in touch can do so one on one (a couple of you have been doing so already).

I am still the same person who has the empathy and compassion that you know me for, and I will be there if you need me. But I am not taking anything for granted anymore, and if there is to be anybody in my life, I need to be confident that they approach the friendship from a place of acknowledgement and being present. Like I said above, it’s more the quality than the quantity now.

On that front, I am also more than aware that some people whom I had been close to prior to lockdown might choose to drift away based on what I have written thus far. I don’t hold any grudges on that front, and I thank you for what you did bring to my life. However, I do need to focus more on myself, and be more selfish in that sense, rather than put everyone else’s considerations above my own.

As at time of writing, I am not meeting anybody socially, despite the relative lift in restrictions since lockdown was initially imposed. Firstly, cases are on a slight rise here in the UK, and secondly it’s also giving me space to get truly settled within myself so I do come back with renewed inner strength.

I am in a much better position emotionally and mentally than I was three months ago. But my outlook on life has changed. It is very different to what it was pre-lockdown. The rollercoaster may yet still have a few dips to travel. But I am more certain now of who I am and what I want from life itself, even if it means I have to live it completely on my own.

I remember as a kid back in Australia watching Eurovision in the 90s, and being fascinated not by any of the songs (for me they were the boring bit), but by the slow unfold of the voting as each country gave their points from 1 up to the magic douze. This was totally fine for the numbers-obsessed boy that I was (and still am, to be honest).

And yet there would be a certain country I would get myself attached to during the voting sequence (it would differ for each Eurovision), and I would get really excited whenever they scored 12 from another country and disappointed when their scores would be low. That would mark the beginning of my emotional involvement with the contest.

The peak of this emotional rollercoaster ride would be in 2016 when I went to Stockholm for the contest that year. It was Australia’s second year of participation in the contest, and one that would end up going to the wire in the grand final. Dami Im did Australia proud in the second place that she ultimately received, having been beaten by a handful of points by Ukraine. Nevertheless it set Australia in place as a legitimate force within Eurovision.

I remember feeling disappointed by the result for a number of days, and it took a bit of soul searching until one day I had a lightbulb moment. I needed to remember what Eurovision was all about. And I did – the music. I had become too immersed and emotional in the competition aspect of it that it prevented me from enjoying the music itself.

When I consciously refocused my attention away from the competition, it allowed me to attain a level of enjoyment of the contest that I had never had before. Whether a song comes first, tenth, or doesn’t progress past the semi finals, that is much of a muchness. The diversity of the performances every year helps to make the contest what it is today (and what it has been for the last 65 years).

Every year during National Final season (and indeed during the main contest itself), we instantly become armchair experts. We seem to know exactly what an artist needs to do to make their act ever so perfect so as to gain the douze points from as many countries as possible. There are a few issues with this though.

For starters, the viewership of Eurovision is as diverse as the artists and songs themselves. And with that diverse viewership comes diverse tastes. We continually convince ourselves year after year that what we *personally* like is what everyone else must like as well (particularly when we are in a small group of people that share the same opinion – an echo chamber, if you may).

We must be careful though not to extrapolate our internal biases into what we believe the wider viewing public wants. Just because a certain type of performance won in a particular year doesn’t mean it will win again the following year. And likewise, a certain genre that didn’t do so well in one year might end up doing really well in another year.

That is the beauty of Eurovision – the result is never truly predictable, despite what the betting markets and armchair experts might say otherwise. And we unfortunately as a fandom lose ourselves so much in the punditry and speculation in the lead-up to the contest that we have difficulty stepping back and saying to ourselves, “let’s just see what songs come up and watch how they perform in the main contest”.

That lends itself to subsequent frustration when certain artists then proceed to not do what we want them to do. But if all the artists did were to do exactly what we told them to do, it would become a very boring and predictable contest because we would know instantly what was going to happen. One of the spectacles of Eurovision is the element of surprise, the capturing of spontaneous moments. They are what often endear viewers to certain songs and artists.

By us dictating what a particular artist should or should not do with their song (because of course we’re all armchair experts at the end of the day, it seems, and must all have an opinion on something), we are in fact robbing them of their autonomy and their artistic freedom. We must keep in mind that these artists have worked hard to bring their performance to the Eurovision stage, and it helps to remember that this has been a journey for them too. Hindsight is always 20/20, but one past experience is never exactly the same as a future one. We need to start respecting and trusting the artists more to unveil their own magic.

That is not to say that criticism is not allowed. Remember we are all individuals with our own tastes and preferences, and thus we might have our own opinions about a certain song, a certain performance, even a certain artist. But criticism is like feedback – it should be coming from a place of respect and a desire to help that artist grow and succeed. And if that respect is not there in the feedback that we give, then why would any artist listen to what we have to say?

Quite often on social media, we seem to be in our own little contest to come up with the funniest and most shocking insult towards a particular artist and/or country. This would be, for example, a comment about their clothing, or about their voice, or even downright sexism. Social media seems to give some of us carte blanche to say what is on our minds completely unfiltered, with no regard for the target audience to whom the comments are being directed. I had a very deep discussion with a fellow Eurovision fan the other night, who said that sometimes a lot of things are said as banter and not really meant as an insult. In this day and age though, we must be mindful that we do not blur the line between banter and insult, as this otherwise leads to normalisation of the behaviour that we should be steering away from.

Also, in this age of social media, a lot of us do not realise that there are often the artists themselves who see these comments and wonder what they have done to receive this disrespect. Thankfully, a lot of them have enough self-confidence to know what their strengths and talents are, and will only listen to feedback and criticism from those that they trust and respect. And really, that goes for any type of feedback we give and receive in our everyday lives.

In being fans of Eurovision, we often picture ourselves as having a stake in the outcome of the contest itself, as if for some of us, it’s a matter of life or death. It excites us to consider ourselves as having “skin in the game”. So when an artist of a particular country performs and their performance doesn’t conform to the image that we had thought up in our heads (even thought it might have won a National Final or even got a respectable result in the main contest), we instantly lash out at them and list all their faults instead of celebrating the effort and achievement that the artist has attained. It displays a large amount of disrespect towards that artist and the work that they have put in their act. I have observed this more ever since Australia started officially participating in the contest in 2015, and more still since I became part of the UK Eurovision community in 2019.

It is sad that there will be fans out there who will never be satisfied unless everything is perfect (and we all logically know that perfection does not exist, thus those fans find themselves in an endless loop of criticism and backlash, with no way to derive happiness from the performances that they see and hear). It goes back to my point about certain fans becoming too invested in the competition aspect and not seeing the broader perspective. And in turn, not seeing that perspective takes away our ability to just enjoy the contest for what it is – a celebration of diversity and inclusivity through the magic of music. We see this in national level shows like Italy’s Sanremo and Albania’s Festivali I Kenges (shows that in fact predate their involvement in Eurovision itself and thus focus on the musical aspect). Are we as a fandom losing sight of that due to our own competitiveness?

In the journey I have undertaken as a Eurovision fan, I sometimes look back on the younger me who got more of a kick out of the voting sequences than the music. And I wonder how he would fare in today’s Eurovision climate…

As I write this, I am currently in Cambridge, England, where they have an amazing Les Mills culture. I have been fortunate enough over the past two weeks to have a couple of team teaches of BODYVIVE with an awesome local instructor here, and it has reminded me so much of just what a revolutionary program BODYVIVE was.

In my 9 years of teaching Les Mills, nothing has jarred me as much in recent times as the complete destruction of the BODYVIVE program. As I write this, BODYVIVE is “undergoing a transition” to a new Les Mills program called Tone, except it’s not so much a transition but textbook examples of how NOT to conduct change management and how to completely disregard and disrespect the history of the program it is meant to be succeeding.

And as I see many (but not all) of my former BODYVIVE instructors and trainers alike jump aboard the Tone train and move on from their BODYVIVE careers without so much as a backward glance, I personally believe the influence of BODYVIVE in the wider Les Mills space is something that has not been talked about and acknowledged. So this is where we discuss what BODYVIVE brought to the table in terms of workout trends and instructing skills…

Functional Training

One would be extremely hard pressed to find mention of the words “functional training” prior to BODYVIVE coming into being, particularly as the program evolved. BODYVIVE’s combination of cardio, strength and core was, in its later days, a mixed-impact cross-training workout that exploited the use of functional movement, ie. the movement that we use in our everyday activities outside of the gym environment.

But even in its earlier days, BODYVIVE was all about coaching benefits and relating movement to the things we did on a regular basis, eg. Lifting bags, sitting upright at a desk, even just walking and running properly. Previously these were ideas that never really got a mention in other programs. BODYVIVE helped to give it prominence and purpose.

CXWORX

Most people would know that out of Les Mills’ functional training thought process came this: CXWORX. A 30-minute intense core workout that works every single muscle of our core unit: hips, abdominals, obliques, posterior chain (including the butt).

But what Les Mills International (LMI) refuse to publicly acknowledge even today is this: CXWORX was born out of BODYVIVE. It wouldn’t even exist today had it not been for BODYVIVE.

Attendees and instructors of CXWORX alike would know all the core and hip work that we do on the floor and standing with the tube. That was all BODYVIVE. So before any of you say that BODYVIVE was an easy program for the oldies, think about those tracks you see and do in a CXWORX class and then revisit that opinion.

Inclusive Coaching

Traditionally as instructors, when we have coached alternative movements for our members during a class, we’ve always simply said “if you can’t do this option, here’s another option for you”. However it was recognised in both CXWORX and BODYVIVE that phrasing it this way unwittingly creates subclasses of participants, and might cause people to feel inadequate about taking a lower-impact alternative as it makes them look weaker than other people in the room.

In CXWORX initial module training, we were explicitly taught early on that any options we gave had to be specifically qualified – ie. WHY would one be inclined to take that particular choice over another, rather than just the usual “if you can’t do A, then do B”. It was seen as giving people an easy way out rather than making them determined to stick out the tougher choice.

In later releases of BODYVIVE, we delved more explicitly into inclusive coaching – the principle that every choice one makes in terms of movement is equally valid choice to another choice of movement made by someone else in the room. It veered away from the “us vs them” mentality and brought everyone in the room together as one team getting fitter and stronger in their own way.

I’ve noticed more programs in recent times start to adopt this approach to coaching. I can certainly attest to this helping to broaden and improve my own skills as an instructor and coach more to the people to whom I teach. And I thank BODYVIVE and CXWORX for helping this concept come to life.

Innovative Leadership

But to finish up, it was the leadership of one person that cemented BODYVIVE’s (and in turn CXWORX’s) reputation as a trailblazing program. The contribution of Susan Trainor to the Les Mills universe cannot be understated. And anyone who has watched her on BODYVIVE and/or CXWORX masterclasses readily acknowledges the grace and class with which she moves, as well as the logical and intelligent choreography in every single track that she creates. And we can’t forget her expert precise coaching either.

She has earned the title of LadyVive, MamaVitch, and a host of others. But what she has truly earned from all of us is our gratitude for the knowledge and expertise that she has imparted on us, and we have all become better instructors as a result. Thank you Susan, and thank you BODYVIVE!

There is undoubtedly more that BODYVIVE has contributed to the Les Mills universe that doesn’t get spoken about. So feel free to comment, and even share this post if you think there might be people who don’t know enough about BODYVIVE’s contribution. And LMI, it might do you a favour or two to hold on to some of those ideas 😉

I have a very convoluted relationship with the concept of groups. For starters, as someone on the Autism Spectrum, I tend not to fit in naturally with groups on a social level (and this has been something I’ve experienced ever since early childhood). 

It comes down to the very root of the word “autism” – to be unique, to be individual, and to do things on one’s own. And that certainly fits me to a tee in terms of how I interact with other people. I have always been someone who has thrived on the more personal types of interactions, ie. the 1-1 style. It’s where I find we develop the most connection with people, and learn a lot about ourselves in the process.

For as long as I can remember, I have been stubbornly independent, always wanting to do things my own way. But being back in a time where ASD and Aspergers were virtually unknown concepts, I was made out to feel that my way was the wrong way. I had no choice but to conform with the other neurotypical kids. And it was constantly awkward as fuck.

Fast forward to today. It’s been a couple of years now since I went through the diagnostic process and finally got the answers I had always been seeking about myself. Knowing that there had never been anything wrong with me in the first place, I at last had the freedom I always sought to just be myself.

And along the way, I found out who my true friends were. Luckily enough, they were the people who had always been there to start with. A wise friend once said something to me along the lines of, 

“Just allow yourself to be the good person that you know you are, and everyone will naturally gravitate towards your positive energy”.

I certainly find that this has been the case, and because of this, I consider myself to be one of the luckiest people in the whole world.

However, I currently find myself in a situation where it feels like I’ve gone back to my childhood in a lot of ways. It certainly brings back some sad memories of the sheer awkwardness and alienation I felt growing up.

Some of you know that I recently returned to the workforce in April of this year, as a way to try to rebuild my financial situation. So right now, I’m working in a mainly administration role for a major financial services organisation on a 6-month contract, and the role itself is something I like doing. There are many other factors at play here that are making things rather difficult with this role, but these are not relevant to this particular conversation.

One factor that has been driving me crazy though is the interpersonal dynamic within the division I work for. My colleagues have all worked together for at least 4 years, so they are a close-knit group. There are a few people in the division with whom there is potential for a decent individual connection, and one in particular with whom I found I had a lot in common. This particular colleague has a thirst for knowledge very similar to mine, and will almost always be on their phone checking out the latest happenings in the world – almost exactly like me.

One problem – they insist that I should hang out with “the group”, being this core ensemble of people that seem to be inseparable, almost like a high school clique. Now anyone who knows me also knows that I don’t do cliques. I am my own person, I have the confidence I need to do things on my own, and the friends that I have in my life are my friends for a damn good reason.

And yet it felt like that for me to gain friendship with this colleague, I had to go through “the group” to do so. So I did a couple of times. And it was the most excruciating thing I’ve had to do.

Here’s the thing… I have next to nothing in common with these people (apart from the colleague I mentioned earlier). I certainly am not wiser about any of them from the group chats that I was so fortunate enough to observe (trust me, there were many other things I’d rather have done at that time).

The sad thing is that at the time, I liked my colleague a lot, to the point that I almost comprised who I was as a person just so I could gain their acceptance and friendship. It was a hark back to the days of high school and university where it seemed more socially acceptable to have friends than it was to be on one’s own.

There is another tricky element to all of this. No one at work knows about my ASD (or if they do, they have not said anything), and it’s not something I’m gonna volunteer proactively unless I am asked. There is still a lot of stigma attached to ASD and Aspergers in the workplace, and right now I need the money (otherwise I would not have gone back to corporate work in the first place).

(DISCLAIMER: I am fully aware that any one of my work colleagues could simply do a Google search on my name, and hey presto this post comes up. I am totally prepared to deal with any consequences of that happening (at the end of the day, this is my own personal blog, I have not named any names/organisations, and because this is my blog, I can say whatever the fuck I want))

In saying that, I have made it clear to a couple of my colleagues that if they want to get to know me as a person, then they need to do it on a 1-1 level. This is how they will find out what I am about. With the aforementioned colleague above, they haven’t seemed to get the hint, and they default to the group setting. I have even said to them “let’s hang out sometime”, “let’s do something outside of work”. And in return…

**CRICKETS**

It’s personally not worth the emotional effort and energy for me to try for something that is always going to be one-sided, particularly when it’s playing by someone else’s rules. A lot of you will read this and say “well maybe you should make an effort to fit in to the group”. You may as well say to me “take your square-pegged self and fit it into any of the round holes that exist in the group”. 

Not. Gonna. Happen.

As I said above, I am extremely lucky and blessed enough that I have so many wonderful people in my life, who support me and give me their friendship and love unconditionally, and yet they know I am very different to most people around me and fully accept that too (it’s probably why they love me so, who knows).

So at this point in time, my focus is on those people whom I do have in my life as opposed to the ones who seem nice to have. Who knows, maybe if I continue to be the good-natured independent individual that I am, then others might eventually want to see what I’m all about.

Imagine meeting someone for the first time, and then being placed into a situation where you have to interact with them pretty much every day. You’ll often find you get to know them on a somewhat personal level, and a little connection starts to form.

You then realise that you are attracted to them, and that little connection manifests itself into a crush. The interactions start to become internally awkward as fuck as you try to figure out frantically how to back out without getting yourself hurt (because you have been in this very position many times before).

But he then says something kind and seemingly innocuous, and you helplessly get drawn back in straight away like a rip in the sea. You do not even know for sure if he is gay or straight, but you know he seems to like you – and for you that should be enough.

But then the overanalysing begins.

In your mind there are still so many unanswered questions about this new-found friendship that you begin to doubt yourself. You replay every conversation through your head, every word, every sentence, the tone that was used – anything that could help you decipher this mystery and give you the certainty that you crave.

Your mind says logically there is nothing there, but your heart says otherwise. And the emotions you are experiencing right now are so overpowering that they are drowning you. You cannot get this guy out of your head, no matter how much you distract yourself, how much you keep telling yourself “SNAP THE FUCK OUT OF IT!”

You eventually manage to resurface from the water for a little while, only to be dragged back in by a thought, by an interaction, and the internal nightmare commences all over again. Your mind ends up becoming an overheated CPU with no way to expel the heat, and a fog starts to set in as your brain moves into meltdown mode to compensate.

Your everyday life becomes a struggle, already trying to cope with the extra-sensory awareness of the outside world, while the internal war continues. You will know it will end soon, because it has always ended before, with you rising from the ashes again to move on with the rest of your life.

But in the meantime, I still have to deal with a self-inflicted broken heart. 

The below post was originally a status update I posted on Facebook on 12 February 2017 as a stream of consciousness post. But I realised later that it also warranted its own blog post. So feel free to read on…
For all the positive things that have happened in my life since I was diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum (and believe me, there are many things), there’s also the stuff that I have become a lot more aware of in terms of treatment from other people:

• Being aware of the distance in social situations that people automatically put between themselves and me that they don’t do with other people, because I seem “weird” or “different” from everybody else…
• The feeling of being talked down to by other people (including some friends and loved ones) when I try to comment on a topic of discussion and being made to feel like my opinion doesn’t matter or it is not sophisticated enough for their liking…
• Frequently establishing great relationships with new people, only for them to mysteriously go cold for apparently no reason whatsoever…

I did not ask to be on the spectrum. Much like I did not choose to be gay. This is the way that I am. And having learnt so much in recent times about the concept of privilege, I am now more consciously experiencing firsthand what it is like to be treated differently because of something that you cannot control.
A lot of things made so much sense to me after I was diagnosed, and now I do not feel so forced to conform to neurotypical expectations. In saying that though, the more that I embrace myself and my personality, the more alone I seem to feel.
I am grateful every day for the people in my life who keep in touch and make sure that I am ok. As much as I cherish my independence, the last thing I want is to die one day and not have anybody discover my body until weeks go by.
And as outgoing and outspoken as I might be on Facebook, I am not really a social butterfly in the outside world. If you see me out at a social gathering, I’ll more than likely either be playing on my phone or just sitting back and observing everyone else. 
And I’ll have people say to me “why don’t you go and talk to people and socialise?”. The honest answer is, it takes a lot of mental and emotional energy for me to socialise with someone. So it has to be worth it.
And there’s also the whole “you gotta put yourself out there!”. Firstly, I teach group fitness for a living. I’m putting myself out there almost every day of the week. And it is exhausting to do that for at least 12 classes a week.
Secondly, the fact that I have a blog where I write stuff similar to this is more than a lot of people in the world do. I didn’t have to tell people that I have Asperger’s, but I made that choice to do so in the hope that people out there would understand me better, if only just a little bit.
Something I realised recently is that you do not have to be extroverted to be confident. Confidence is knowing who you are, what you stand for as a person, and trusting yourself so much that others can see it too. 
And because I have gained so much confidence, I get the impression (rightly or wrongly) that people are or have become afraid of me. They are afraid of what I believe in, what my values are, who I actually am as a person.
It saddens me to think that rather than bringing me closer to people, my confidence has in fact created a bigger divide. And that’s one of the many dilemmas that I’ve been finding myself in at the moment.
Do I try to conform and be more accepted by people in the neurotypical world? Or do I stay true to myself as someone who is neurodiverse and acknowledge that true acceptance comes from within?
I think I just answered my own question.

It’s been a while since I wrote a group fitness related blog post. But having gone through some recent events and anniversaries, I thought it would be a perfect time to pick up on this again.

Eight years ago this week, I undertook my training to become a BODYJAM instructor (the first of what would eventually become 8 Les Mills programs in which I would train). And the road I’ve travelled on since then has been somewhat rocky in some parts, but overall an experience that has helped me to grow as a person.

When I initially became an instructor, I was extremely overwhelmed and excited to become part of what is commonly referred as “The Tribe”, ie. the collective of Les Mills instructors around the world. A group of people whom I thought to be just like myself, ready to take on the group fitness world. 

And being the passionate person that I was, I was ready to get my hands dirty and get to know everything and everyone Les Mills-related. However I learnt quite quickly that being new and passionate about something does not sit well with certain people in the group fitness industry.

At the time, Aspergers or autism were terms that were not even on my radar, so in my mind I was just this new instructor who was super keen to get out there and make a great impression on people. Looking back, it seems that a lot of those efforts were in vain, as I started to become aware of certain comments being made about me, people overtly making fun of me. I would be aware of myself making numerous social faux-pas but not really being able to do anything about it.

And to be honest, it cut me. It cut me very deeply, and it took a while to even get my head around why other instructors would be going out of their way to be totally cruel and heartless. I was very naive to the world around me, and was under the impression that everyone in the Les Mills world would be like me – enthusiastic, passionate, respectful and kind to each other. Certainly not the kind of behaviour that belonged back in high school.

And not only did this happen in Australia, but also in New Zealand, where I had started to regularly attend the filming sessions for the upcoming release masterclasses. I quickly got to know a lot of the Program Directors and International Presenters, and like any new instructor, was totally in awe of what they could do. But at the same time, I also viewed them as simple human beings, and yearned to get to know them as people too, and they were very warm and welcoming in return.

Unfortunately, around 2010, the general atmosphere in Auckland as far as I was concerned began to change. I had just gone through a sudden personal financial collapse that had resulted in me aborting a filming trip halfway through, and was trying to pick up the pieces from that (it was a long hard struggle, some residual effects I still experience today). That trip had also revealed the true colours of fellow instructors I had previously considered to be friends, and the extent of the nastiness that I and others uncovered on their part was emotionally devastating, on top of all the other feelings I was experiencing from the financial issues.

But what struck me the most was the treatment of some of the Program Directors and presenters towards me. It was as if I had suddenly become a leper. And when you are on the Autism Spectrum, you typically will have no idea why people’s attitudes towards you would change on a dime unless they explicitly say something to you, which was the case here.

So to be effectively looked down upon for essentially no reason by people that you admire, and to an extent idolise, was a double blow for me. Some of this escalated even further in 2011 to the point where I was publicly humiliated at a filming class. It led me to exile myself from Auckland for over 4 years.

Back in Australia, the repercussions of that filming class (I personally refer to it as the “Filming From Hell”) continued to be felt for some time. Even a senior Les Mills trainer here felt it necessary to minimise me and the experience that I had had, and by that point I needed to cut myself off from everyone and everything.

So I deleted my Facebook in 2012. Five years worth of stories, of friends, of pictures. All deleted with just a couple of taps. It was a major shock to the system seeing that disappear before my very eyes.

But it gave me the space I needed to start healing emotionally, physically and mentally. Keep in mind that all through this time, I still had to teach all my classes and still be the positive role model that my members needed me to be. At this stage, I had been trained in 5 programs and was teaching 4 of them. At the beginning of 2012, I had also broken two bones in my hands during a BODYSTEP class, the effects of which required invasive surgery to keep the bones together (I still remember the morning after I broke my hand, I went to teach BODYPUMP with no bar – that was an experience I would never forget).

By the end of 2012, I felt ready to come back into the outside world. I got myself certified for BODYPUMP. I created a new Facebook account, and slowly broadened my contacts again. On my previous Facebook account, I had amassed over 1000 friends, mostly instructors from around the world whom I didn’t know from a bar of soap. But this time, it would be different.

I adopted the mindset of being very choosy and picky about the people I added to my Facebook account, and to this day I still maintain that level of caution somewhat. The experiences of the previous 2 years were enough to make me ever so careful about whom I spoke to, whom I could trust, because I knew that everything I would say could be used against me in some way. And that scared the hell out of me.

That period of 2012-2013 was to mark the start of a shift in behaviour with me. I had come to realise since the Filming From Hell that not everything was all roses and sweetness in the Les Mills world. I knew that the programs themselves were awesome and I loved teaching them, but not so much the stuff that operated around it. I was sick of the egos that permeated the industry. 

I made it my sole focus in every class to be there for the members, and the members only. No associating with Les Mills presenters/trainers outside of a professional environment, apart from the ones that were already friends and whom I could trust. No being around people who consistently displayed negative energy and lack of respect for other people. 

In essence, I had to start focusing on myself and my strengths, rather than what other instructors thought of me (and believe me, that took a long time). It completely changed the way that I approached the outside world.

At the start of 2013, I added CXWORX to my program repertoire. I ended up getting certified for SHBAM and CXWORX in the second half of the year. Things were on the up.

2014 was another turning point – it was when my stepfather died and also when I discovered that I had Aspergers. I’ve written about this previously at length, so I won’t go into the details here. I also trained and certified for BODYATTACK that year.

2015 I trained and certified in BODYBALANCE. I also achieved Advanced status in AIM2 for BODYPUMP and BODYSTEP. Again I’ve written at length about those experiences previously in my blog.

And the Autism diagnosis was officially confirmed. The Aspergers knowledge is what really has allowed me to come to terms with a lot of what had happened in my life thus far, but just as importantly, the events of the last 8 years. Just having that knowledge has empowered me to speak out without fear of judgement or repercussion. It has enabled me to stand up for what is right for me and for my loved ones.

The years post-diagnosis in my group fitness career have been challenging in their own way, but for vastly different reasons than elaborated above. I learnt that I will never be able to fulfill the expectations that Les Mills want from an “Elite” instructor, but moreover I realised that I am ok with that. I just go out there now and teach to my strengths, of which I have several. They may not meet Elite criteria, but they nevertheless provide my members the best experience that I can possibly give them.

There are a lot more events over the past 8 years that have occurred in my career to this point, in addition the ones above. There are also more details I could add to a lot of these, but they do not really have much relevance here. This is not intended to be a rant or a bitchfest or a pity party, just an honest and open post of some of what I have experienced and endured.

I have loved what I done for the last 8 years, and I believe that I will continue to love it for a long time to come.