Interview: The boys from House Gymnastics

Post-uni blues can lead many people to begin climbing the walls, but Nottingham duo James Ford and Spencer Harrison took this literally and turned what was once considered a sign of madness into House Gymnastics. Part-art form, part-sport, part-media phenomenon, which you can indulge in without leaving your home. We caught up with the latter half of the Harrison and Ford team to discuss Carpet Crabs, climbing around a Swedish tattoo parlour for German Tv and passing out on the Nottingham Goose...

To bring people up to speed, how long has House Gymnastics being going?

"Since September 2002, so just over two years."

House Gymnastics started in Nottingham. How did it come about?

"Spencer and I were both at home at the time, unemployed, drinking a lot of tea, you know, that post-uni blues sort of thing... we had to fill our days and I had a blind which needed putting up in my room but we didn't have a stepladder, so we thought, well let's climb the window frame. It took us almost all day because it was so awkward, we had to balance and prop each other up to screw it in, but after we did it we started looking for other things to climb on and it went from there..."

Did you expect it to catch on as it has done with worldwide membership?

"Not at all... it was a sort of snowballing thing. It started by emailing pictures of us doing moves to friends and naming the moves. They sent them to their friends and then we started getting emails from these people saying `When are you going to send us some more?' That was when we thought of putting together a basic website where we could upload stuff to show people. Then, I forget how it came about, but we had an article in Dazed & Confused then somehow we got Yahoo Pick Of The Day, which is their site of the day, in January 2003 which gave us 6,000 hits per day and melted our server... then radio, TV and magazine people started phoning up and it snowballed from there."

The media interest has been crazy... the idea is off on such a tangent but it has universal appeal...

"Yeah, exactly... that's why it was able to be in art magazines, computer magazines, health magazines, fashion magazines. You name a magazine and we've probably been in it."

How would you define HG?

"It has a fitness side to it, but that wasn't its main purpose. It was more like a skateboarding thing, a breakdancing thing. I mean how would you define those things? Its not a sport, its not an exercise, its just an activity. We used yoga when stretching in the house and that kind of influenced the moves we created."

Do you still bust moves regularly now?

"No, I'm a bit fatter now. It got to a point where we were doing so much admin and interviews that we didn't have time to do it, so we handed it over to the people and they tell us what they want on the website and do the moves of the month, so it's their thing now really."

So what's your favourite move?

"It's got to be one of the first ones... the One-Handed Starfish. I think it was the third move we made up and it just looks brilliant - really fluid and spectacular, with a great name too."

What's the worst injury you've sustained?

"I chipped my heel bone busting a move on the Nottingham Goose. As I dismounted, I slid down its tail and landed on one heel. I passed out from the pain for a little bit actually."

The site specific idea is brilliant...

"Yeah, it means you can take it out of the house but still use the same moves."

Any strange experiences busting moves in public?

"Once we were doing a photoshoot for the Daily Mail in Nottingham city centre. I was ill so Spencer had to do it by himself and the guy interviewing asked him to climb a lamppost, so he got up there but then he started getting harassed by this group of 16 year old pikey kids who crowded round him and started shouting abuse, baying at him like dogs. He said he was a bit scared, that was probably the worst thing."

What are the best venue's you can think of for HG in Notts?

"We did a performance once in a place down near the train station, it was an art event with loads of different performances by various people which had loads of nooks and crannies... that was good. People have busted moves on the Lion... the Goose... the Sky Mirror."

How do you see HG growing? Have you any plans to develop it?

"We became a bit numb to it because we did it so much. Now the members are more inspired than us... it kinds of fades out after a while... initially you get really excited about it, for a month or two, and you have a great creativity with it, but after that time there's only so much you can do. But because there's so many new people discovering it, they're all having that fantastic two month period and coming up with new ideas, it's coming from the people who visit the website now, so it's up to them."

You did a House Gymnastics day in Zurich, was that earlier this year?

"No, summer 2003. It was really weird. For some reason we ended up being in a newspaper in a town called Basil? Just outside of Zurich . This girl contacted us and was like `I love it, I love it. Why don't we arrange a HG day?' Spencer and I just thought yeah right, it's never gonna happen, but she managed to hook up with bock? TV, which is the big German sports channel out there and they filmed it. She put posters up everywhere and there were about 30 people who turned up. We stayed at her place. She had talked to all these different shops and we were split into 2 groups in Zurich city centre and went off on our separate ways with film crews and there was a list of things we had to accomplish, like you had to do a move in a tattoo shop and other little challenges."

Any advice for the novice house gymmer?

"I would say start with the easy stuff which is on the ground like a Floor Chicken or something, or one not too dangerous, like a Door Wedge or something and slowly progress. Don't take things to steeply at first. Just like the book says. The moves have star ratings, so just follow them up."

What are your plans for Christmas?

"I'm going to go home and see my parents. Go see my drunken grandma. She's always drunk but she's quite funny."

What do you want Santa to bring you?

"Erm... a House Gymnastics book... and a toy model of Stephen Hawking... one that could sing the `I love House Gymnastics' song."

(Jared Wilson, LeftLion Magazine, December 2004)