Playful Nature Podcast by WildStrong

In this powerful conversation, Andrew speaks with Lorraine Close, Outreach Director of Edinburgh Community Yoga, nurse educator at the University of Edinburgh, and long-time facilitator of trauma-informed movement programs across prisons, the NHS, psychiatric hospitals, addiction recovery centres, and local communities.Lorraine shares her personal journey into yoga - from teenage drinking culture in Glasgow to yoga communities in San Francisco, India, and Thailand - and how those experiences shaped her understanding of belonging, class, agency, and the deep inequities in Scotland’s health landscape.She explains the principles of trauma-informed practice, why “choice” and “agency” matter far more than perfect poses, and how the yoga and wellness worlds often unintentionally reinforce exclusion, coercion, or pseudo-spiritual dogma.In the second half, Lorraine speaks openly about the coming closure of Edinburgh Community Yoga after 11 years of impact, and the brutal pressures that community-based organisations face in a funding landscape that increasingly rewards commodification and influencer culture over grassroots relational work. What emerges is an honest exploration of what it means to do meaningful practice in an increasingly extractive system and where hope lives now.

In this episode, Andrew speaks with Dr. Lawrence Foweather, researcher and lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University and one of the key contributors to the Physical Literacy Consensus Statement for England (2023). Lawrence has spent two decades researching how children, adolescents, and adults engage with movement and physical activity.They explore:the origins and evolution of physical literacywhy it resonates across policy, practice, and real-world movement settingshow the concept differs from “moving more”how physical literacy unfolds across the life course, from early years to older adulthoodthe role of motivation, enjoyment, capability, and relationshipsthe Thrive principles (Tailored, Holistic, Reflective, Inclusive, Varied, Empowering)emerging research on balance, falls prevention, and middle-age “prevention windows”why not all minutes of activity are equalThis conversation offers a clear, accessible, and profoundly human take on why movement matters - not as a set of guidelines, but as a lifelong relationship.Sport England Consensus StatementInternational Physical Literacy Association WHO GLOBAL ACTION PLAN ON PHYSICAL ACTIVITY 2018-2030

This week, Andrew speaks with Dr Charlotte Marriott - NHS Consultant Psychiatrist, Certified Lifestyle Medicine Physician, medical educator and nature-based coach. Charlotte works with people living with complex mental health challenges, while also championing evidence-based lifestyle change and accessible, community-led movement.Together they explore why health is simple but society makes it hard, and how nature, physical activity and social connection transform mental wellbeing. They discuss the pitfalls of optimisation culture, smartwatches, hustle wellness, and the systems-level barriers that shape our choices long before willpower ever enters the picture.Charlotte shares stories from her NHS practice, explains how movement changes the brain, and makes the case for designing environments - not just interventions - that help people thrive.In this episode:• The six pillars of lifestyle medicine, without the guilt• Nature as a core mental health intervention• Why enjoyment may be the most important metric in movement• The dark side of trackers, optimisation and wellness grift• How movement boosts brain health, mood and memory• Social determinants of health and the limits of “better choices”• Real patient stories: from ready-meals to boxing gyms• Why the first small step always matters the most.Books, articles, projects that came up in conversation and you might find interesting: 1. Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild — Lucy Jones2. British Society of Lifestyle Medicine (BSLM)4. Nutri-Tank (Nutrition in Medical Education)5. SHAPE Programme – Supporting Health and Promoting Exercise6. Bee Network – Greater Manchester Active Travel

Andrew sits down with Jarlo Ilano, Physical Therapist (MPT) since 1998, former Orthopaedic Clinical Specialist (OCS), Certified Therapeutic Pain Specialist (TPS), co-founder of GMB Fitness, and martial-arts teacher of 20 years — to explore how people actually learn to move, heal, and keep moving across a lifetime.Jarlo traces three decades in physiotherapy: from a rigid, structural, biomedical model to the more nuanced biopsychosocial approach that recognises the interaction between body, mind, and context.He explains how good clinicians and coaches blend both — the bio still matters, but so do people’s stories, expectations, and environments. That shift, he says, makes practice multimodal and genuinely human.The conversation ranges through:Why evidence-based practice often misses lived complexity.The tension between efficacy (in controlled trials) and effectiveness (in the real world).How clinical equipoise, belief, and placebo/nocebo effects shape recovery.Why contextual effects aren’t noise — they’re the real environment of movement and health.From there, we explore GMB’s evolution from gymnastics to movement culture, the design of its Elements programme built on locomotion, auto-regulation, and reflection, and how scaffolded play and minimum effective dose thinking help people rediscover capability and confidence.TakeawaysGood practice balances biological, psychological, and social realities.Play needs scaffolding: constraints + feedback → learning without frustration.Functional independence — floors, stairs, shopping, confidence — is the best progress marker.More on GMB Fitness HereWildStrong Webinar on Using Games & Play to Teach MovementTransitional Movement: Where Strength Becomes Skill (You CANNOT Skip This)

Tim Gill is a writer, consultant and independent researcher championing children’s everyday freedoms, especially their freedom to move and play outdoors. He’s the author of No Fear (on risk aversion) and Urban Playground (child-friendly planning and design), and has worked with NGOs and cities internationally to put children at the heart of neighbourhood design.Tim is particularly focused on the fundamental conflict between cars and children, and the urgent need to reframe how we think about cars, streets and neighbourhoods.While some of this may seem remote from children’s outdoor play, he sees these issues as connected: we will only give children the spatial freedoms they deserve when we reduce the dominance of the car - both in the places where we live and inside our heads.Designing for children isn’t a niche add-on, it’s a way to build safer, calmer streets, stronger communities, and lifelong confidence, with benefits that reach every age.Resources mentioned Tim Gill — No Fear (free download) Tim Gill — Urban Playground Vauban, Freiburg case studyGreat Kneighton (Cambridge) overview Playout Play Streets Toolkit School Streets (toolkits) Dinah Bornat — All to Play For Childhood and nature: a survey on changing relationships with nature across generations