If you’ve been around our Telok Ayer branch at lunchtime, you might have noticed a lone figure standing on his hands in the sun. We caught up with Lorne to ask him about his training, his take on movement, and what makes him tick. It’s a short interview because it isn’t easy talking upside down.

How long have you been practicing Handstands?
Since birth.

[long pause] six years.

How long did it take for you to get to where you are in your hand-balancing journey?
Handstands are very much a journey. There is always another layer of understanding. Learning the balance is half the skill, while the other half is the understanding of what you are doing with your body and the awareness you gain from that.

What drives you to practice, and what encourages you in that practice, if it even does?
Two things drive me.

First, I am very goal-orientated, so when I see something I wish to achieve I am happy to sacrifice my time to achieve that.

Secondly, I am motivated by the belief that what I am going after is helping me better my own body and me as a teacher, more so than a conventional way of training that is so rampant in the industry these days. I see that there is more benefit to a movement-based practice than one that favours training purely for aesthetics. Don’t misunderstand me, I care about how I look but I also care about how I move and I don’t see why people sacrifice one for the other when both are very easily achievable.

If someone comes to you for personal training, does your practice influence the way you coach them or does it depend on the person?
It completely affects the way I teach people. Each person is different in the style they learn and what they need to learn but all people want the same, to move better and look good naked. If someone comes to me and doesn’t want to work on improving there movement health, then I can’t work with that person because the want has to be there. I can’t give anyone the body they want, I can only guide them through a medium that make sense to me.

Besides the handstands, what else makes you tick?
I am highly competitive so I set my own standards unfairly high for myself but that’s what I want. I hate being shit at something. In a non training perspective, I just want to have fun and play which often works well in training. I love pulling jokes on people. I mostly don’t take things too seriously except my work, which I take very seriously.

To learn more about Lorne, check out his profile on our Trainers page. Lorne offers personal training and also runs handstand and movement classes at Level

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