Lorraine Russell first came up with the idea for the Noire Fit Fest before the murder of George Floyd, before a single black square was uploaded to Instagram, and before people marched the streets pleading that black lives matter. But before all of that happened, their idea of hosting the UK’s first Black Wellness and Fitness Festival was greeted with rocky silence by brands and potential partners.
“I wrote to a lot of brands to give them some kind of support and I just got radio silence,” Russell recalls. “After that incident, a lot of brands came up to me and said, ‘We love what you do and maybe we could somehow support each other’ and I just find it a bit strange that it has cost us the deaths of a man for brands too We are ready to work with you now. It shouldn’t be like this but unfortunately I know brands tend to jump on what’s trending right now, but being black is something I am every day , it’s not a hot thing. “
The second Noire Fit Festival takes place 12 months later. Due to Covid-19, everything was about Zoom last year, but this year’s event will also be IRL. Russell says the George Floyd tragedy without the momentum, assuming the 2021 event was more difficult to arrange, but the problems Noire Fit Fest tries to solve are still there, and the festival remains as necessary as ever ever.
According to Sport England’s Active Lives poll, only 57.7 percent of blacks aged 16 and over are classified as “physically active,” meaning that more than 40 percent of black adults exercise less than 150 minutes or more every week. Currently, 64.6 percent of white British people exceed the 150-minute mark.
While the numbers are visible to everyone, the context behind these numbers is more obscure. “I think normally people think black people are just lazy and whatever,” says Russell, “but that’s just so far from the truth.” Socioeconomic factors certainly play a role – according to the National Statistics Bureau Blacks make up 3.3 percent of the population, but 6.2 percent of the population who have never worked or are long-term unemployed – as do cultural differences. Fitness can also take a back seat to black people’s lives because when your existence is in question, there is simply not enough day to do a CrossFit workout.
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“Usually when people think about fitness and wellness,” Russell says, “people know it’s important, but when you have all of these other things to deal with, it becomes less and less of a priority, and it is not until It’s too late when something really bad or drastic happens, when suddenly the penny drops, and by then it will be a bit difficult. “
Still, blacks’ fitness problems don’t start and end with inactivity. For black trainers and fitness professionals there is also the feeling of pressing against a glass ceiling.
“When I started connecting with black fitness influencers who have really huge platforms and run very successful companies, they told me that when brands invite them, it’s almost like they are literally who they are Events come only blacks in the room, “says Russell. “It doesn’t make sense to me. If there are many of them, why is there only one represented? It’s almost like it’s the one-person-in-one-person-out policy. “
When Russell speaks on these subjects, she speaks with authority. She was the only black trainer in the room, and like some of the people she hopes to see at the Noire Fit Fest, she has lived through times when fitness wasn’t the be-all and end-all.
Growing up, Russell says she participated in everything from judo to ice skating, but as she passed adolescence, her physical activity decreased and the amount she ate increased. By her mid to late twenties, she felt “sluggish”, “slow” and instinctively knew that her health was an issue.
Russell’s answer was to educate yourself. She reached out to her brother’s bodybuilding trainer, Gabriel Sey, and signed up for a bodybuilding show. “I had to revise the whole way I work and my entire way of thinking,” she says.
Exercise used to mean running to her, but under Sey’s guidance, Russell was introduced to weight training and began to manage her diet. At the same time as she was preparing for her first bodybuilding show, she was also starting to do her personal training. “What I learned in theory, I also did in practice, and the things that Gabriel asked me to do made more sense,” she says.
Two bodybuilding shows and a fitness festival later, Russell tries to share what he has learned with a segment of the population who seem to have forgotten about mainstream fitness. This year’s festival will feature yoga and dance classes, HIIT, combat training, and panel discussions on how black fitness and wellness companies have navigated the Covid and BLM world, as well as lectures on how IG culture drives our training and diet influenced.
“I just want people to have a really good time and I want to use this event to open the door and show people that there are so many different ways you can be physically active and there are so a lot of different coaches out there look like you and me, ”says Russell. “Maybe you just didn’t know where they were or you didn’t have access to them. Now you do. “
The Noire Fit Fest will take place on Saturday, September 18, between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. Tickets are now available
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source https://www.bisayanews.com/2021/09/17/why-the-uks-first-black-wellness-and-fitness-festival-remains-as-necessary-as-ever/
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