At the Brown Buttabean Motivation (BBM) HQ in Manukau, there are no excuses.
The free gym was founded by community advocate Dave Letele over 10 years ago to help reduce obesity among Māori and Pasifika people.
“To me BBM wherever we are it’s a symbol of hope and you know we are activists for change so it’s pretty amazing, I feel really blessed,” Letele says.
The man leading the change on this day is rugby league legend Manu Vatuvei.
“You should be proud, you should be confident in yourselves that you can do it alright, don’t even doubt yourself,” Manu tells his ‘from the couch’ class.
It is more than just fitness, each session is transforming mindsets, one person at a time.
“Yeah really proud of these guys.” Manu says.
“You know they’ve come a long way within those five weeks, real confident in themselves and just going to try and have that self doubt out of their mind; that they can do things, you know. Be more confident in themselves.”
Nicknamed ‘The Beast’ in rugby league, the top scoring winger played more than 200 games for the New Zealand Warriors, which included an NRL grand final appearance and appearances for the Kiwis and Tonga.
However, in 2016 he was stood down following an incident in Australia where he and other teammates were caught mixing prescription drugs with energy drinks.
“Eventually it came out in the media of what happened and that’s when I kind of broke, when that story came out. That was the breaking point for myself yeah, and just went on a spiral of wanting to take my own life,” Manu says.
Things took a turn for the worse as an achilles injury ended his professional sporting career in 2018. Hurt and feeling down, his problems were further exacerbated some years later when he was charged and found guilty for his role in a methamphetamine importation ring, in 2022.
He was sentenced to three years and seven months in prison.
“I was going through some depression stuff, the anxiety especially when I had my name suppression revoked that was pretty tough,” Manu says.
“But you know, just to come out publicly through the media and having all the eyes on me was a lot more tough. Because the only hard thing was, it’s not only me that’s fighting through this, it’s my whole family too.”
Incarcerated and heavy with guilt he had everything taken away from him. But one person that never lost hope in him was his mother, Sālote.
“My advice for him is to do the right thing. If there is someone telling him to do it this way…or do it that way, but it isn’t right, turn away from it,” she says.
“The other thing is to pray, that’s all we want from him, even if it’s small. Do it, as God will provide.”
Manu Vatuvei was released on parole in 2023 after serving a third of his prison sentence. And now that he’s free, he’s not looking back.
“I always think back, do I want to go back there?
“And that’s why I always tell my classes, where you are now to where you were before, remember how hard it was, remember the pain that you went through because you don’t want to go through that pain again especially putting up that pain on your family too.” Manu says.
“I know the feeling, you know what I mean?
“So I’ll never do that again.”
