Everything matures with time … including my practice.
When I created Feel Good Fitness DC in 2009 (the predecessor to Wise Body Moves), my primary motivation was to help people feel good in their bodies.
Now my motivation is … exactly the same!
What’s changed is the emphasis on “fitness” as the primary point of entry.
For many people the word fitness conjures certain images of hard-core exercising, possibly in leggings and sweatbands (if you’re of a certain age).
I have long wanted to liberate the name of my practice from that limited connotation. So the idea of “fitness” has been replaced with the idea of “wisdom” — the wisdom of your body, the wisdom of mature adults to be discerning about what’s best for their changing bodies and the wisdom contained in the right moves for you.
With maturity comes enhanced skill
The new name, Wise Body Moves, also makes room for the growing variety of tools I use to help maturing and changing bodies discover the best forms of movement for their personal circumstances.
Sometimes those moves come out of the fitness world. Sometimes they are inspired by dance, yoga or activity-specific drills. Often they are therapeutic in nature, focused on stabilization and optimal body mechanics. They may include breath work or self-massage. Usually they are some combination of approaches. They are increasingly influenced by the growing body of research on the nature of our fascial tissues – information that has been largely missing from traditional fitness programs.
To be sure, physical fitness is essential to our health, especially as we age into our 60s, 70s and 80s. And conventional methods of achieving “fitness” are available in abundance — in gyms, through personal trainers, boot camps, tennis leagues, pickleball courts and more.
But what good are those if you’re avoiding them because something in your body is not quite up to those higher-intensity activities? Or simply because they don’t appeal to you?
Bridging a gap
Harder to find are professionals to help you discover exactly the right type of movement for your body and its specific challenges, at your current stage of life, to accomplish your personal goals.
If you get sick or hurt, our western medical system will rehabilitate you to a functional minimum, working with a prescription to address one body part. If you’re lucky, you’ll learn some things about your body along the way.
But why should you have to wait for a crisis to learn how to take good physical care of your body?
Wise Body Moves bridges a gap between health care and fitness. Many of my clients participate in conventional fitness activities after working with me, or as they continue with me. Some are more interested in having the strength and stamina for the activities that fill their lives — travel, gardening, grandkids, volunteer work or hobbies.
Maturity is discerning
What we have learned together over the years is: you can feel better, move more easily and get healthier with the right type of movement for your body.
But you have to learn what that is, how to do it properly and in a way that challenges your body adequately yet safely.
The older we get – the more our bodies have endured, the more decades we’ve had to experience illness and injury – the more precise and customized that formula needs to be. It requires a deep understanding of anatomy, physiology, kinesiology, the aging process and even emotional influences.
Wise Body Moves is a nod to the wisdom of our bodies, the wisdom acquired with age and the wisdom applied to choosing the right moves for you. And – dare I say – the wisdom to find a workaround in a medical system that has not caught up with the needs of our aging bodies.