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Hi, my name is Shakadé and I recently joined Yes Futures as the Marketing and Projects Assistant. I found the role through the Government Kickstart Scheme which provides funding for young people aged 16-24 to complete a six-month job placement. I am local to Brixton where Yes Futures have their office, having lived here for over 15 years.
I’m excited to share my journey with you below, and how I hope my experience with Yes Futures can support me on this!
A bit about me
I am 22 years old and I was born in Cardiff but lived my whole life in London. I was raised doing sports my whole life from doing karate and winning international tournaments to playing ice hockey all over the UK. I now have a profession in Calisthenics where I compete in competitions and teach others. Calisthenics has now become a lifestyle for me (I live and breathe it). Besides training, I enjoy hanging out with the team and I have an interest in playing games. My favourite games to play are Call Of Duty on console and Monopoly as a board game, I pretty much just win every time I play!
What is Calisthenics?
Calisthenics is a sport where you use gymnastic movements to achieve bodily fitness, this would include doing handstands, pullups or muscle-ups and different types of holds controlled by your core muscles. Calisthenics stands for “beautiful strength” and I have taken it as a blessing to be able to use your body to your disposal, because the movement of your legs and arms and what we are capable of doing with your body is actually amazing. From how much weight you can carry to how flexible you are or how high you can jump, our body can adapt and become stronger.
If you want to see some pictures of me competing - check out the Yes Futures Instagram where I have done a ‘Shakadé Takeover’!
How did I get into Calisthenics?
I stumbled into Calisthenics very early on in my life from just doing push-ups and pull-ups as young as 10. Despite doing bodyweight training from a young age I never knew it was called calisthenics. I only then discovered the art of street workout when
I was at Ruskin park and I saw an event going on by STEELWARRIORS - an anti-knife crime charity that melts down knives taken off the streets and recycles the steel into outdoor street gyms.
STEELWARRIORS then presented community classes taught by world champions, where I attended every session. I then made it a mission to become one of the best in the UK at freestyle calisthenics. So as you can see, this was the beginning of my career. STEELWARRIORS saw that I had talent, so we then started working on many different projects, one is putting a team together to put a show on for Britain’s Got Talent (see me on the big screens soon). With my career off to a good start it opened many doors for me. I did photoshoots for major clothing brands like Under Armour, trained many clients and I have won competitions battling other athletes.
What are my goals?
My goal is to become a world champion or at least recognised worldwide as one of the best in the UK. I then want this to lead on to me becoming a life coach teaching other people from age 16 to 25 on what I call success, and how I achieved my goals and objectives by using my own personal story. Hopefully, this could help inspire other people to believe in themselves despite whatever they want to do in life. I also want to create an online website where I can make e-book workouts teaching different skills in calisthenics and gain online clients worldwide.
How will working at Yes Futures help?
I chose to work at Yes Futures because our visions are quite similar. We both have the objective to be able to help others better their lives. I felt like with the understanding of the company's goals, I could fit in very well with the team (which I felt I have). In my interview, we discussed my goals in life and we figured that marketing could be something I wanted to do. I have chosen to follow this route as I do feel with my time at Yes Futures I can develop skills like putting together a project, editing a piece of content or even writing blogs to benefit me in my personal endeavours. I also liked the idea of volunteering and learning what it takes to become a coach which could be a good experience for the future of my idea of being a Life Coach. This would allow me to see what it takes to become a good Coach and what people look for when searching for Coaches.
Thank You for your time!
I appreciate the time you have spent going through this blog and I would like to say it was a pleasure writing this. I hope you now got more of an idea of my goals with Yes Futures and how I plan to use what I learn to better myself.
Shakadé (Marketing & Projects Assistant)
If you want to see more about calisthenics I will be giving an insight on the Yes Futures Instagram page where I have done a social media takeover.