Health Fitness Philosophy

Recently for one of my graduate school essays, I was asked to state my health fitness philosophy and career objectives. I thought I'd share some of my thoughts here.

Prior to thoughts on any specific careers, I have always been driven by my desire to help people. As a child, I wanted to become a doctor. I was fascinated by the human body and thought I could help people by treating and healing their illnesses. In high school, I volunteered as a "candy striper" at a local hospital and enjoyed being in a medical atmosphere. Becoming a physician was my goal until college, when I was stymied by the science and math courses required for pre-med majors. During my college years, I was a flute teacher, returning to my hometown each weekend to teach area children. However I considered that a "college job" and not a future career path then. After college, I turned to medical social work which nicely married my interests in medicine with my desire to help people. After attending and graduating from an innovative program at Massachusetts General Hospital, devoted exclusively to medical social work and the first of its kind in New England, I worked for several years in an acute care hospital as well as a rehab hospital. My caseload consisted of geriatric cardiac and stroke patients as well as their families. Sometimes my patients returned home, many times they did not. Finding an appropriate extended care facility for those who could not return home was my responsibility, whether that was a chronic care facility or a nursing home. Ultimately I found this work very difficult emotionally and returned to teaching flute and had a long, happy, successful career as a music educator, performer and public speaker.

Twenty five years later, I still teach flute, however my primary career is working as a personal trainer, bootcamp and group fitness instructor at a health club in downtown San Francisco. The majority of my clients and class members are women of all ages and fitness levels. Again my fitness career combines my interests in the human body and helping people quite well.
I feel blessed to have worked in several different industries. However different the industries, my career objectives have remained the same: what can I contribute to peoples' lives? My interests in the human body, how people learn, understanding how they think, what they feel and how all of that translates into behavior are well served by my work in health and fitness.

As a flute teacher working with children and as a personal trainer and group fitness instructor working with adults, I have always been enthralled with observing how the mind and body are entwined and the affect one has on the other. Early in my flute teaching, I discovered the field of sports psychology and read books by Don Greene, George Leonard and Terry Orlick to help my flute students successfully deal with performance anxiety. I explored many martial arts both physically by training and by reading ideas and philosophies concerning martial arts. I delved into Martin Seligman's work on applied positive psychology, authentic happiness and learned optimism. I read many books discussing the ideas of brain plasticity and psycho-neuro-immunology such as the works of Jeffrey Schwartz, Sharon Begley and Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee. These books support what I learned from the sports psychology material as well as the bodywork I personally have undergone such as many years of taking Alexander Technique lessons and my martial arts training in Tai Chi and Kempo Karate. After all of this reading and particularly the reading I did on brain plasticity, I realized that I wanted a more formal education. However, that education needed to be very broad in nature in order to satisfy all of my varied interests. I considered many schools before finding American University's program in Health Promotion Management. I feel this program with its multi-disciplinary scope as well as the specific knowledge base best suit my interests. After completing this education, I intend to step onto a bigger stage and move from the micro of working with people one-on-one to the macro of influencing health care policy and health care delivery.

My health fitness philosophy arose from teaching flute lessons. My motto to flute students is "Yes, you can", which I said in order to counter their common refrain of "I can't". Throughout the years of teaching, I could easily ascertain a student's level of faith and confidence in themselves by whether or not they used those words. Watching people learn (flute students and training clients) has been a huge gift, because I am privileged to see someone's beliefs and thought patterns in action. If someone responds "I can't" when encountering a learning challenge, the attitude behind the statement is often more correctly "I won't" or "I don't know how" accompanied by a tone of defeat. My philosophy "Yes, you can" has a tone of confident expectation of success. It reflects a "roll-up your sleeves, can-do attitude". It says things can change, life can be different. It also implies that from beliefs and attitudes flows behavior. The adage "whether you think you can or you think you can't, either way, you're right" is absolutely correct.

With my private clients at the health club as well as my class members, I work with both their minds and bodies. Training itself is obviously physical. However if I don't understand clients' motivations for wanting better health and fitness or identify their goals or even more importantly uncover their hidden agendas and fears, then I run the risk that their minds will sabotage their best efforts.

Clients may look to their trainers or their group fitness instructors to lead them, to be a role model for proper diet and exercise, health and wellness. I basically agree with their assessment: an effective leader is one who leads by example. Do he/she "walk the walk and talk the talk"? Core values are illustrated by actions. I look for consistency in behavior and in spoken words which helps me to trust someone. This is good advice in which to evaluate any relationship not just a leader! Some of my clients may view me as a leader although I prefer to have them think of me as a partner who's a little further down the road in terms of knowledge and experience. I am still human, still improving and not done with my journey towards better health and fitness (and happiness and compassion and kindness, etc). Certainly I am willing to share my knowledge with clients and share what worked for me and what didn't. However, my experience doesn't necessarily mean that my tools and strategies will work for them. I honor and respect their own individual paths. If people are inspired by the example of my life or find strength in the example of someone else's life, so be it. I am not a guru or fitness goddess seeking accolades or adulation. I want my clients to be fully empowered and ultimately independent of me. I work tirelessly to insure that they have the tools and knowledge to get what they want regardless of whether they train with me or not.

Working with my clients is very satisfying to me. What is most meaningful is observing how people stretch and grow in the process of reaching for their dreams. I know many people are keenly interested in achieving the end result. However the very act of envisioning something different for themselves begins the process of change. Embarking on a quest for better health and fitness can provoke seemingly unrelated changes. Clients may leave an unhappy relationship, an overwhelming job or may break ties with toxic family members. In learning how physically strong they are, they may uncover equally impressive emotional reserves, what Dr. Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, calls "emotional resilency". Having the inner confidence that you can weather life, that you can go through difficulties and still emerge intact is as the ad for the credit card company states "priceless". The process of discovering emotional strength through physical endeavor is common although almost miraculous in nature since you wouldn't suppose such a relationship exists. If I told a client that doing 12 push-ups when she can do none currently or that jumping rope when she can't climb stairs without huffing and puffing might lead her to other changes completely unrelated to fitting in her pair of skinny jeans, changes like being able to say "no" to her overbearing boss or demanding child, she would probably laugh in my face and mutter "crazy lady". However I know this to be true.

I know that monumental change can happen this way because I've done it. Six years ago, I lived in Boston and weighed well over 200 lbs. Unhappy in my marriage and discouraged with the politics at the music school where I taught, I was still recovering from physical injuries which were also emotionally devastating to me. My injuries forced me to stop exercising and to stop training in my beloved martial arts thus effectively ending my dream of attaining black belt and opening a dojo for women and girls. This was a significant loss for me. Additionally my elderly father was ailing. In short, I faced trials and tribulations no different than what many American women face on a regular basis. I was sliding down the slippery slope of depression quickly with no real end in sight. Rather than focusing on all the "bad" things in my life, I decided to focus on feeling better and starting working on the things I thought I could change: number one being my health. I hired a personal trainer and began the slow process of losing 80 lbs which I have successfully maintained. From that first step of hiring her, I began to totally remake myself. It was and is a long road filled with many challenges and adventures. Today I live in California, am divorced and instead of being a black belt teaching karate to women and girls, I am a fitness professional teaching adults about health and exercise. I'm applying to graduate school to further my studies. I owe a lot to all my personal trainers and healthcare professionals who was so instrumental in helping me. I also owe a lot to myself, that I cared enough about myself to say "enough, I want better".

My life's work continues to be helping people. My career objective is to promote wellness in all areas-physical, mental, emotional. I have many choices as to how I accomplish this. I have been fortunate enough to improve peoples' health and well-being one client at a time and one class at a time during my last 4 years in the fitness industry. I have also touched students' lives through my flute teaching. Now, to further my objectives, I believe that gaining a solid base of education and knowledge in the health care field is paramount. I think the program at American University will give me that and will afford me even greater career opportunities. From there, I intend to be open to different avenues to promote wellness in a larger setting and make the best choice for me given my specific skill set and interests.

In health,

Laura