London can be seen as an "unfriendly" place, but if you look for it, kindness is visible wherever you go and witnessing an act of kindness to a stranger can have a knock-on effect to those around. 

We are half way through February already, focusing on kindness and I came across an appropriate old blog post that  written when I first came to London after a year travelling. I wanted to share some of it with you…

How are you feeling this Valentine's Day? I know that this day can bring all sorts of strange feelings and emotions and the first thing I always suggest when we find ourselves feeling any kind of emotion is to accept and be at one with it, happy or sad.

We have arrived at Day 7 in the 7 Days of Kindness challenge

Can you believe it's Day 6 of the 7 Days of Kindness challenge already? Sam here, I hope this challenge has been good to you - we are loving hearing your feedback about it

Welcome to Day 5 of our 7 Days of Kindness challenge 

We are half way through our 7 Days of Kindness challenge and we have had some lovely feedback so far, thank you

Good morning SMASH crew and welcome to day 3 of our 7 days of kindness challenge. Sam here! 

Welcome to Day 2 of our 7 Days of Kindness challenge

Welcome to the 7 Days of Kindness challenge - SMASH style

As usual, with a new month comes a new focus, so today will be your introduction to... KINDNESS.

Think for a second now, what does the word kindness mean to you? 

January 31st, one month of the year already completed and the foundations for a successful 2018 have been set!

Haven't they?...

I guess all of us are on our own amazing journey, and each of us will have had a different kind of January, so what could you do if the foundations you need aren't as strong as you would like?

This time of year, in the gym especially, is always very full on – lots of people with new year resolutions, whether it is fitness related or general work/life goals. Even if you try to avoid it, you are likely to get caught up in a flurry of extra motivated and potentially extra stressed people which can affect how you feel.

As always, I will be honest... The first week of January was not the best. My mood was low, I felt exhausted and there were many maintenance issues at work that were completely out of my control, but for which I felt entirely responsible for. I also think that following such an amazing end to 2017 I was on a bit of a  'comedown'...

My fitness foundations were built when I attended gyms and classes, getting myself fit and interested in exercise… I dropped from a size 20 to a size 8 in the space of a year, however my training was unsustainable

As part of foundation building, we wanted to take the opportunity in this week's email to discuss the importance of doing a proper warm up and cool down, as well as trying to include general stretching in to your daily routine

Today I wanted to talk a little more about our focus of “foundations” from the angle of training. Purely by chance, on Monday we did the pyramid style training class (90 second run, 60 second with a sandbag, 45 second HIIT and 30 second plank) and during it I thought that the Pyramid is a great example of what it means to have solid foundations!

We are really impressed with the dedication and motivation we have seen from everyone and we hope that SMASH has helped improve your mental and physical health in some way, or another! 

On Monday it will be 20 weeks until the Vitality 10k run so if you have signed up please let us know! If you haven't go to www.vitalitylondon10000.co.uk  

2018 has arrived and all around us we are hearing 'new year, new you' messages... Whilst we don't disagree with this message, we talked about what we felt should be the SMASH focus for January and decided to shy away from the common January marketing blurb. Our focus for January is....