Taking a Break from Personal Training / Sports Training

July 22nd 2017.

On June 24th, 4 weeks ago today, my wife gave birth to our son Richard. I write this on my laptop while he sleeps (and farts) curled up next to me on a baby blanket.

On August 28th I will be officially retiring from being a personal trainer / sports trainer and I will begin devoting my time towards being a full time stay-at-home dad while my wife pursues her law career.

This means I only have 5 weeks and 1 day before my temporary retirement. Anyone in Toronto wishing to have archery lessons - which is my main thing this time of year - should contact me ASAP if they are seeking to have archery lessons.

This will therefore effect scheduling. As the Temporary Retirement Day approaches, I will be encouraging any new students to either choose a lesser number of lessons, or a very aggressive schedule to get the lessons done ASAP.

People seeking to have 10 archery lessons should be thinking of 2 or even 3 lessons per week, instead of the normal one lesson per week schedule. The goal being to get all the lessons done before August 28th.

Outstanding Lessons

Any outstanding lessons will either be refunded or conducted on weekends in September 2017. I am hoping to have all outstanding lessons done before the end of August, but there might be a few people who need to have their lessons on weekends in September or refunded.

The Archery Coach formally known as Charles, February 2017

Temporary Retirement???

After August 28th I will also be raising my rates and my availability will become extremely limited.

I am already the most expensive and most sought after archery instructor in Toronto - hence why I have been able to raise my rates multiple times over the years, due to the demand. However I may be raising my rates again to compensate for the fact that I will need to arrange babysitting for a newborn / toddler just to make it possible for me to teach people seeking archery lessons.

So that means I won't be retiring from personal training / sports training entirely, rather my availability and willingness to teach will be highly dependent on a variety of factors, such as the availability of a babysitter, my personal availability, etc.

Richard's first trip to the Toronto Archery Range

So what will I be doing in the future?

Well, asides from changing Richard's diapers, clothing him, bathing him, feeding him, burping him, letting him sleep on my chest, teaching him how to go potty, teaching him archery, baseball, fishing, how to read, how to write, how to do math, how to cheat at poker...

On my To Do List I will also be doing the following:

• Finishing my second book about archery and finally publish it.
• Perhaps write a few more articles for Archery Focus Magazine or other archery publications.
• Writing archery equipment reviews for archerytoronto.ca.
• Bowmaking. I have 2 pieces of cherry and 2 pieces of black walnut just waiting to be turned into pyramid bows / flatblows.
• Wooden arrow dowel making. (I started making a wooden arrow dowel jig two years ago and I would love to finish making the jig and start making arrows.)
• Arrow fletching.
• Making Bowstrings / Re-Serving Bowstrings.
• Repairing Compound Bows (a rare skill, but nevertheless).
• Working on my other website projectgriddless.ca, which is dedicated to off-the-grid living, survivalism, and bow-making.
• Teaching archery to actors and thespians - I got into this years ago and I plan to keep doing this.
• Doing trick shot videos.
• Fishing and Bowfishing.
• Working on my culinary skills.
• Working on my carpentry skills.
• Various fitness goals.
• Sleeping in more often.
• Camping.
• Travel.
• Raising my son to be a good person.

*Special Note* It is also theoretically possible that my wife's law career might take us outside of Toronto, possibly moving to a smaller city or town within Ontario, but I am very confident that even if that did happen, we would be back as both my wife and I have family here in Toronto and it is above all else, our home. If however we ended up living in a rural area that we could potentially get horses, lets add the following things to my To Do List:

• Buy horses.
• Breed horses.
• Horse maintenance.
• Pay expensive vet bills.
• Teach Richard how to ride.
• Get into equestrian archery.
• Opening an archery range / horse-riding school.

So yeah, plenty of possibilities in my future. My temporary retirement from being a personal trainer / sports trainer is simply a new step on a long road of adventures.

The future? We shall see.