“Helping people grow and stay consistent”
Phil Hulford is a performer from Brighton: actor, dancer, movement specialist, fitness coach, mindset coach, breath worker, and now also vlogger. After a long career in the Hofesh Shechter Company, now he is freelancing.
He organized his life in detail, asking himself “WHY?” for everything, constantly challenging himself, aiming to become the better version of the strong, flexible, emotional performer that he can be.
“We have to apply a complete faith in ourselves, in the capability to grow, through changing our habits, and change the way we think we can go everywhere we want”.
You worked with Hofesh Shechter for 10 years. What does this experience represent for you?
“Working with him represents a lot because he took me from a kind of vulnerable place, during my second year of training in the London Contemporary Dance School. He influenced my way of thinking about movement. The first foundation of how I work now, being PRESENT with the movement.”
After you left the company, what was your reaction?
“After working with Hofesh, I experienced a kind of loss of identity, and I didn’t know how to train and discipline myself. The way I overcame was getting over myself and my ego, allowing myself to push away all the excuses because I really needed to go deep into myself: WHY is the most important question, WHY this? WHY that?”
What is the importance to organize and schedule your life?
“It is the most important thing. If I don’t schedule myself, it doesn’t happen, but if I prepare before it happens.”
Now you start a journey on the internet as a motivator, to help other people. Why did you decide to start?
“When I really started working on my fears and problems I started to step to my destiny. That makes me realize the power of the practice: if I want to do something I can do it. Working on myself I thought: everybody can do that, so everyone can overcome fears and anxiety, everything, so I thought to use what I have and love to encourage people to step into the purpose.”
How can you motivate yourself and keep enthusiasm?
“Every single time I feel something, an emotion that comes in and it is not directed towards my positive vibes, I train myself and I use this: I realize this and understand that it helps me to grow. This bad emotion is an opportunity to prove myself. Those feelings are necessary, and I really took the time to train my mind to react positively to these feelings. “I can do this; I can do that”. It is not faking to be positively, and you are not pretending you are not feeling something, you feel all these bad emotions because they are real, but you train as to overcome them.”
What is the importance of the mind?
“Very very important. More important than the body. Actually mind and body are one, they are connected. The mind is important to feel. It is the mind the controls also your body. Sometimes you want to really push physically, but your mind has to connect to the body to understand when to shift.”
And what is the importance of breathing?
“When I am conscious of my breath, I am conscious of my body and thoughts also. Or if I am struggling to stay focused or positive, I take two minutes to breathe and when I come back after this time, I am more present, focused, and clear. You have body, mind, and breath. Breathe is spirit, in many languages, or energy or life. You have to connect to the breath in order to connect to the spirit.”
You talk about challenging yourself and achieving goals, What are your goals so far?
“Becoming the better version of the strong, flexible, emotional performer that I can be. I want to work with the best and big challenges, elevate the level of my performance.”
Being a freelancer sometimes can be hard. How can you deal with this?
“Routine. Make yourself the routine and speak with that: it is not easy. The most important thing is asking yourself WHY: why are you training? What are you training for? Then you have to connect the three things: mind, body, and breathe. You have to touch these things every day.”
How important is improvising as a dancer?
“Really important: it teaches you very quickly because you have immediate feedback if you are engaged at the moment because you are not thinking about steps. If someone else watches the improvisation, you feel when someone is engaged in what is doing or they are more concerned with how they look on the camera. I love this idea.”
You have two kids, how are you able to focus on your training and your children at the same time?
“That is a beautiful practice: being engaged with the moment and then have a distraction that interrupts your flow and I have to deal with the kids and come back to the flow, in a continuous in and out: I like this game. With children is really important to show: they don’t care about what you say, but what you DO. So if I only train in the morning, when they are not around, they cannot recognize that that is an important part of my life: so I train also when they are around, I challenge myself having them around also to show my struggle, and if they want to achieve a goal they have to practice every day.”
You always talk about the present moment. Can you explain it better?
“The present moment is not focusing on anything else but the task asked now, and the task changes, so, for example, focusing on the breath (and it is happening right now, not in the past or future). The present moment is just actually experiencing things for what they are, without worries in the past.”
Can you give some advice to young dancers?
“Not neglect your personal training, it doesn’t mean just physical, but also feeding yourself with inspiration, feeding yourself with the knowledge that brings you life.”
We are honored to get a chance to interview this amazing groovy dancer!!
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