By Lucy Roberts
Lockdown gave us all a chance to try something new or reinvigorate a passion, and that is exactly what This Girl Can’s Aneesa Dawoojee did - she started to take part in online workouts and hasn’t looked back since.
Aneesa Dawoojee
When her work as a freelance photographer stopped as a result of the pandemic restrictions, Dawoojee needed something to keep her mind and body active and with the help of Zoom exercise classes she found the solution.
The mother of two spoke of how the classes positively impacted her mental health and why sport is so unifying for people.
Dawoojee also gives her advice to other women who want to start taking their fitness seriously but might be feeling intimidated and uncomfortable about it.
Q) During lockdown your former personal trainer reached out to you about her Zoom exercise classes, did you feel excited to try them or did you really need to motivate yourself to give them a go?
A) I didn’t really use Zoom that much and now I use it a lot for everything, but I was not that keen and I didn’t feel comfortable because I didn’t really sort of see how that could work, it didn’t make sense to me. So, I thought yeah, I’m not really feeling it and I don’t think I’ll enjoy it. But I gave it a go because after a little while I was realising that I wasn’t really doing anything, my body is suffering as a result of it physically, mentally, everything. My body was taking a bit of a toll. I did give them a go and I actually quite enjoyed them.
Q) Was there a variety of exercises involved or did the classes just focus on one particular exercise?
A) There were a few different things initially in the first lockdown, and then it got refined in the other lockdowns. So in the first lockdown I was doing HIIT training because I was in touch with lots of different people and then some friends were trying to make me do the ones that they were doing. So, I did a bit of Zumba, I did a bit of HIIT training and then I did the martial arts again which for me- I kind of wanted to go back to but I was too nervous to go into a class with all these people who train all the time and I’m older now, I used to do it when I was younger. I just felt like I know what the training is like and I just thought, I’d feel intimidated, I’d feel a bit stupid if I can’t keep up with these; they’re younger, they’re bigger and I just didn’t think I could do it. But it’s kind of nice doing it at home and figuring out what my own fitness level was and it was less embarrassing. So, it was actually really fun, and my kids did it with me so I really enjoyed that.
Q) Was it easy to get into a routine with your exercise during lockdown and did it help that your kids exercised with you?
A) When I was pregnant, I had gestational diabetes with my youngest son, I’m borderline now and my youngest son sometimes he can fluctuate and I’m very mindful that my boys have that healthy lifestyle and so I can’t preach and not practice. It was quite encouraging, it was like 11 o’clock every day in the first lockdown and we’d all do it together – stop everything we were doing and just do it. It was quite nice because we got competitive between each other and that was really lovely. It bonded us; it was really nice. I used to film it on my computer or on my phone and just balance it somewhere and film us doing it. I loved that. I always say that’s probably one of the nicer memories of the lockdown, doing that with them because we never really did stuff like that, I was always the mum watching at the side of the football pitch or at swimming lessons.
Q) What kind of effect have the exercise classes had on your mental wellbeing?
A) It’s been massive. You don’t realise how much you need it. There were times when my husband would just look at me and say: “You’re not doing enough.” He didn’t mean that physically, he would never, ever, ever say anything about my body, but he just meant that I was being a little bit bonkers and that I should channel that energy somewhere because I was a bit out of sorts and I was struggling, struggling not to be around people and I was struggling with work because for photographers, our work stopped, it stopped overnight. I have a studio so I couldn’t operate anything from home so that was really, really tough. It does balance you out. You meet other people in similar situations and the way that I did my training was interactive so the girls would talk to each other as well and some of them I knew because I introduced them. Then I developed good relationships with the trainers.
I’m from an area where there is a lot of difficulty and there’s struggle and I don’t mean just financially, I just mean everyone has their hardships and their problems, so then you add the massive lockdown into the mix and you’re all in it together. I did struggle but this did keep me quite sane and just having that contact where we laugh about it, we still laugh about it on a Saturday morning, we still do it, and we laugh about who’s annoyed us and it becomes quite a good thing. But it is just knowing that other people are going through it too. Our situations are all very different but there are commonalities, and no human is unscathed one way or another are they. I strongly believe that exercise and mental health are connected and without that I just think that you’re at more risk of deteriorating if you’re not in a very good place.
Depending on the sport, each thing brings you something different. So, you might be with one trainer and it can be a really high energy, loud music experience and another one might not be, but everything brings something different. I used to work for a charity (The Change Foundation), and I didn’t know this, I saw it on Instagram the other day, but they were formed after the Brixton riots. The premise of this charity is to unify communities in the same way that I hope to as well but through sport. So, no matter what your differences are and no matter where you come from or anything, you can unite people and that also takes away the mental stress of thinking that you can’t be with that group or you can’t mix with that group. It just breaks down all the cultural barriers which is something that I really, really strongly believe in, how can you make positive change towards equality, diversity and all those things without actually just making it normal and to make it normal is sport. I think sport is the unifying thing for everything.
Q) What advice would you give to women who want to start exercising, either for the first time in years or dropped off because of lockdown and want to restart it?
A) I think the first lockdown was easier because I think every fitness person on the planet was throwing out free content and then it got trickier, but I would say if you’re thinking: “Oh I want to try it,” I would definitely, definitely say do it. With the gyms opening up it’ll be a bit easier now but just find something that you feel comfortable doing. The trainers are so supportive so if you’re able to have a conversation or a bit of an email chat with them before you go, it’s amazing how at ease you’ll feel before you even start because they want their clients to be in a safe place. What I did do as well which might help other women who don’t feel confident is when I couldn’t stick to the regimented times (for workouts), I’d go for long walks so I’d do two and a half hour walks just around my area and I’d listen to podcasts and I’d do voice notes for anything that I needed to type up, so it was kind of like I was working on the go but in a nice way, I was looking up at the sky and listening to the birds and I like daffodils so I was doing all that sort of stuff. There are other ways that you can carry burn and maintain yourself because it can be daunting, it can feel really uncomfortable if you’re not accustomed to it. But there’s so many ways around it and the community is really lovely. I think the sporting communities are always full with nice and genuine people.
Aneesa is part of the This Girl Can campaign which she spoke very highly of, describing it as epic as it gave her focus and fed her mind. Not only did she say that it’s great for her but also for women as a whole.
Women can access useful resources to help get active via the website, www.thisgirlcan.co.uk
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