"Sometimes You Have to be a High Flying B@Tch!": How Grace Jones Sets Us Free

As the new film about Grace Jones' life opens in the UK, I can't help wondering what life would be like without Grace Jones, or before Grace Jones or whatever you call that.

That is, before there was someone as creative, as bold, as WOMANLY as the woman herself. From somewhere deep in the 80s emerged this tall, black, androgynous figure and life changed forever. She was chic, chiselled, masculine, flamboyant and unapologetic. Mainstream culture ate itself, fashion loved her.

Here was a woman who literally ate journalists for breakfast, calling them out for their stupid one-size-fits all questions with her razor-sharp wit. They wanted warts-and-all images. She gave them playful, shocking close-ups of her intelligence. They were left thinking, "now this is the kind of woman who would dive naked onto Dolph Lundgren's back."

We all know aging is considered The Celebrity's greatest sin. Madonna recently gave a rousing speech about people trying to make her "disappear", Michelle Pfeiffer said it "wreaked havoc" on her psyche. But no one has seen such defiance in the expectations of age as those of a 60-something Grace, returning to the stage - her leggy pins gleaming as she hula-hoops through an entire rendition of "Slave to the Rhythm". I am forever changed.

The latter part of Grace Jones' career has been even more explosive than her beginnings, more delightful to watch, more post-punk, post-modern and post-Loreal-ad then anything my 20-something-year-old self could have ever imagined. Nothing says "I don't give a fuck what you think of me" like a 70-year-old woman in body-paint hiked high on a bodyguard's shoulders. For me, it seems Grace Jones took her chiselled arms to a sledgehammer and destroyed the beauty myth right there on the stage.

It is because we live in a post-Grace world that I am able to create realistic training goals for myself. I realised it was important for my mind as well as my body to be fit as we get older, but what of our expectations of training? I'm not trying to get the result I had twenty years ago and I don't try to encourage my clients to achieve that either.

I work hard to maintain my body, but I don't spend five hours every day in the gym. So why would I encourage clients to do so, or convince them I can get back to their 20-year-old selves? The bottom line is, I want to help them to move forward, to feel Fit & Fierce, to experience personal training that leaves them empowered and feeling that little bit Grace. Not to mention looking wonderful. I don't believe we should be at all apologetic for what we are and how far we have come.

On the release of Grace Jones: Bloodlight & Bami I'm reminded to be thankful that I haven't experienced a beautifully-shaped Grace Jones void in my life. I accept myself right now, and I even own it. I'm can be both a personal trainer and a general high-flying bitch.