Make other people feel and find your passion.

They say a name is just a name until you give meaning to it, no matter where you come from or what your history is, people remember them for how you made them feel.

My name is Rudi Visagie; I am a third year Sport Science student, a Regional Manager of a supplement retailer called AMPED Sport, and now a Strength and Conditioning intern at the UXI Western Province Rugby. Based on this and my appearance, one wouldn’t think that I come out of a troubled home: a home of domestic abuse, a home of mental abuse, a home without a father. A home of an alcoholic father, where every day he picks a drink, you fear for your mother’s and your own life. A house where you wonder where the next meal is going to come from. The list goes on. The question is instead, what did I do? I could have turned to the streets, gangs, fallen into addictions like drugs and alcohol, like so many of the youth.

My mother always told me, “do you want to be a VW Beatle or a Porsche?” This is an easy answer, but a Porsche is a hard thing to be. I decided then and there that I wasn’t going to let my circumstances define me, and I knew that I was destined for greater that the situation I found myself in. I had to make that choice for myself that I was going to make the choice to crossover to a better future, so that I could become the best version of myself that I could possibly become – but I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy.  I was never an over-achiever at school level; I was fat, obese and was bullied – but I changed that. I put in the work, day in and day out; while everyone else went out partying, I went to the gym to learn, to grow and to use it as a way to deal with my mental issues. The discipline of going to the gym also made me work harder in school and gave me a routine to stick to between school and gym. I also began playing rugby, where I played for the First team from grade 11, right through until Matric; I also wanted to try and understand the different training styles, to increase my knowledge and application towards certain types of training.

As the years went by, I manged to build a body for myself that many admired, and I started helping my friends in the gym and that’s where my passion started for helping others – in a way, I was able to give back, and what goes around comes around. This is also the reason why I went on to study Personal Training, and then moved into the world of Sport Science, as helping others achieve their goals makes me happy. To end of I refer to my first paragraph – it isn’t who you are or where you come from that defines you, it’s the way you make other people feel and finding your passion.