One of the joint visions that brought myself, Jenzo and OM together was the creation of an all encompassing piece of education specifically for the UK coaching scene.
The education should be a legacy piece – one that was entirely useful for the coach, whilst being a reflection of our own personal coaching values, beliefs, explorations, experiences and learnings.
The aim of this course was to be our beacon of education – what all other PFCA courses pointed at and prepared the coach for.
It should be the course which truly shapes the careers, systems and service offerings of coaches, teaching them how to think, whilst trusting their artistry, experience and intuition with the ‘what’.
Lofty audacious aims, but we backed ourselves.
With The PFCA’s Level 3 Personal Trainer Course and Functional Fitness Coach Level 1 [FFC 1] already in place we put pen to paper on FFC 2.
Soon after we realised that FFC 2’s predecessors didn’t fully align – we needed to reshape our entire curriculum. So we did.
After creating the skeleton for FFC 2 we zoomed out and pieced together the bones of our entire career pathway of education, from PTL3, through FFC 1, leading to FFC 2 over time.
Then, we reengineered FFC 1 with it’s place in our bigger picture in mind – FFC 1 becoming a critical stepping stone towards our beacon [FFC 2], not a destination in and of itself.
FFC 1 became more dense than it was before. Now, seeing FFC 1 as the place to acquire the fundamental principles of fitness coaching, alongside the place to collect valuable tools of the trade, it is the ideal preparation for what the coach needs at that point of their career – the 2nd half of their apprenticeship – where coach should be focussed on exploring and experimenting within the boundaries of the principles we’ve shared, with the tools with which we’ve armed them with.
Practice here, with great intentions, should throw up more questions than answers, more challenge than clarity, and that’s just perfect.
Then, FFC 2 is your next step; where the systemisation and a sense of freedom of your tool use will enable you to uncover more answers, and therefore, more clarity will be found.
FFC 1 enables the apprentice. FFC 2 sets the craftsperson free.