About TheWildCo™ & Our Ethos

If you were wondering where TheWildCo came from, how it started, when & why, here’s the story (grab a drink, take a seat & put your feet up)…

Ethos

First though, before you get to read on our background… our Ethos as we feel this is the driving force behind everything we do at TheWildCo.

We are very passionate about helping people. This can come in many forms & we have found that people coming to classes feel better, smile more & have a better mental health outlook. Those who come to our swimming lessons for anything from learning to swim to improvements in speed, stamina or technique, see this improvement – there is something so fantastic about seeing a non-swimmer swim for the first time & believe in themselves that it is possible. Students we see in our training courses are helped to get a change in career path or start a completely new career. At events, our goal is enjoyment & to give people something that they can fondly look back on with a smile. We are always looking for new ways to help people.

Each person we see is potentially someone we can help, whether it’s through putting on classes for them to try something new, teaching them a new skill or subject, or just building that community for someone to be part of. People are at our heart & always will be.

No matter which branch of TheWildCo the Team is part of, we can all see the benefits in the faces of the people that come to classes, lessons & sessions. It helps us know that what we are doing is right. We are helping people, we are helping to create communities, friendships & a sense of belonging.

Background

In 2020 the World stopped & where some people could continue to work from home, that wasn’t an option for Lorah. She was a Swimming Teacher at the time, so was Furloughed. Not sure how long things would last, like all of us, Lorah turned to upskilling her life & threw herself into training in the things she loved to see whether she could do anything during the time everyone had to take off. This was difficult considering she was also home schooling her two children, but she managed it. She built up a good number of qualifications & decided that she would set up a little self-employed fitness company to help people as much as possible; Wellness Shark. Wellness Shark dealt with fitness & she partnered with the American company Beachbody (now BODi) to supply online fitness programs & workout videos.

Once the World returned to the new normal, Wellness Shark continued in the background but on a tiny scale as work got busier & busier for Lorah. In 2023 Wellness Shark became Wild Training, as Lorah decided to take things in a different direction, whilst still doing a little bit of fitness & the odd swimming 1:1 sessions; but even this got pushed aside due to a 50hr a week job.

However, imagine having your whole world come crashing down around you – your husband walks out, you lose your baby & then you lose your job, all in the space of 4 months. You’re left with a home you can just about pay for, for just a few months & two children to feed. Sounds like one of the good ol’ country songs from the Johnny Cash era doesn’t it… but this ain’t no song you can stick in reverse & you get it all back, this was Lorah’s life in 2024.

Lost & not sure what to do with her life, she took time off & turned to something that was familiar & something she knew she would benefit from – exercising. Not crazy hours & hours worth of cardio on a treadmill or pounding the streets like she was on a marathon-training mission. Not sweat-filled gym sessions where legs are left feeling wobbly & you’re light-headed, but walking… walking… & more walking. Podcasts on continuous & a mind in deep thought of where to go from there. Some days she would walk for 20km!

Her love of fitness, her many qualifications & her passion for line dancing since she was seventeen years old, had got her thinking about something she could offer in the town she was living in, which could help others physically & mentally, as it had her. She got her notebook out & started working out what she wanted to give people & therefore what she would need. She had been an instructor since 2008 & found through experience that no two people are ever going to be the same, which means that no two plans will ever have the same outcome; this is why we have a whole body approach to a goal you want to achieve – you can’t get to a goal without focusing on how it encompasses & affects your whole body & mind. This is how success is achieved. She knew that Wild Training would need a complete overhaul, so set to this too. TheWildCo was born.

Wild Training was still around, just rebranded in its own right & put to the side for the time being whilst Lorah looked at how to bring some money in to feed them all. More on this later…

Wild Shark Swim School was split from the original Wild Training branding where was under the previous year. It was branded it its own right & the 1:1s Lorah had continued on.

The main focus though going forwards was Wild Active. All things health, fitness & wellness, specialising in helping people get their mojo back & live healthier lives through mindset, fitness & nutrition coaching, both in person & online. In-person fitness classes, including Beginner Fitness & what we now know as Country Fitness Line Dancing began. She had decided that she wanted:

affordable classes for everyone so they could go to more than one a week if they wanted to in order to maximise their physical & mental fitness,
welcoming for those being brave & coming by themselves or coming with friends/families,
local halls (charitable bodies) so she could support the local community facilities & keep them open,
classes suitable for all ages,
inclusive for all abilities & needs,
where both beginners & advanced line dancers would feel comfortable,
&, most importantly, where people could just come & have fun.

The first class started in the little Shaftesbury Town Silver Band hall in Dorset on 10th January 2025. It was a success!

Over 2025, the fitness classes became extremely popular, especially the fitness line dancing classes, which completely blew Lorah away as she had no idea they would become so popular – she could only have dreamed because she had been a country music lover since her early teens from a trip to Florida. Happiness couldn’t describe how elated she was that her passion was other’s passions too.

Someone had seen a Country Fitness Line Dancing poster in a village & asked if we did hen parties too… Urm…no, but ok then! Wild Events was quickly created to accommodate this as Lorah’s goal of helping people hadn’t changed; & everyone had a fantastic time!

Lorah’s partner, Mark, is the budding artist (unless you’d like some stick figures from Lorah’s artistic talent!) so, in order to help people see his work, Lorah added the studio to the website as he also does commission work.

Like all things in life, we are made & are driven to grow & evolve, like a tree growing new branches & leaves. The word got out that Lorah was back doing swimming 1:1s elsewhere, the enquiries increased & so did the number of swimmers attending 1:1s. Lorah decided that she needed help mid 2025 & called on a valued friend & swimming teacher to come on board, which she did, & then news got out that there were more lessons available… We’re sure you can see where this is going… & now we are busy recruiting more swimming teachers so we can help more people of all ages & abilities swim.

Let’s go back to Wild Training. Something else that Lorah had noticed is that, for almost all fitness activities/classes, the Instructors taking them needed to be qualified in that area in order to be insured. This isn’t the case in the line dancing world, as its not officially regulated like fitness or dancing is. This always bothered Lorah as she knew of many line dancing classes where the Instructor/Teacher wasn’t qualified in any area, not even fitness, & some not even being insured or having up to date first aid, safeguarding or enhanced DBS checks; which is dangerous to everyone involved in that class. So, mid-way through 2025, Lorah had a series of meetings with UK Coaching & 1st4Sport regarding a qualification course. She felt the industry needed a course designed to bring fitness & line dancing together so attendees could enjoy the fun & mentally challenging side of learning line dances with the physical fitness benefits of exercise. Something, which traditional line dancing doesn’t focus on.

The Country Fitness Instructor course was written & fully endorsed by UK Coaching & 1st4Sport towards the end of 2025. The first course was booked in, capped at four students to ensure quality Tutoring by Lorah & the best Learner experience. All four students qualified in November’25 & now out Instructing their own classes – many for the Wild Active branch of TheWildCo. We have been asked why anyone would want to get qualified for something they’re already doing – simply, because it shows an industry standard for attendees of the classes.

Course writing didn’t stop there though. UKCoaching & 1st4Sport were interested in other ideas & were extremely pleased to endorse Aqua Therapist, the only course of its kind in the world & designed to help people in the water with various injuries & conditions, & Multi-Depth Aqua Fitness Instructor, the only two day in-person course designed to save students money by qualifying them in multiple pool depths as well as child & elderly participants. The two courses were ready to be rolled out at the beginning of 2026, with the first Aqua Therapist course in February’26. Courses have been done nation-wide & always looking at new venues to host courses.

Over 2025, swimming wasn’t the only thing that had proved to be popular though. Due to the popularity of the Country Fitness Line Dancing classes, from January’26 the Team grew from just Lorah doing 6 classes a week, to 6 Country Fitness Instructors doing 19 classes a week by August’26. What an incredible feat, which gave us an idea…

We decided to make CFLD a branch of its own under Wild Active. It was officially Trademarked; to protect the brand that had so much background, passion & following to it. This was completed in May 2026 & the website, www.CountryFitness.uk, was officially set up shortly afterwards. The idea behind the website was to bring Country Fitness Line Dancing classes together in one space from all over the UK as ‘the place to go to’ to find classes near you. Plus, the added benefits of getting advertised on the website (below) & not having to rely on social media or flyers, having a direct booking link to their classes, training, meet-ups & more. A lovely community.

The story behind this branch in May’26 is simple – one of our swimming 1:1s, he & his friend have Down Syndrome & his dream was to take part in the Special Olympics GB…so, we created a swim club, got a team together, got it affiliated with SOGB, got an application in for him & his friend, waited with eager anticipation & found out they had both qualified!

Whilst the swim club was being created, a member of the Team, Nicky, was interested in seeing if TheWildCo thought therapy dogs would fall under health & wellness. It did. So one of Nicky’s dogs & Lorah’s new puppy began their journeys in July’26. Once trained (& old enough), they will be out in the community helping people in assisted living, hospitals, schools & more.

TheWildCo & all its branches are still continuing to grow tremendously & we welcome students, Instructors, class attendees, collaborators, potential Tutors & more into our wonderful future.