Promoting health through movement. This is our studio’s tagline. Sure it sounds nice, but the simplicity behind this very idea is powerful. The first sign of dis-ease, and the body stops moving. Dis-ease, is not simply as a diagnosable ailment, but rather anything that throws the body off its equilibrium, its balance. It could be a sore muscle, back pain, standing up too quickly and feeling dizzy and of course, it could mean a disease which requires medical attention. In all cases, the first thing to change is that the body stops moving in an attempt to heal and center. The hallmark of health therefore, is movement.
CREATE, EDUCATE, INNOVATE – At Body Wise Studio, these three principles are our overarching ideals as we begin your training process. The wisdom of your body seeks to create change, thrives when educated and continually innovates itself to meet new challenges and demands. Actually, if I could give the world a mantra it would be to create, to educate and to innovate as it is through these principles that lasting positive change occurs. The practitioners at Body Wise keep these ideals very much in mind as they develop your individualized program. All practitioners embody these ideal with regard to their own practice and discipline in order to bring you the most creative, educated and innovated training experience possible.
CREATE:
Movement: Good quality movement is defined by the ability of our body to negotiate and deal with the forces and demands placed upon it with ease, efficiency and economy. Challenging movement against resistance is how we create strength. Enhancing range of motion is how we create healthy flexible joints. Embracing whole body movement is how we create harmony between flexibility and strength or another way to think about it, mobility and stability. This balance between these opposites is how the body negotiates the world creating grace, agility and comfort.
EDUCATE:
Body Wise Studio was always intended to be an educational resource. For clients, BWS is a playground. A place to explore physicality, to understand the imbalances we all have due to habitual postural deviations, injury, overuse, underuse or simply due to the deficit of time which stops us from considering our physical strength and health above the needs of everyone else in our lives. Practitioners at BWS seek to not simply work toward your goals but to educate you along the way to change. Starting Spring of 2013, BWS will also be offering client based workshops which include nutrition and cooking demos, creating a home practice, and meeting long term training goals, such as a 100 mile ride or walk/run half marathons. (see Education and Events page for specifics)
Body Wise Studio is also an educational resource for practitioners. Whether seeking advanced knowledge or to start a Pilates certification, BWS provides a nurturing, safe and cutting edge education. Joy Puleo, educator for Balanced Body certification programs teaches, both in her studio and thorough an affiliated studio in Connecticut, a full complement of Balanced Body workshops. In addition, Joy teaches unique continuing education workshops designed specifically to enhance practitioners skills in seeing, cuing, and understanding the human form in motion. These workshop not only teach essentials of anatomy, but how to see imbalances, chose corrective movement/exercises, and how to employ the skills of practice to address physical limitations and deviations. (see Education and Events page for specifics)
INNOVATION:
Body Wise Studio started out as a Pilates Studio. In fact it started out in a small, 300 square foot room, just before the Pilates “craze” began. Why Pilates? It was, and remains, the link between exercise, physical therapy and true wellness. Joseph Pilates himself believed through the “coordination of body, mind, and spirit…you purposefully acquire complete control of your own body and then through proper repetition of exercises you gradually and progressively acquire that natural rhythm and coordination associated with all your subconscious activities.” He conceived his method, which he called Contrology, “to limber and stretch muscles and ligaments so that your body will be as supple as that of a cat and not muscular like that of the body of a brewery-truck horse.”
Joseph Pilates was a true innovator. He believed so deeply in his method that he spent his life dedicated to inventing equipment,the very same equipment found in studios today, and to the enhancement of the foundations of his method.
Our studio, in many ways, is a testimony to innovators. As we grew, we added GYROTONIC®. The GYROTONIC®, developed by Juliu Horvath a former dancer who founded the system while rehabilitating himself. Like Pilates, Juliu believes in the supplness of the spine as a key element of health.
Gina, Master Trainer, on GYROTONIC®
“I want music in my body and poetry in my body, and I want to be skillful without struggle; it has to come without struggle”-Juliu Horvath. Juliu’s system of movement, however, differs greatly from Pilates, as the movements are expansive with glorious range governed by attention to deep central connectivity. The GYROTONIC® machine itself further differentiates the men, as the GYROTONIC® has a flowing graceful poetry built in its very design.
Body Wise is also proud to introduce the CoreAlign. The first studio in Westchester County to have this unique equipment. The CoreAlign, developed by Jonathan Hoffman, PT, embraces the principles and quality of movement embraced by both Pilates and GYROTONIC® but brings them to standing. This has, for me as a practitioner, been a missing link.
The CoreAlign builds a pathway between strength and mobility; stability and flexibility. It highlights imbalances quickly and effectively and provides a medium for corrective foundational work in the highly functional standing realm. This new equipment will certainly become a MUST for all studios, gyms and physical therapy facilities.
Body Wise Studio understands the importance of weight training. Strength against weights has proven medical advantages. Having a Medical Exercise Specialist as part of our innovative group means clients have the ability to train across modalities and to train with a high quality instructor. A Medical Exercise Specialist is a trainer who understands how to craft a session to not only meet a clients ‘wants’ but to meet, specifically, a clients ‘needs’ in order to improve overall health.
Not only do clients dealing with medical issues need weight training, but our teens need the same educational approach. While certainly the outcomes and desires may differ, the need for our teens to understand how the body works, how to strengthen well and how to stay safe while performing on the field is of great importance. We see too many teens getting hurt. Working with a Medical Exercise Specialist can help your teens meet their own goals and demands, and/or the goals and demands of a sports team and stay healthy in the process.
Innovation is exciting. It insures we are never board and we are moving toward something new and exciting. Look for more integrative health additions to come!