BekirBefore → After
About Sjakie Minet, Dutch Calisthenics Champion and Coach
Two national titles.One very long detour.
I am Sjakie Minet, a 24 year old calisthenics coach from the Netherlands and a two time national champion. I started training at 16, began coaching six months later, and have coached around 150 athletes since. I also lost two years to a shoulder injury I caused myself, which is the part that made me a better coach.
Below: how I started, what the injury taught me, how I build a plan, and what my athletes actually achieve. If you want the coaching itself rather than the story, it is on the coaching page.
01 / The start
How did I get into calisthenics?
At 16, through a friend I used to game with. I was levelling up a character and standing still myself.
Before calisthenics I played games professionally. Good enough to get paid, and completely without direction outside of it. Every hour went into a character that got stronger while I stayed exactly the same.
A friend I gamed with wanted to try calisthenics. I went along. Day one I fell in love with it, and for the first time the levelling up was happening to me instead of to an avatar.
16Age he started
02 / The coaching
How did I become a calisthenics coach?
Six months after my first session, in a park, because strangers insisted on paying me.
I did not get obsessed with training. I got obsessed with why training works. Biomechanics, physics, leverage, why one person's handstand locks in and another's never does. I learned the handstand in a single day because I treated it as a problem to solve.
People in the park saw that and asked me to teach them. I offered to do it for free. They insisted on 20 euro an hour, which at 16 felt like a fortune. That is still how I coach today, just online now, and you can see what my athletes have done on the coaching page.
150+Athletes coached since
03 / The setback
What was the hardest skill for me to learn?
The planche. Two years to earn it, then two more years to get it back after my shoulder gave out.
I had trained it wrong the whole way there. The skill went, and so did two years. I am left handed, and since coming back I prefer my right arm for the one-arm handstand. Your body reorganises itself around what you put it through.
That injury is the most useful thing that ever happened to my coaching. I know exactly what it feels like to chase a skill on a plan that is quietly taking you apart, because I did it to myself. Nobody who trains with me has to make that trade.
2Years lost to injury
04 / The method
What do most calisthenics coaches get wrong?
They pick one method and apply it to everybody, and they make beginners chase perfect form far too early.
Chasing perfect form from day one is ego lifting. Sometimes you have to train ugly to get the result you want. Learn the handstand in a banana shape first, hold it, then clean it up. Athletes who refuse to look bad for three months spend three years not getting the skill.
More volume, more intensity, more sets and reps. It suits some people and quietly fails the rest. I start with the person, collect data on how you respond, and build the plan around what your body actually does with the work. The same thinking runs the app I built, CaliRealm.
05 / An athlete
What results do my athletes actually get?
Bekir arrived unable to hold a band assisted tucked planche. He is now training for a national championship.
Inside a few months we had built the foundation underneath it, and he moved to straddle planche and presses. Since then: one-arm handstand, full one-arm flag, full front lever. More before and after footage sits on the coaching page.
That is not a talent story. It is what a plan built around one specific person does when you give it time.
06 / The record
What competitions have I won?
Two Dutch national titles, in 2024 and 2025, plus the Invicta Cup in 2025, and a win at my one competition in Asia.
2024Dutch NationalsChampion
2025Invicta Cup, AugustChampion
2025Dutch Nationals, SeptemberChampion
Int.Competition in AsiaChampion
Want me in your corner?
I take a limited number of athletes so every plan stays personal. If you are not ready for coaching yet, the blog breaks down the skills for free.
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