The flow to locomotive excellence

Geplaatst op 27-10-2025

The flow to locomotive excellence.
The Case for Professional Guidance.

Why consulting a knowledgeable soulful fitness trainer, as you flow through life on roller skates, could be the best decision you ever made.
By Brian B. Kanhai, Soulful Fitness.

For almost three decades at this point, I have coached, guided and mentored hundreds of people in person with various fitness goals. The majority has been roller skate practitioners in various stages of their learning process; from trembling beginners to seasoned veterans. I have been an avid roller skater myself since my early teen years without a break, literally rolling nonstop through all stages of life. So I know first hand, about all the trials and tribulations that come with learning skills, alongside all the fun and excitement. Not to mention all the truly life changing experiences tied to roller skating, but that's a topic for another day.
Frustration and serious injuries have never been part of my Soulful Journey. Partially luck, but I`d rather think it was a good strategy on my side for the most part and an eager willingness to learn how to stay safe. Lifelong personal experience certainly has given me the advantage to become the trainer I am today, but I could not have reached the same weight without a solid and essential foundation through formal education. At the time I had no clue how grateful I would one day be for the path chosen.
Thanks mom, for pushing through and being tough on me!

Purposeful.
By now, especially in the capacity of a trainer, I've seen every injury, heard just about every excuse a human brain can come up with and listened to every abandoned dream.
One of many things I`ve learned from working with so many people is this: when people fail, stay fearful, or do not progress, it's not that they are lazy, or don't work hard or frequently enough; they get stuck because they’re unstructured, unguided, and stalled somewhere between trying and truly adapting. 

A lot of folks train hard enough to feel accomplished and post their efforts on social media, in a sense of accountability. They nurse their sore muscles and post their freshly ‘unlocked’ moves like badges of honor. But all that has not been specific enough to trigger and manifest genuine long lasting adaptation.
So here's an uncomfortable fact: effort without direction is just expensive perspiration. You can train or skate for hours by mirroring the very best examples physically around you or virtually through a screen and still go nowhere - both physically and mentally - if what you’re doing isn’t specific, progressive, and purposeful. 
And that's exactly where professional guidance comes in.

The human body is remarkably efficient at doing exactly what you ask of it, nothing more. If you practice sloppy crossovers, struts, backdrops and cross steps for 100 hours, congratulations: you'll have beautifully ingrained sloppy crossovers, struts, backdrops and cross steps.
Neuroscience backs this up. Research on motor learning demonstrates that skill acquisition requires deliberate practice: focused, systematic repetition with immediate feedback and progressive challenge. Dr. Anders Ericsson's groundbreaking work on expertise shows that random practice, no matter how enthusiastic, doesn't create the neural pathways necessary for mastery. Your brain needs precise signals to build precise skills.
This is where professional guidance becomes non-negotiable.

A trained eye catches the hip rotation you can't feel, the weight distribution error you can't see, and the timing issue you can't hear.
An experienced trainer provides the external feedback loop your nervous system desperately needs to rewire itself effectively. Without it, you're essentially asking your brain to solve a puzzle while blindfolded; possible, but painfully inefficient, time consuming and dangerous.
For skill acquisition,repetition is one of many factors involved. What is also equally important, is the feedback and the positive reinforcement for improvement associated with repetitive practice. In other words, when a trainer is firing away cues, a trainee can become addicted to information that assists improvement; correct behavior is specified and small improvements are reinforced and celebrated.
There is of course much more to skill development and factors like a natural or genetic aptitude and intelligence do play a role, just as a skilled trainer with a good exercise program is quintessential for efficient skill acquisition. 

Quit or commit: there is no "trying".
Let me be blunt: roller skating isn't a hobby you dabble in when convenient. Living a healthy, active life is a lifelong commitment, and skating can be your vehicle, if you're willing to accept that purposefully.
This means waking up every morning with one of your first thoughts being: "What can I do for ME today?".
Not your boss, not your kids, not your social media followers. YOU.

The psychology of commitment is fascinating. According to the “Self-Determination Theory”, developed by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, sustainable motivation comes from three psychological needs: autonomy (feeling in control), competence (feeling effective), and relatedness (feeling connected). When you commit to roller skating with professional guidance, you address all three: you're choosing your path (autonomy), you're actually improving (competence), and you're joining a community (relatedness).
But here's where it gets real. Commitment translates into setting small, achievable goals and then incrementally pushing the envelope. Not social media worthy transformations. Not dramatic before-and-afters. 
Just the consistent, unglamorous progress of shoveling shit every day.
Can you show up when everything is stacked against you?
Can you lace up when you're exhausted from work, when it's raining, when you're anxious about bills, when your body aches, when your mind screams for the couch?
Can you overcome when your physical, mental, spiritual, and yes, even your financial state aren't aligned with what you need or want to do?

This is where most people falter; not from lack of desire, but from lack of structure. A professional trainer doesn't just teach you techniques; we teach you the mental frameworks that transform fleeting motivation into durable discipline. We've navigated these obstacles ourselves, hundreds of times, and we know which psychological tools actually work when motivation evaporates.
Because it will evaporate. Motivation is fundamentally unreliable. It's a neurochemical cocktail of mainly dopamine, adrenalin, serotonin and cortisol, influenced by sleep, stress and blood sugar. What you need is a system that works even when motivation doesn't.

Discomfort is a compass, not a prison.
Here's a principle that will change your skating and your life: discomfort is supposed to make you move to a better position, not to hang on, sit tight, and wait till it will magically resolve itself, by hoping for the best.
I see roller skaters endure terrible form, chronic pain, persistent fear, and grinding plateaus, waiting for some mystical moment when it will all click or `unlock`. Newsflash: that moment never arrives uninvited
If you don't actively move or change perspective, nothing's going to change anytime soon, except for your health (declining), your age (advancing), the color of your hair (graying), and the weather (whether you think climate change is a thing or not).

The biomechanics of injury are pretty straightforward. Repetitive stress in poor alignment creates microtrauma. Microtrauma accumulates. Accumulated trauma becomes chronic injury. Chronic injury becomes your new identity: "Oh, I used to be able to do this skate move and this and that, but my knees..."

A professional trainer reads discomfort like a diagnostic tool.
That burning in your hip flexors?
You're overcompensating because your glutes aren't firing.
That knee pain?
One of many common issues among roller skaters is that ankle dorsiflexion is limited, creating a cascade of misalignment.
That persistent fear of transitions?
Your center of gravity is misaligned with too much leaning forward, because nobody addressed proper weight distribution.

We don't just identify these issues. We systematically resolve them through progressive, evidence-based interventions. Physical discomfort becomes useful data rather than a mysterious curse.

The cognitive science here is equally compelling. Psychologist Carol Dweck's research on growth mindset reveals that people who view challenges as signals to adjust strategy (rather than indicators of fixed inability) achieve significantly more than those who interpret difficulty as destiny. A trainer literally reframes your discomfort, transforming it from a stop sign into a roadmap.

Forget normal, go for optimal.
Society will tell you to be reasonable. Moderate. Balanced. To skate "for fun" without getting "too serious" about it and share your failures and flaws and bond through social platforms with those who do the same.
However, moderation doesn't morph into solid results. It doesn't crush limits, break barriers, feed perseverance, or lift you to your next plateau. It keeps you comfortable, unchallenged, and ultimately unfulfilled.
I'm not advocating recklessness; quite the opposite. Going for optimal means training smarter, not just harder. It means understanding periodization, recovery science, progressive overload, and specificity of adaptation. It means having goals that excite you enough to get uncomfortable in a safe environment, so you can fully focus on getting better.
The neurochemistry of achievement is addictive in the healthiest way. When you set a challenging goal and systematically work toward it, your brain releases dopamine not just upon completion, but throughout the pursuit. 

Neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp identified this as the "seeking system". A fundamental neural circuit that drives exploration, learning, and growth. Moderate goals barely tickle this system. Optimal goals activate it fully.
But here's the critical part: optimal for you, not for the gram.
A professional trainer calibrates challenges to your current capacity plus just enough stress to trigger adaptation.
Too little, and you stagnate.
Too much, and you break down (physically or mentally).
This Goldilocks zone, what sports scientists call "optimal challenge", requires external expertise to identify.

I've watched weekend warriors injure themselves trying to mimic advanced techniques they saw online, without any proper build up or breakdown. I've also observed talented skaters waste years because nobody pushed them beyond their comfort zone. Both extremes rob you of your potential.

Success without fulfillment: The ultimate failure.
This might sting a bit, but this is coming from someone who knows all too well about fear of failure from a very young age: success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure.
You can nail every trick, jump into every cypher, collect every accolade, and still feel hollow if the journey doesn't feed your soul. Conversely, you might never become "advanced" by anyone's standards, but if roller skating brings you genuine joy, connection, and growth, you're winning at life.
Your success or failure can totally determine your inner world and direct your path forward in the outer world for everyone to notice, but it holds no personal value to anyone else outside of your inner real life circle and personal domain.
Your social media disciples will see your posts and forget them in seconds. Your skating buddies might admire your skills at the moment, but in reality they're preoccupied with their own journey and the hurdles they're dealing with themselves. The only person living inside your experience is you.

This is why finding the right professional trainer matters enormously. We're not just technical consultants; we're guides who help you clarify what fulfillment actually means for you. Because only YOU know the accurate answer.
Is it the meditative flow state of a perfect riff or routine? The adrenaline rush of conquering a challenging park? The community connection of group skates? The pure physical joy of movement?
Research on subjective well-being, particularly the work of psychologist Martin Seligman on PERMA (Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment), shows that lasting fulfillment requires multiple dimensions. A good trainer helps you design a roller skating practice that addresses all of these, not just the accomplishment piece.

The Procrastination-Injury connection you need to be aware of.
Here's a statement you probably rarely hear: procrastination and injury are intimately linked.
When you delay getting professional guidance, you're not just postponing progress. You're actively rehearsing dysfunction.

Every session with poor form strengthens the wrong neural pathways, tightens the wrong muscles, and deepens the wrong movement patterns.
Then, inevitably, you get injured.
And you tell yourself it's bad luck, or weak genetics, can happen to anyone, or "comes with the territory of roller skating." But the truth? It was procrastination, manifested as torn ligament or chronic pain.
I've spent 40 years watching this pattern repeat. Someone skates casually for months or years, develops chronic issues, finally seeks help, and my first job is unchaining all the compensatory patterns their body created to work around foundational problems nobody addressed.

The research on injury prevention in sports is very interesting. A systematic review published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine examined randomized controlled trials on sports injury prevention interventions and found that specific training programs significantly reduced the risk of sports injuries (Leppänen et al., 2014).
More recently, a comprehensive 2021 review of 129 systematic reviews and meta-analyses on sports injury prevention found that exercise training involving proper techniques, strength, proprioceptive, balance, and neuromuscular training is crucial for both improving athletic performance and preventing injuries (Stephenson et al., 2021, American Journal of Sports Medicine). The evidence is overwhelming: structured, professionally-guided training dramatically reduces injury rates.

But there's a deeper psychological component. Procrastination, according to Dr. Timothy Pychyl's research, is primarily an emotion regulation problem, not a time management one. We avoid tasks that trigger negative emotions such as anxiety, boredom, frustration, fear of failure.
Getting professional help requires admitting you need it, which triggers vulnerability. So you procrastinate. And in that procrastination, you continue practicing improperly, guaranteeing the very outcome you fear: failure, injury, or both.

The investment that pays dividends in every life domain.
Here's what decades of coaching, guiding and mentoring has taught me: the skills you build through properly coached roller skating can transfer to everything else in life.
The body awareness, the resilience, the goal-setting systems. The ability to stay present under challenge.
The willingness to look awkward while learning (Yes, when things get funky, we pull stanky faces!). The patience with plateaus. The celebration of small wins.
These aren't just roller skating skills. They are life skills.

When you invest in professional guidance, you're not just scheduling expensive roller skating lessons. You're buying a template for how to approach challenge, growth, and self-improvement that is applicable to any domain.
The economic argument writes itself: a few sessions with a professional costs less than a single emergency room visit for a preventable roller skating injury. It costs less than the physical therapy you'll need for chronic pain developed from poor form. It costs less than the equipment you'll buy and abandon when you quit in frustration.
But more importantly, it costs less than the opportunity cost of never discovering what you're actually capable of.

Improve your move.
This is your fork in the road moving forward:

• One path. Continue as you are. Work hard, feel accomplished, post your efforts and results online, and wonder why something still feels off, you still have certain fears and you're not really progressing. Accumulate the tiny injuries. Cycle through motivation and self-doubt.
• The other path. Commit. Seek professional guidance. Show up even when it's hard. Use discomfort as data. Go for optimal instead of settling for normal. Pursue fulfillment, not just success.

The choice is yours, but understand: not choosing is a choice itself to remain where you are, with everything that entails.
After years of coaching, I can tell you this with absolute certainty: the roller skaters who transform their practice, their bodies, and their lives aren't the ones with the most natural talent or the most free time and the most followers.
They're the ones who stopped procrastinating and self-doubting and started working on a solid support system with proper guidance.
The question isn't whether you need guidance. The question is: what are you waiting for?

Your body is aging. Your neural plasticity is declining. Your opportunities to build skill are finite.
But today? Today you can still begin, change and hopefully postpone the departure of the things you enjoy and love doing.
The question is: how soon will you let me know your next achievement, so I can celebrate for you?
Because, I definitely will!

Cover feature.

In August 2025, my team had the pleasure of meeting Sofia Cherchyk from Argentina. She is a professional entrepeneur and has a rich background in Artistic Roller Skating from a very young age. In recent years she is exploring ways to connect her artistic flow with a more freestyle groove and combines her knowledge and experience with yoga. In conversation, Sofia and Mariska groove into each others minds, thoughts and experiences.