“There is so much more to being fit and healthy than spending every day at the gym. Don’t stick with a single dogma. Explore various disciplines. Be open-minded towards other teachings. Learn from people that are passionate about and authentic in what they do. Be creative. Enjoy owning a body. Become a mover!”
The bilingual Austrian-Australian has over fifteen years of experience in the fitness industry and is an enthusiastic, restless autodidactic mover himself – he has dedicated his life to studying everything on human movement, beyond simple, dogmatic physical disciplines towards creating his own holistic approach at physicality, inspired by many people at the forefront of global movement culture.
Utilising but not limiting himself to elements of bodyweight fitness training – referred to as Calisthenics, the physicality of Yoga, Pilates, gymnastics, various forms of functional weight lifting, styles of martial arts, parkour & free running, ball and fun sports, the arts of dance and more – Danny has set out to accumulate as much experience in and knowledge on human movement as possible, while aiming at enabling its applicability to his clients’ and fellow movers’ everyday lives.
the philosophy
Many consider the term “fitness” to be a restrictive dogma that has led its followers away from the actual purpose of owning a healthy and functional body towards lesser goals.
The problem lies in how western society and its industry have altered our perception – fitness is either marketed as being solely about aesthetics like achieving the tiniest waist, being extremely lean, gaining the most muscle, or about displaying raw strength and impressive performance numbers along the lines of lifting the most weight or covering the greatest distances as proof of stamina, or over-specialising in becoming hyper-flexible or super-skilled in a narrow sense, without questioning what we really could be doing – balancing the body in the various fields of conditioning and enjoying longevity as healthy, functional movers.
Danny sees fitness as a way to reach the attention of a large part of today’s urbanised people, who are aware that they need to devote a good part of their time towards maintaining physical health – through fitness training – and through this introduce them to its true fundamentals and further holistic movement culture.
the method
Covering the 4 realms of movement needed for being a well-rounded athlete and mover alongside fundamental exercises, positions and movement sequences - Danny Donko’s MOVEMENT SYSTEM is not just a regular fitness plan but rather a toolkit for balancing your body in the various fields of conditioning.
Introducing the concept of body alignment & positioning enables you to comprehend human movement capacity, analyse the state of your own fitness and effectively create a well-rounded physical practice.
OPEN. STRENGTHEN. ENDURE. PLAY.
It was a main objective to filter out the essence of sustainable human movement without having to deal with the confinement of possibly restrictive disciplinary dogmas. Thereby making it accessible to people wanting to improve their physical health and areas of conditioning they are lacking – be it mobility and flexibility, strength, speed, stamina, balance and coordination – all the way to acquiring or perfecting skills applicable to functional weightlifting, gymnastics, calisthenics, martial arts, acrobatics, track and field, endurance disciplines, ball and fun sports and more – as well as balancing their individual physicality and creating a sustainable fitness toolset for life.