LEE JONES

ME.

I am a 43 year old self employed builder, husband and father of 1 daughter from Derbyshire. I’ve never been overly competitive but have always had a strong love for the outdoors. I love to challenge myself physically and mentally rather than take part in team sports. I was born in North Wales and my very earliest memories are of being up the hills and mountains with my father hunting and looking around mines or rebuilding dry stone walls which would funnily enough feature heavily in my future life.

I’m living around Derbyshire now and when I was at school I had no clear idea on what career I wanted to follow, like most teens I was more interested in chasing girls (trying to!!) and drinking my way through the years. I studied computer programming and graphic design which I enjoyed but the thought of sitting behind a desk didn’t really appeal to me, fortunately at the time my father needed help building some houses. As I’d been with him on building sites in Wales as a child and through the school holidays digging around in the sand pits or helping carry bricks it was a done deal. The rest is now history.

I’ve never been a terribly confident person. I’m not super outgoing and I’m not usually the first person to start a conversation and people can take this the wrong way. I can trace this back to a teacher at school who made me stand in front of a language class every week and badly recite French in front of my class mates pissing themselves laughing along with the pretty girls who we all tried in vain to impress in the playgrounds. It seems trivial to a lot of people and very petty in comparison to those who have had to deal with far worse circumstances but for me it set a seed I found very hard to stop growing.

I did various martial arts through the years. The discipline, training and lifestyle changes it brought always fascinated me. I never did brilliantly competitively but the fights I did boosted my confidence win or lose. I enjoyed the training side of the arts more than the fighting although this was down to my instructors not really being ‘fighters’ themselves and pushing more belts than anything to make money but at the time I was happy getting fitter and mentally stronger.

After years of training I had the chance to open my own club with my wife. It seemed like a dream come true but at first the thought of standing in front of a load of people instructing, let alone talking to them brought back the nightmare of my school life and I doubted I would be able to do it!! But slowly and surely each time at the classes I took warm ups or cool downs for our instructors as part of our instructor training or doing little bits of coaching I started to believe in myself and what I was doing.

Me and my wife ended up with 3 clubs which we ran as a part time business. At times we had 100+ students of all ages and walks of life. We held seminars with film stars and world class fighters and I stood confident and proud in front of them all. We had many, many times of happiness. We taught everyone from troubled children to terminally ill people. One of my proudest moments was helping a man who had Huntington’s Disease reach his black belt. The classes helped him so much he would have to walk in with the aid of 2 walking sticks but would then be able to walk for days afterwards without them because of the balancing and coordination exercises and the boost it gave his brain. We had kids that had never done anything physical in their lives and turned them into national champions.

My wife & daughter and all our students are the ones that gave me the confidence I have today.

WHAT CHANGES AM I MAKING?

Due to workload and family commitments we took the decision to pass on our kickboxing classes after teaching them 2-3 times a week for over 10 years. It was a very hard thing to do but we felt it was at the right time and we needed to spend more time being a family. Some nights I was literally finishing a job and driving straight to the classes to teach in my work clothes and then not getting home till 10.30 at night. I didn’t want the students to have to endure the stress of my work but I do miss the privilege of teaching terribly.

In some ways I felt I had outgrown the challenge of the classes. I know as a martial artist you never stop growing but I felt as though I had reached a limit. I considered the option of fighting competitively again but I believe I had left it a little too late and a change of scenery (so to speak) was needed. I entered quite a few races for fun over the years including some great mud runs. We took part in the Yorkshire 3 peaks challenge and a few years ago entered for the summer Fan dance and so began my re-love of the outdoors again.

My work can be very up and down and its difficult not to bring it home with me sometimes. Not knowing when the next lot of money will come in or how much can be very stressful trying to pay bills on time. When its good its good and when its bad its bad. I have been in some dark places because of it. I know family life has suffered from it and it and the amount of booze I consumed to try and get to sleep some nights was worrying me. I need to relax more at home and leave work at work. This is my number 1 priority change.

My wife lost her sister to cancer and recently her mum yet she remains the most positive and happy person I have met. I need to take her lead.

My confidence is still not where I would like it to be. I miss the privilege of being able to teach people and to pass on my knowledge. It helped my confidence immensely and I would like to pursue something like outdoor teaching further down the line as a hobby or part time job. I believe it would be my ideal choice of hobby or career change!

I am still training twice a week with a PT and I try and get out every weekend tabbing on the hills plus any running I can do in the week plus dog walking etc I want to keep it all up for my physical and mental health!! I have done 3 navigational courses this year and looking to do any more courses I can to do with the outdoors!

MY PLAN FOR 2019 AND BEYOND.

Yorkshire 3 peaks (completed).

Summer Fan Dance (completed).

X-runner Wild Warrior (completed).

Winter Fan Dance (completed).

Point to Point 2019 (completed).

Various Navigation courses.

ML Training 2019/2020.

Winter Fan Dance 2020.

Black Sheep Marathon B&B 2020.

Any sort of challenge or adventure I can fit in!

MY PROMISE.

1) To keep up the training and keep the stress levels as low as possible, not to let it into my family life.

2) Have a decent ‘come down’ program for after a race. This year I took part and won the summer P2P for the load bearing category. I was on such a massive high during training and winning the come down was extremely hard. The stress of work again and not having something to aim for was a huge drop back down to earth for me.

3) Continue to go out into the hills as much as I can. I find the adventure of them exciting, peaceful, challenging. It almost takes me back to the place when I was a kid.

4) be the best father and husband I can be. I have a beautiful wife and daughter plus 2 Staffordshire bull terriers who never say no to a day on the hills. The positives in my life far outweigh the negatives and I need to focus more on them!

5) Learn French!