Darryl Edwards

Early on in my "new" movement journey I discovered Darryl. After researching online terms such as evolutionary fitness, natural movement and Paleo/primal lifestyle, combined with finding out about Movnat and “Where can I do that in London", I found Darryl.

He has influenced me more than he can know. He is an amazing teacher/coach, inspirational leader, an embodiment of walking his talk and leading by example, mentor, inspiration and good friend. Darryl is one of the main reasons I ‘believed’ I can do what I do now: coach… teach… move and play… to basically leave behind the 9 to 5, depressed and stuck behind a desk, on a career path to nowhere. Like myself, Darryl worked in IT for years and was reasonably successful. He left that all behind when he realised this cannot be how life should be and started to coach as The Fitness Explorer. Upon reading Darry’s bio it resonated so deeply with me as I could more than relate… it felt like my story! It is no coincidence that after reading that I gained new found confidence and I can safely say that his example gave me the go ahead in my mind to proceed and quit my job and believe it can be done… you can make the transition and truly do what you enjoy.

I found Darryl searching for somewhere to learn/practice Natural Movement /Movnat and I came across his Fitness Explorer website. I attended one of his MOVE events and started going to his weekly 'Primal Playout' class… an outdoor movement session with an emphasis on fun and play. This is how it should be! Not a boring and sterile workout in a gym but play… fun! Darryl’s influences included philosophies I was searching for more information on, ones I had already tried such as Movnat and Parkour… so again it was great to gain more exposure, but the biggest thing was his style of play. Influenced by the likes of Frank Forencich/ Exuberant Animal (a name/philosophy elaborated on for the first time by Darryl) but not limited to, I found Darryl’s group and partner “games” an enlightening way to move. You forgot you were actually working hard. You were learning practical, useful movement and you re-learned what it is to be social and playful with other people… a hugely important and often missing element to most people's practice. He also helped cement the idea of how import a “Paleo/Primal” lifestyle is and that included not just moving but what you ate too. How strictly Darryl adhered to a Paleo/Primal way of eating was influential again, walking his talk and intrinsically shaping what was fast becoming a foundation for my own philosophy.
My bio or “movement” history/path is close to Darryl’s it. He is a main inspiration due to the fact that he was in IT like me, and like me he searched for a different and better way to get “fit” and thus found the term functional fitness, and then the "300 workout” and Gym Jones and how that inspired him to reassess what fitness is...my style of teaching is heavily influenced by Darryl and my first few sessions that I coached where no doubt had “Fitness Explorer” / PRIMALity written all over it. 

Thank you.