RIFLE DOWN, REFORMER UP
After 16 tours in 30 years with the military, Tim Gough faced a different kind of challenge upon arriving home: working out who he was beyond the uniform.
While many ex-military find work in defence, protection, and other security-adjacent roles, Tim found something entirely unique - pilates.
This week on ‘Off Script’, Tim talks candidly about the pressures of service, leaving a career that shaped him, and discovering a new purpose with his wife, Millie, and with Vagabond Pilates.
Tim also shares more on making pilates welcoming to men, his experience with therapy, and learning to handle everyday setbacks without treating them like life-or-death stakes.
Tim joins Ty Temel on episode 57 of the Off Script podcast to share:
Tim’s 30-year military career, and building a life beyond it
The pressure of special forces selection and the lessons he took from trying again
How military habits carried into civilian life, including a tendency to catastrophise
Why Tim moved into Pilates, and making it approachable for men
Therapy, men’s mental health, and the studio’s plans to support anyone
Watch on YouTube or listen on all major podcasting platforms 🎙️
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
“You put your head above the parapet, thinking it might get chopped off, it might not. You put your best forward and go for it.”
- Tim Gough - 15:24
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“We’ve never had roots, so we’ve always been quite transient. When you’re in the military, you’re always living out of a bag.” - Tim Gough - 00:40
“Making a mistake isn’t a bad thing. Doing it twice isn’t unforgivable, but you shouldn’t be doing it twice. That’s how I try to live my life.” - Tim Gough - 21:53
“There’s so many parallels I can draw through from my previous career to how I teach now. I think people like it. They like a bit of the military thing.” - Tim Gough - 25:38
“Because the military is a cult, you step out of it, you think, ‘Wow, that’s cultish.’ Because which other organisation says put service before self? No one.” - Tim Gough - 30:46
“We designed Vagabond Pilates with a New York loft feel, so it’s exposed brick. It’s quite dark. It’s like an industrial floor. We meet you where you’re at. So, come in joggers, come in a baggy T-shirt. I don’t care what you look like.” - Tim Gough - 44:23
“I burst into tears on the phone to my therapist, and she was like, ‘Right, you want to come for a session?’ I was like, ‘Yeah.’ So fast forward five years, I still see her every other week religiously.” - Tim Gough - 47:55
“What I do is I catastrophise stuff to the red line the whole time. It’s a case of whittling yourself back from there, retraining your brain to think: Look, you don’t have that power anymore.” - Tim Gough- 48:11
“It’s important that you are openly talking about it as well, because if any of the other lads are listening that are still in or haven’t been brave enough maybe to come out and talk about how they’re feeling, it opens a door for them.” - Ty Temel - 49:55