On 23rd March, leading national charity Victim Support invited the Broadgate community to take part in the hottest challenge of the year. Nearly 60 intrepid people were trained by Survivorbility Ltd to walk on thousands off pieces of glass and then…. on fire! The evening was a resounding success and the charity has already raised over £15,000 with monies still coming in to help victims and witnesses of crime right across the capital. This is a wonderful example of how our business community can work together for a really worthy cause.  Local firewalkers and glasswalkers ranged from Henderson Global Investors to the City of London Police (still uniformed!) and from Slim Jims (in leotards and to date still raffling spa days to raise more money for the charity) to Virgin Active. Participants also came from further afield such as IPC Media, the National Fraud Authority, Liberty International Plc the Probation Services, Mazars, two London Councils, the BTP and Met Police, SSR Personnel, Baker McKenzie and of course Victim Support staff and volunteers. To cap the evening, The Fleetwood hosted party celebrations and had even specially baked 'burnt men cookies' to raise proceeds for the charity.

Michael Bull, a season ticket holder in the East Stand who has been supporting Barnet since 1975, is doing a 15 feet sponsored walk in aid of the charity Victim Support.

Not your run-of-the-mill walk this one. Michael's effort on March 23 is, in fact, a firewalk over 15 feet of embers burning at 800 degrees Celcius and he is also hoping to take part in a glasswalk as well on the same night.  Both events are being run by Survivorbility Ltd, the fire walking and lass walking experts.

A worthy effort. If anyone would like to sponsor Michael a donation can be made to http://www.justgiving.com/mikecbull

Big Brother housemates doing glass walk led by Survivorbility

On day two of the tenth series of Channel Four’s Big Brother show, millions of viewers watched the aspiring housemates Saffia and Charlie accept a task to earn full housemate status, only to discover that they would have to walk across several feet of broken glass to win the challenge. The glass walking task was provided by one a leading UK fire walking and glass walking event company, Survivorbility, who formed the team of menacing black-clad figures that put the housemates though their paces. However, the major difference between the TV stunt and real glass walking events run by Survivorbility was the fact that sugar glass was used on television rather than smashed wine bottles.

The decision to use sugar glass was made by the Big Brother producers due to health and safety concerns, as the contestants in the Big Brother house were not able to have the full preparation that leads up to a walk across real broken glass. “In a normal glass walking event, participants are built up in an intense motivational seminar for at least an hour beforehand,” explained Survivorbility founder Martyn Helliwell. “On Big Brother however, there simply wasn’t the time to do that, and the producers felt that it was a challenging task, rather than a motivational training event, so there was a different emphasis. Using the sugar glass still entailed a risk, as it’s very sharp, but it was considered to be less of a risk than making them carry out a normal glass walk in those conditions.”

The Big Brother glass walk serves as a motivational lesson

When asked if the footage shown on television was edited just before they walked across the glass, Martyn replied; “No, they really did just go for it without hesitation, despite the fact that they believed it was real glass. Even when they were walking across they still believed that, as sugar glass feels so realistic and I told them it was real several times. It shows what a person can achieve when truly focused,” Martyn commented. “I think this is a really amazing demonstration of how powerful motivation can be. Normally people need an hour to build up the courage to walk, but they were so motivated to become housemates that their desire to achieve that superseded any fear they felt. All of the hard work to get focused had already taken place in their minds without the need for any build up on my part. It was amazing to watch.”

Survivorbility storms Channel Four's Big Brother house as "Special Forces", staging challenging tasks to test the mettle of the new housemates.

Viewers of Channel 4's famous Big Brother reality TV show saw history made on Saturday night when the house was stormed by a team of "Special Forces" personnel, made up of three members of the Survivorbility team. Survivorbility put the contestants through their paces using a variety of challenging techniques very close to those used by Special Forces in the field, creating dramatic television within tightly controlled ethical boundaries. For more information, go to http://www.survivorbility.com or call 0845 8686014.

Big Brother has shaken things up for the tenth anniversary year, with contestants entering the house and then having to earn the right to be housemates. The total ban on allowing non-contestants into the house was a fundamental rule in previous years, so the dramatic entrance of the Survivorbility team dressed head to toe in black was another huge shock for the participants. The contestants were then put through a series of challenging experiences, designed to reveal their true personalities under circumstances even more unusual than the normal Big Brother experience.

"It was a fantastic experience," enthused Steve Stuttard, co-director of Survivorbility. "The fact that we're the first people to ever enter the Big Brother house other than the actual contestants has given us all a huge buzz." When asked what Survivorbility was tasked to do, Steve explained; "The core objective was to instil something called "dislocation of expectation" which is a psychological technique used in military training to keep people out of their comfort zone. It's all about making people believe that something terrible is going to happen to them, creating expectation and the fear along with it, but they're not actually hurt."

The Survivorbility team worked closely with the Big Brother producers to ensure that no real harm could come to the contestants. "We used a safe word system," Steve explained. "Right at the start we explained to the contestants that they could stop at any time by saying the word ‘safeguard'. We're involved in lots of boundary pushing activities in Survivorbility, so we know how far to push people to enable them to learn about themselves without going too far."

Image copyright Channel 4

Glass walk at the Harvey Centre, Harlow

As family and friends crowded around the cordoned-off area where staff prepared for the first of the five challenges, Eric Rogers listened to a safety briefing from fire and glass walking expert, Martyn Helliwell of Survivorbility. Martyn asked Eric whether he would undertake an extra warm up challenge to help focus his mind before walking barefoot on a 6 foot long ‘carpet' of broken glass. Luckily for the crowd that had gathered, Eric agreed.

The first thing Martyn said he would get Eric to do was break an arrow with his throat. Emphasising all the time that this was not to be tried at home, Martyn held a two foot long, metal tipped arrow in the hollow of Eric's throat and explained what he then wanted Eric to do. “I need you to walk towards me at a steady pace”, he told him. "Once you feel some pressure, keep going,” Finishing with “Trust me”, Martyn got Eric to walk towards him, keeping the point of the arrow in Eric's throat. Eric's wife Rowen was amongst those who held their breath as Eric stepped towards Martyn and the arrow bent under the pressure. Then Eric took one final step and the arrow broke much to the relief of Eric, Rowen and the crowd!

Once Eric had recovered his breath it was time for a demonstration from Martyn of the event we had all come to see – the glass walking. Martyn explained that the glass was not ‘stunt' glass or safety glass, but old wine bottles and other curved containers broken into different sized pieces. Eric would be walking, barefoot across 6 feet of broken glass and while there was a risk he could cut his feet, if he listened to the glass and trusted himself, Eric would make it safely across. And with those words, Martyn carefully walked across the glass!

So, the time had come for the first of Eric's real challenges. He removed his shoes and socks and stood at the start of the glass path. Taking a deep breath and listening to Martyn's instructions, he carefully placed his left foot onto the glass. Then he moved his right foot forward and, transferring his weight, stepped fully onto the path. As he took his cautious and deliberate steps the glass groaned and cracked beneath him, but Eric continued undaunted. Once again the crowd held its breath; it is one thing watching stunt professionals do this sort of thing on TV, but quite another to watch a friend, colleague or ‘ordinary' person do it right there, in the shopping centre! And, once again Eric succeeded! He made it safely across the 6 feet of broken glass to stand at the other end, unscathed and with a huge smile breaking across his face. The crowd broke into cheers and applause in admiration of his achievement.

Afterwards Eric admitted he had been “more nervous about this than any of the other challenges this week. It was absolutely a fear of the unknown, of what could happen. Especially when I saw the broken wine bottles, it all seemed so much more real! “I am really pleased I was able to do it. I had some doubts when I saw the glass for the first time, but there was no way I was going to back out. Eric is raising money for two Harlow charities, Accuro and PACT Harlow and has raised nearly £400 in sponsorship already.

Martyn glass walking at Virgin Media charity fundraiser

The launch was attended by one hundred top executives from Virgin Media. Survivorbility sourced red glass especially for the event to reinforce Virgin’s well known red brand, producing a striking path of broken glass for the attendees to walk across. In the build up to the glass walk, Martyn Helliwell gave a motivational talk about self-belief and the power to overcome fear in order to achieve extraordinary goals. As the “Mission: Possible” fund raising campaign is all about doing everything possible to raise money – not just running in the London Marathon – the message was very well received. Volunteers from the audience were shown how to break arrows on their throats, bend steel bars break solid wooden boards by harnessing the power of self-belief and focussing it into an amazing physical feat.

Glass walking as a transformative experience

All attendees walked across the six foot stretches of broken glass. “Glass walking can be a hugely transformative experience,” Martyn enthused. “Many people find it more frightening than fire walking, but if they can overcome that fear and get to the other side, they have proven how powerful the defeat of fear can be. No-one was injured, despite the fact that so many people walked across a long stretch of smashed glass bottles.” The event was held at the striking Rooftop Gardens venue in London Kensington. “The venue was absolutely fantastic,” commented Steve Stuttard, co-director of Survivorbility. “You could be forgiven for forgetting that you were in central London; the garden was beautiful and there were even flamingos!” Survivorbility has more glass walking events planned throughout the year, including fundraising events for several major UK charities.

Leicester Tigers glass walking as part of pre-season rugby training

Glass walking as part of pre-season rugby training.

A plethora of International Rugby stars walked the 'hard yards' across razor sharp glass this week whilst undergoing pre-season rugby training. New Head Coach South African Heyneke Meyer, decided that this seasons training would be different and invested wisely in a day of hearts and mind coaching carried out by Survivorbility.

All 55 team members took part in the glass walking

The highlight of the day was the 5mtr glass walk that all 55 team members undertook… and of course 100% walked safely and without a single cut!

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Martyn appears in "Make my Body Younger", a new series on BBC3

MD Martyn Helliwell features in a new BBC3 TV series called "Make my Body younger". Motivation Coach Martyn was tasked with changing the mindset of a young lad with both a weight issue and a smoking adiction.

After just a short motivational session both issues were calmed and the show goes on to feature him doing a perfectly executed board break and 5 metre Glass Walk.