At Move [Repeat], its co-founder uses fitness and well-being as a pathway to community building

This story is one of nine on The Peak Singapore’s Power List. The list is an annual recognition that celebrates and acknowledges individuals who have demonstrated exceptional leadership, influence, and impact within their respective fields and the broader community. 

Our theme for this year is Joy, honouring business leaders who have contributed to spreading happiness, enhancing well-being, and uplifting the spirits of those around them. This theme responds to recent global challenges, highlighting the need for resilience, compassion, and, most importantly, joy in our lives to navigate uncertainties with grace and efficiency.

As a man who walks the talk, Allen Law is every bit the advocate for an active lifestyle and, as it happens, the impetus of Move [Repeat], of which he’s the co-founder. He exercises almost daily, doing yoga and pilates, strength training, badminton, and the occasional competition. He adds, “Exercise is addictive; a day without exercise makes me feel achy.”

Next year, at 45, he plans to fly to Taipei to participate in the 2025 World Masters Games in 100m sprints, hurdles, long jump, triple jump, and high jump. He last participated in competitive track and field in primary school. “I thought, let’s relive my primary school days,” he chuckles. 

A shift in mindset and industry

Keeping fit is undeniably one of the things that brings joy to Law, and yoga is one of them. He first joined Yoga Movement in 2016 as a customer, after over a decade of succumbing to a sedentary career-focused life with 12-hour work days and being the founder of Park Hotel Group. As his career thrived, his health declined, and after a few fainting spells — one of which caused him to break his foot — he decided he had enough. 

As he fell in love with the slow mindfulness and intentionality of yoga, so did he with the brand. And in 2018, as he wrote down his New Year resolutions — “wellness, food, and energy” — he found himself looking towards Yoga Movement’s founders, Alicia Pan and Peter Thew, to fulfil them. “I (wanted to) try to diversify from real estate,” he adds.

In 2023, after the worst of the pandemic was over, he teamed up with Pan and Thew to launch a new business, Move [Repeat], a fitness lifestyle brand collective, to further spread the boutique, community-driven experience that Yoga Movement had become known for.

Under the Move [Repeat] umbrella, they’ve brought in Australian-based Strong, a pilates-cardio studio, and plan to include boxing, spin, and physiotherapy. 

Come August, Yoga Movement will open its first overseas flagship, fitted with two studios outside of Singapore in Hong Kong, where Law was born. A city he’s familiar with, the decision was an easy one given its similarities to Singapore’s cosmopolitan population and size. 

The joy of the intangible

While staying active is one way he derives happiness, Law has a more introspective answer when I ask what brings him joy personally. “Family brings me joy. Seeing my parents, playing with my kids, holding my wife’s hand,” he replies. “It’s the simple things that matter.”

He shares a Chinese idiom, 知足常乐 (zhi zu chang le), written by the philosopher Laozi, which reminds one to find contentment in the present. It’s a worldview that informs the way he deals with the curveballs in life — Laozi’s words were discovered by a teenage Law in a comic book he bought when away at boarding school in the United Kingdom.

To remain connected to his heritage, he pored over the book. The fundamental teachings of Taoism have stuck with him since then.

He believes that having the right mindset and perspective can contribute to how much joy one finds in the present. “I see people struggling when they’re poor, but there are also wealthy people struggling. Money is not the common factor,” he explains.

“In a consumerist society, comparisons have no end and only result in eternal dissatisfaction; the glass is always half empty.” 

He also mentions the importance of having a support network of family or friends. “You want true friends who will drop what they’re doing (if you need them). And that support doesn’t just come when you need it; you must build those relationships daily.”

Finding like-minded people

It’s why Yoga Movement’s sense of community has resonated so deeply with Law. Strategically positioning their growth alongside lifestyle hotspots or events within the city, the Yoga Movement brand is intricately connected to the holistic, approachable lifestyle — yoga, music, arts, and coffee culture all rolled into one. 

“We ensure we design a space that promotes positive energy and builds community in and out of the studio. (We want to) help people adopt an active lifestyle… (and) feel better about themselves,” he explains.

In that same vein, it is what he wants to achieve with Move [Repeat]. Fitness, the zeitgeist of the times, post-liquid diets, and Kate Moss’ body ideals of the 90s may fall out of favour with the trendsetters that be, but belonging to a supportive community will always be here to stay.

For more stories on The Peak Power List, visit here.