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Serendipity. Fate. Destiny.
Take your pick but these are some of the many words I could use to describe the collaboration with Wolfgang Mwanje, better known as ‘Wolf’ from Psycle London.
What started off as a means to bring a big name down to KL for the community ended up being one of the most impactful collaborations that I’ve ever experienced in my life and not just for me but I can safely say for the Journey Community; no in fact, the spin community in Malaysia who were participating during the ‘Way Of The Wolf’ campaign.
As I waited anxiously at the airport, I wondered what Wolf would be like as although we knew each other online and had been messaging back and forth for ages now, you never really know how someone is until you meet them physically without the barrier of being behind the screen. I wasn’t expecting much though, another well-known spin instructor from another country who has been leading the industry for a while now.
Then BOOM - out of the corner of my eye while I was deep in my thoughts, a loud but calming ‘Hey brother!’ caught my attention followed by a genuine warm hug from this man who towers above most, did not make me feel small, but quite the opposite. It made me feel big and weirdly accepted, yet I was the host in this situation….
We quickly caught up and in that 10 minutes of having our physical conversation with each other, I knew that this was the right man to bring down and expose to the community as he embodies everything that Journey believes in and follows a similar path that we want to go down. I was excited for the community to embrace him but what happened throughout that week was way more than I could ever envision for this collaboration.
Wolf was scheduled to do 3 classes while he was here, one workshop, one class similar like one he would do back home, and one 60-minute themed ride. What we got was so much more. Beginning with the Workshop, we got to see many from the spin community unite and learn under one roof which began with a powerful 60-minute ride followed by a fruitful learning session which taught us instructors many different techniques and focuses, whilst also encouraging discussion and teamwork.
The Journey team wanted the community to benefit from the workshop so we held tickets to the workshop for 2 representatives from other leading studios in KL, and from our neighbouring countries. They were all kind enough to respond making it a much more inclusive session. We had representatives from Aloha Cycle Club, Flyproject, PWRhouse, Euphoria, Speed Miri, and Nativecycle from Bangkok. From my experience at the workshop, I think the best part of this was seeing instructors from different studios working together to improve our collective craft - as the growth wasn’t just valuable to us as individual instructors, but valuable to the entire industry as a whole.
Wolf was the glue that brought us all together and his presence and knowledge imparted to us will forever mean more due to that.
Wolf's classes were a breath of fresh air as his style was nothing like I’d ever seen before. Wolf may be a spin instructor by trade, but I would coin him as more of a storyteller. How Wolf uses Spin to convey and express himself was such a unique experience to be a part of as the way he brings you on this journey felt like you were a character in a story being guided by a spirit only wanting growth and positivity for you. Words would not do his classes justice so you would need to experience it for yourself to feel his greatness; the way he mixes his music to build beats and get the rider to stay on rhythm throughout was very exciting.
Now, I want to talk about what I felt was Wolf's best quality, his character. I asked when he arrived to let me know wherever he wanted to go, I would take him. He never asked once throughout his stay here and instead just expressed that he wanted the week to feel like he was a journey instructor, and he did exactly that. Spending most of the time at the studio, he forged a bond with our instructors and customers like I’ve never seen before, having deep and meaningful conversations with everyone he interacted with.
Later on, I was told by all these people that they were very thankful to have the opportunity to just converse with him so you could tell how much of a positive influence he had on everyone. I am blessed that I got to spend a lot of time with Wolf as well as learning from him and just having genuine deep conversations about the industry and life. We shared a lot of similar views and were willing to discuss things we may had differing views on, but always out of respect. We discussed many innovative ideas for the industry and also our hopes for it, which usually ended with ‘the industry players must come together and build the industry as a whole. To create a larger pool for all of us to be a part of and to continuously experience growth through innovation and creativity.’ From all of this, I know that this collaboration will not be the last and that the future holds much more for Wolf and Journey. In what capacity? Who knows. I wanted to extend a BIG thank you to Wolf for coming over and giving us his all, may our paths cross again someday but till then, The Journey Continues.
