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Sport | Fitness

Xtreme Hip Hop: 'It's Step but not like you have ever seen it'

It's called Xtreme Hip Hop and it started in the USA. It's Step but not like you have ever seen it.

Phillip Weeden (or @thegiftd1 on Instagram), the creator of the fitness programme popular with Māori and Pasifika, now has over 2,700 instructors worldwide, so we spoke to the man himself on his visit to Aotearoa.

"I was at home one day just listening to the Pandora music and the songs that came on reminded me of when I was in the club as a teenager, how I just stayed on the dance floor and just danced all night," Weeden told Te Ao Toa.

"I was like wait a minute, maybe I can tie this music into this step then maybe it would work."

"Hip hop helped me a lot. That's why I say step saved my life because it actually did. Every time I get my foot on that step, I relieve everything. I take away all the pain, all the hurt I'm dealing with that day," he says.

"I tell everyone when I'm in their face, 'don't quit, don't give up', because I know what it feels like to give up and how to quit. I tell them all the time, 'don't stop, just keep moving.'"