Jolly Sailor Crossfit and Be Karma Yoga of Longdowns near Penryn celebrated a very successful first year at a party last weekend.

The Crossfit gym and sister Be Karma yoga studio are the brainchild of Suzanne Gibson MBE and her husband Sandy Gibson. Sue and Sandy have both served at RNAS Culdrose where Sandy is still serving as an aircraft engineer. The couple have drawn on the knowledge acquired through their Naval experience having both served as physical training instructors, with Suzanne specialising in rehabilitation.

They decided to set up the Crossfit "box" as there was no other offering locally, the nearest being at Newquay or Belerion at Penzance, at the time. Sue is passionate about yoga and instructs daily classes in the next door Be Karma yoga studio as well as Crossfit with Sandy heading up the evening classes.

With a Jolly Sailor crew now in excess of 120, the couple have their work cut out in keeping their members fit and progressing but the pair work closely together putting their knowledge and expertise to good use in managing the members and ensuring their fitness levels are progressing.

The whole family is involved, with William Gibson, 16, also training and assisting and Ed Gibson, 11, helping out with Crossfit kids as Suzanne’s able assistant along with Ruby the dog as team mascot.

The members turned up in force to celebrate the first year's success with the workout of the day led by Sandy and hero workout of the day by Lee Heron, also based at RNAS Culdrose. After a thorough workout with teams completing up to 365 repetitions of some exercises, the crew celebrated as they know how with a good social involving a lot of cake.

Sandy said of Crossfit: "This is fitness that is constantly varied, you never get bored, it challenges everyone from the beginner through to the elite athlete and everyone in between."

Crossfit is a mix of weightlifting and gymnastics at high intensity which gets results quickly. Looking ahead the future looks bright with new members joining every week and assistant coaches being trained up to expand the amount of classes offered.

Suzanne said: "We are really excited to see what the next year brings, with existing members attaining new levels of fitness and new members progressing quickly we have a challenge ahead, but it’s one that we relish and we don’t consider it work, it is doing what we love."