Living on the other side of Lake Michigan, Chicago has always been a favorite family getaway…usually around the November/December holidays. Old Town (a north-side Chicago neighborhood) is the current home for my youngest daughter and home to one of four SoulCycle studios in greater Chicago (SoulCycle Chicago). My first SoulCycle class was at the Old Town studio (my blog post from May 2015).
So…for November, THANKS to Brent Locey for sharing his Soul Story in this month’s Guest blog post…
My journey to being a SoulCycle instructor is one that I never planned for but consider myself so lucky that life threw me some unexpected twists that lead me to the podium. My current passion for fitness was born from my obsession with sports growing up, specifically football, basketball, and swimming. While I loved competing as my own athlete throughout my career, I quickly discovered that my true calling was coaching. Starting in high school and continuing through and after college I coached my neighborhood summer swim team, USS swimming, and AAU basketball. Some of my most fulfilling life moments have been sharing in the successes of the kids I was able to coach and the fact that years later I still have such wonderful relationships with so many of them. I told myself that I always wanted to be involved in coaching but at the time only considered that it would be on a volunteer basis and most likely just for my future children as so many parents do. I never considered that I could translate my passion and calling into a career.
So I followed through with my desire and training to be a residential architect and put coaching aside. I was working at a prestigious firm in New York City, grinding away with long office hours as so many young professionals do and assuming I was setting myself up for the career I wanted and would be most successful in. And then I found SoulCycle. At first SoulCycle was merely my favorite workout and stress relief while I was living in New York. It was not only my first experience with any type of indoor cycling, but it was completely different from any other workout I had done before. The workout was challenging, the sweat was heavy, but most importantly I loved every minute of it and it never lost my attention.
After almost 2 years in New York I moved back to the Washington DC area, where I grew up, to work at another architecture firm and in my mind to settle and put down some roots. SoulCycle wasn’t open in DC for the first year I was back so I tried a few other spinning studios. They were good but for me nothing compared. When SoulCycle finally opened in DC it caught on like wildfire, as I knew it would, and I actually started to ask myself how I could get involved with the company and share something I loved with my family and friends. That’s when I put two and two together that I would actually like to become an instructor and get back to my love of coaching in a whole new way.
Without dragging on about the audition and training process, I was lucky enough to be selected and pass and my life has completely changed in the best way possible as a result. I moved to Chicago in 2015 to open our first studio in the region and after 2 years we now have 4 total studios and life on the bike couldn’t be any better. We have built an amazing community of athletes and great people. The fact that I get to wake up everyday and help inspire people to be the best versions of themselves, feel better about their days, or just help them sing, dance, and sweat a little makes me feel so fortunate. And while I’ve since become a NASM certified personal trainer and have started my own fitness boot camp, my main passion has and imagine will always be SoulCycle and riding with amazing people in our studio.
Next time you’re in Chicago, get to Old Town (or any of the other Chicago studios), look up Brent’s schedule and go for an amazing RIDE INSIDE, the SoulCycle way.
More about Brent and SoulCycle…
A couple ride playlists…
What I’m Into Now: Brent Locey on Spotify
Brent loves Theme Rides…
SoulCycle Loop Playlist
https://www.soul-cycle.com/community/inspiration/listen-to-our-loop-playlist/1231/
Video archives: Workout tips…
http://www.fox32chicago.com/mornings/workout-tips-from-soulcycle
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