Yinka Thomas

My name is Yinka Thomas. I'm based in East London and my job is I'm a professional BMX flatland rider and coach.

Yeah, so my job involves, as I said, teaching BMX flatland tricks.

Flatland is basically a sport on a BMX. Typically you think of BMX, you think of ramps and such. I perform flat tricks on a flat surface on the floor, which involves a BMX bike with a set of four pegs and obviously doing maneuvers on these pegs.

So you'll see loads of spins, rolling tricks and just basically being creative with a BMX bike. So initially I'll be performing a stunt show that could be for any occasion really.

Or I could be hosting BMX workshops with... could be youths from council groups, camps and any kind of avenue of children that want to be involved with just a fun way of cycling really.

Days can be different. Fundamentally, as I said, we house BMX workshops. So for a day hosting BMX workshops, I could be in a school, an after school club, or during the term, during half term periods, I could be at a camp working with children.

A typical day would involve me, rocking up with maybe 10 BMX bikes, all of my equipment, the safety paddings, helmets and such like that, and children will engage with the workshop.

The workshop involves basically general bicycle abilities, so we teach them how to ride safely, as well as the BMX Flatland element to it, which I, as a BMX company, I'm the only company that provides this in and around London.

And so yeah, so the bikes have set up four pegs on them. The kids are to practice the safe BMX tricks that I'll teach them. I'll kind of guide them on the tricks. And we kind of leave them to kind of progress through the session.

As well as that, we also have limbo pole challenge. So children will cycle under the limbo pole and we'll lower it bit by bit. Cone swerving. A whole heap of challenges and games for the kids to kind of engage in and just use their energy.

The best thing about my job is being on my BMX because I've always loved riding my bike as a child. I decided to take it up as a professional sport when I was about 14 years old.

So I've been in the game a very long time and to be able to leave my house and work with young people and inspire them because I never really got the opportunity to be inspired like that, so for me to be able to share my wisdom, I really like that.

The hardest part of my job is... that's a tough question really.

Obviously as well as the fun that's involved with it, there is a lot of computer work such as paperwork, sending emails, a lot of admin work which can be quite stressful and difficult.

So that's definitely I would say a quite challenging part of the job.

It's a very interesting story. I'll try to keep it brief.

So as a child, I was living in London as I am now, but I was living in quite a rough part of London. Typically, children will kind of grow up in this area and just get up to mischief, as I kind of was as children do.

Although I had some interest in BMX bikes, so I would go on YouTube and I would look at the sport BMX Flatland, I never had a bike myself and was like really inspired but never had the opportunity to partake in the sport until I got a BMX bike which my mum bought me for Christmas.

And I kind of, yeah, kind of had a set a pegs and I was trying the basic tricks, but again, never really took it seriously until, as I said, I was living in a rough part of London, had my friends around the area, and my mum said to me that we're going to move to a different part. Obviously, as a child, you're gonna be upset you're leaving your friends.

And yeah, I was pretty annoyed about that until I was talking to a friend online who is in... he's kind of in the scene of the BMX Flatland and I told him the area that I'm moving to and he goes he mentioned to me that that area is actually like the UK hub of BMX Flatland.

Yeah, there's a big scene at a court because all we need is a flat floor. So it's a big open caged court and at the time loads of BMXers would go there and they'd gather there, help each other out, teach each other tricks. And that was the area that I was moving to.

So it was almost like fate kind of put me there. And ever since then the guys hooked me up with a proper BMX bike, gave me all the wisdom I needed to know and set me on my way really.

I work with, as I mentioned, a lot of children in after-school clubs. A lot of children don't actually, well, not just children, not many people actually get to see BMX Flatland in person. So it's a big wow factor for them. And it can be highly inspiring.

For children just to get cycling really you see someone on a bike spinning. You've never seen that in your life before. You may have seen on YouTube or TV or something like that but to see in person is completely different feel to it.

And yeah, that can inspire people to just not learn just so much learn tricks, but just to get on the bike and ride. It's a healthy activity.

As well as that, I work with a lot of SEMH schools and that's children with social mental health disorders and such. They find these sessions highly beneficial as it can offer them great stress relief. It can offer great stress relief.

It provides them the opportunity to kind of step out of their comfort zone and learn something new and focus on something kind of different for a change.

And it's also a great form, as I said, it's like stress relief, keeping them active and healthy. And yeah, I feel that kind of benefits those children too. So it's a wide range of our market kind of goes to a lot of people and children.

There's a few, there's a few. There's good times and there's some bad times.

Most recently in August I was performing a stunt show and I kind of come off the bike injured myself. So I've not been able to somewhat train as much as I would like. Which is, that's the bad side. It's just part of the job though.

The good side is, as I said, I get to inspire loads of children on a daily basis almost, and especially with the children with SEMH needs. I feel like, yeah, it's a great way to encourage their behavioural management as well, which is great to see.

I personally have five to six years working in schools as a TA and most recently I was in a school for children with social and mental development needs and that's kind of how I got into pushing the workshops to these kind of schools and such.

So yes, it's a great way to... I feel quite a great accomplishment in helping these type of children as well.

It sounds kind of cheesy but... believe in yourself and almost like don't limit yourself, like anything is actually achievable.

Prime example is the tricks that I can do on my BMX today and as a child I would never think that I would be able to achieve these type of goals, which I have done now.

And that applies not just for BMX riding but everything. Whatever your goals are in life, don't feel limited and push yourself and you most will definitely achieve them.