Ep17 Movement & Positivity - Anthony Hobden

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Luke 00:00:06  Welcome to another episode of Impro Pod. My guest today is personal trainer Anthony Hopton. Hello.

Anthony 00:00:13  Hello, Luke.

Luke 00:00:14  Have you ever done any improvisation in terms of music?

Anthony 00:00:17  Never. In terms of music. My memories of music started with my dad playing Dom Williams tracks very early hours of the morning, frustrating the hell out of me. And I'd listen to the Beatles occasionally listen to classical, which that was the most frustrating, to be honest with you. But strangely enough, I find it very relaxing now. It probably wasn't until I was 1819 that I started to experience music in a way that I'd never experienced before, and that was my sister listening to Kylie Minogue. She got an album offer grammar, the first music that any of us have ever had, and she just played that repeatedly, dancing around a bedroom to it and just seeing my sister dance around to cardio. And, It's a good memory to have having a relationship with music probably started them for me, a positive relationship. And then from that point, it was probably when I started going out on my friends and listening to or being around loud dance music.

Luke 00:01:17  I've been very lucky in the sense that my parents listened to quite a wide variety of music, so we had all the way from Van Morrison, lots of Irish music, so it wasn't so much. We were concentrating on one area, bits of classical, weird 80s music, so some New Age stuff. So I've got quite a few influences.

Anthony 00:01:36  I assume that's partially why you're developing yourself for all those influences you've had and continued to have.

Luke 00:01:46  So I'm going to play you a piece of music, and I want you to tell me any kind of thoughts, emotions, ideas that come into your mind.

Anthony 00:01:54  Okay, okay. It made me think of my sister, but in a sad but good way. And that's what that did for me. And as it was making me feel sad, I was thinking of all the nice memories of my sister, which are very positive. And I'll always hold those dear, especially right at the end of your piece. It made me think of something really joyful. A very nice story of me and my sister.

Anthony 00:03:37  Once a week was a treat for us to go to the what we called the fish market, and we would have two ounces of cockles each, which was a very small amount, but to us it meant everything. And then we used to giggle about how much they were behind my mom's back and how we should be so grateful. Sometimes the small things matter so much. And that's what that end track of that masterpiece that Luke displayed brought to me.

Luke 00:04:07  I started off very kind of dissonant, quite discordant, uncomfortable stuff. I wasn't intending to do that. I'm trying to be in the present moment, just whatever is there. And it's interesting, this idea, if you start off with something that's dissonant, uncomfortable, then the harmonic and the more pleasing melody harmony enhances it. If in some way I do.

Anthony 00:04:31  That makes perfect sense.

Luke 00:04:40  I'd like you to tell me a story.

Anthony 00:04:42  I thought I'd start with my life changed the most from a positive perspective. 14. Being bullied at school on a probably a daily basis really affected my confidence.

Anthony 00:04:53  Didn't like school either. Dyslexic was really into martial arts films outside of that and saw that as a bit of an escape. So I went to my first martial arts class on my own and absolutely fell in love with it. Felt part of something bigger. I felt my confidence growing. I passed several belts within a few years. It drove me more because I've never succeeded with schooling. Basically got my black belt within about four years and it just changed every part of my life after that. I just believed that I was capable of anything that when you're challenged and you push yourself, you can achieve and it's I'd recommend everybody challenging itself in some way because that's what's brought me where I am today.

Luke 00:05:39  So what kind of martial arts were they?

Anthony 00:05:40  It was jiu jitsu, which was a mixture of judo and karate. Very full on and a lot of anger felt. We released the anger and b, I believe most of the time my wife might not agree, but a very rounded person. I realized the importance of why you put your body where you put it, why you step there, why you stand that way, why you balance your body weight on this side of your foot rather than that one.

Anthony 00:06:08  And it all made sense and that sense of discipline. Then everything came together.

Luke 00:06:14  So if you could describe a typical kind of jujitsu move, what would that be like?

Anthony 00:06:20  Jiu jitsu is mainly based on defense. We had always taught people coming toward you. The first plan of action is to run, and if you're trapped in a corner, use the attack as a weakness and look for a quick response that takes them outside of where they want to be. So if they're lunging towards you, you would take yourself to one side. So it just taught me to be self-aware.

Luke 00:06:42  All right, here we go. It's a good story. It's got a clear transition to it as I'm always looking for stories that are have clear points. Yeah. So how did you feel that reflected your journey?

Anthony 00:09:13  Very much to the point. I just felt it had a lot of emotion to it. Also a really upbeat tone to it as well. So enjoyed that. That was hitting the point on so many different angles for me.

Anthony 00:09:25  Okay, great.

Luke 00:09:26  It started with this dissonance with a sense of discomfort. When you get bullied, you're being attacked. You don't have the inner strength. It's a bit dysfunctional. And then the whole jujitsu thing almost approached it like climbing a mountain. If you've got to put this effort in to get the reward. So you have this. I kind of established this pattern.

Anthony 00:09:49  I didn't pretend to get all that expression from each key, but the way you put that across. That really does make sense to me. Using my mind and hearing that brilliant piece you just played for me, that all resonates.

Luke 00:10:02  This interval, which is a fifth. And if you play them in parallel like that, you get this very strong sense. A lot of rock music is just parallel fifths, and so I used that to symbolize strength.

Anthony 00:10:22  Already today. This is probably the most I've learned ever about music, so thank you for that.

Luke 00:10:32  So story number two then would you like to tell the story.

Anthony 00:10:37  Okay. So it's a regular weekend for me in terms of going out with my friends.

Anthony 00:10:42  I would completely hide my shirt to an inch of its life. I'm trying to meet every cruise I could never quite could. So I've spent a long time ironing the shirt and then proceeding to rush to catch the bus. Throw on the shirt. SAT there, not wanting to sit back on the bus because I didn't want to crease this shirt that I spent so long attempting to iron every crease out and then I hang in it. So I'm sat on the bus, riding every bump, hovering over the seats. I don't want to crease my trousers either, so probably. So I got into this city at Nottingham City Centre on a very busy weekend, and I'm getting quite a few looks from the ladies and I'm thinking, wow, this is my night. I'm going to be that man is I'm going to be successful. I'm going to get some numbers here and whatever you deem to be successful without going into detail, but I thought that this was my moment, my 15 minutes or 15 seconds, and I thought, what is that? And I pull something at the back of my shirt and it's a coat hanger, the plastic coat hanger.

Anthony 00:11:44  The first thing one would do is laugh, so I laugh. Then I look for the nearest bin very quickly opened up. Nobody's ever seen this coat hanger and the looks were generally at me and not at the coat hanger. So I get rid of this coat hanger for your environmentalist out there in the bin. Okay, it was plastic, but forgive me, it was many years ago. I didn't quite get as many looks. I think it was the coat hanger and was I lucky? It was a long time ago. I'm not quite sure. It makes me smile now telling that story. So yeah, not everybody can say that they had a coating sticking out the shirt for the best part of 15 20 minutes. People that often believe me, they say to me, how can one ride on a bus and not know that there's a coat hanger sticking out of the shirt? It's just not the possibility. But I feel I was probably reverting and reciting my chat up lines intensely in my mind and not thinking about the coat hanger impregnating my shirt because it certainly wasn't a fashion item.

Anthony 00:12:44  It wasn't a craze that I don't think ever took off. I got all things from that little a sense of anticipation, realization and a little bit of fun in there as well.

Luke 00:14:24  I was going for like over careful jazz. I'm trying to be cool a bit too hard, and I'm very careful about all of this stuff.

Anthony 00:14:33  That did come across, and I've probably spent most of my early 20s feeling cool.

Luke 00:14:38  And then there's blues jazz, bringing the bluesy, jazzy element in there and yeah, look at me. And then, oh, wait, what's that? Oh, no. And this sense of embarrassment, maybe.

Anthony 00:14:49  Certainly that come across in the song. Yeah. Okay.

Luke 00:14:53  What did you get out of this podcast?

Anthony 00:14:56  People said this about me a lot. That I'm far too serious. I tried to put a message across there, and towards the end, when I told the coach, that's when I felt that I let go and just relaxed a bit. And so I got a lot from that.

Anthony 00:15:08  And also from on the bigger scale of things. I've got so much more from this experience that me playing these songs and what you related to my stories. I felt the old experience, such a powerful one, and I'm so pleased that I got that opportunity to experience it. You listen to the story, and you then took all your improvisation skills and the things you've learnt and continue to learn, and you told a story for the music. And I found that really moving and powerful. Right.

Luke 00:15:42  Okay. Thanks very much for being on the podcast.

Anthony 00:15:45  You're very welcome, I loved it.

Luke 00:15:46  Join us next week for another episode of Improv Pod. Thanks for listening.