Why Do We Struggle to Do Things That Are Good For Us?
APRIL UPDATE
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Eating mindfully. Taking time for ourselves. Getting regular exercise. All of these lifestyle habits make a big impact in how we feel about ourselves on a daily basis.
So why is it so hard to choose activities that are good for us? Why do we constantly push the boundaries of balance in our lives?
A recent Forbes article entitled, "Why We Struggle To Do Things That Are Good For Us," shed some light on this topic. The article outlined three reasons why:
- Lack of Awareness. From an Aston Kinetics perspective, this resonated. Since all of our private sessions and continuing education classes center around becoming our own teachers, we know first hand that being aware of our unhealthy habits versus staying uninformed about our tendencies seem to affect growth in our bodies health.
- Lack of Permission. Giving ourselves permission to take care of our health first instead of last is something our society doesn't seem to promote.
- Obstacles or Roadblocks. Something as simple as getting a good nights sleep in order to get up for the early morning run that always sets your day up for success is a way of unblocking yourself.
Our small solutions: when we feel powerful enough to take back our awareness, give ourselves the permission to make changes and remove obstacles in the path of body empowerment, things begin to drastically change.
The work we do here at Aston Kinetics helps our own battle with balance. We are continually inspired by our clients, students, and ourselves as we all continue the journey to a better, more present self.
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Practitioner's Spotlight
Walter Krier, retired Aston Faculty
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 I met Judith in 1973 as part of the Rolfing community. Linda & I were being Rolfed by Emmitt Hutchins and Linda was Dr. Rolf’s personal assistant when she was in Boulder. Judith became a friend, spending time here (in Boulder) teaching movement for Rolfing classes. Soon thereafter, Linda became a Structural Patterning trainee and I became a Rolfing trainee. I had just graduated from University of Colorado in Biology with pre-med and plant ecology emphases. I was very excited about the new perspective on the body and its wisdom and ability to change. It became obvious to me that following this new path was what I wanted to do. Dr. Rolf was interested in training me, so I jumped into the Rolf training as Linda was beginning the patterning training with Judith. Soon thereafter came our first son, Shay.
Shay got his first session from godparents, Emmitt and Judith, about 10 seconds after he was born. I watched the overwhelmed state of my son after birth and saw him resolve something and relax into a very sweet, quiet, open state immediately. This woke something in me. Ten months later, Judith, Linda, Shay and I were hanging out in our living room. Shay was running around in that state of being excited to be running around. He fell, hitting his head on the coffee table. He started that agitated, overwhelmed crabby crying thing. Judith picked him up and gently told him she was going to take him back to the exact event. She held him in the same position that he fell and told him to put his head back against the table exactly where he landed. Low and behold, he relaxed, completing the reaction. I’m sure his head still hurt some, but he was no longer agitated and overtaken with panic, soon going back about his business. I still learn from that experience as a template of what our work is. In that time period, Judith also guided us toward Hameed Ali who was practicing a form of the Fisher-Hoffman/Star Process emotional work. This was the beginning of the Ridhwan/Diamond Heart School. The harmonious combination of these two new forms of work are a lifelong blessing/path that has abundantly served us over the last 40 years.
I practiced Rolfing for about 3 or 4 years, a large part of my practice working on Rolfers’s arms as they passed through town, curious. Along that time, I got my first sessions with Judith, which started making sense of my experience of my body in a new way. Gentle internal listening, understanding how to move and release functional tension patterns, getting less interested in imposing what I thought right on my clients and looking for their place of self-understanding. Sitting in on sessions with Judith and Ida full of intense disagreement about these kinds of questions, I decided that Aston was really worth pursuing. So I switched over. This was about 1976.
My retraining was not easy, like unlearning a whole view, not just adding something new. During that time, I took a couple years away from my practice and became a carpenter, which was a very good idea on my part. I was able to come back to the Aston training with a fresh view and acceptance of starting over, letting go of a lot of what I thought I knew. By that time, Linda and I had our second son, Evan, and the 4 of us did a lot of traveling together for trainings.
I have been fortunate to be involved with the development of parts of the work as they evolved from the beginning, particularly myo/arthro and fitness which became my special loves. From 1984 to 1990, I was part of the first faculty trainings. This was an intense time of trying to standardize and organize Judith’s vision to present to the culture, particularly the medical community. I’m sure all you practitioners can imagine the challenge of that! My actual training responsibilities were basic levels of myo and fitness. That era of the training was successful in bringing in the next level of practitioners with PT backgrounds in particular and exposing a larger slice of health & bodywork professionals to the Aston Paradigm. At that point, holding the work as a paradigm was the basis of the faculty. We seemed to have put ourselves out to retirement, which was a sign of success.
In the late 90’s, I became interested in documenting Judith’s work for the future. Judith, Brian & I started Aston Video Production company & started to work on the walking video along with a program for treadmill exercise which included “treadmill dancing” and the designs for injury rehabilitation on the treadmill. Much of this was motivated by Judith’s own creative rehab from her skiing injury in 1993. We had visions of treadmill dancing programs across the country in clinics and health clubs. I believe these designs are brilliant and hold significant value to this day, even though our vision was much bigger than the logistics to implement it. The walking video is still a very clear, complete statement of much of the paradigm.
Since that time, I have relaxed into my private practice. In the last five years, I have spent quite a bit of time re-organizing and revitalizing a long-standing and often struggling family real estate investment business.
I am continually grateful for this work and the paradigm in my life.
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Currently Judith is not teaching loosening, toning and stretching classes: she is combining these fitness forms into the Beyond Fitness classes. This particular fitness class is part of a three part training where people will end up in 2018 with the Senior Fitness program, Reclaiming Your Body After Breast Cancer Surgery class as well as Aston fitness of loosening, toning and stretching and designs for fitness classes for the public. This series is great for anyone who teaches movement. Prerequisites: Aston Kinetics 101&102
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Please take a moment to view the first class in the Mastectomy series on Pilates Anytime. Judith will be training others to teach this content in the Beyond Fitness series. Click on the photo to go to Pilates Anytime.
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Did you miss our Pelvic Floor video launch? These exercises have proven to be an innovative way of problem solving some of the issues of low tone and lack of support for the pelvis. We will be producing the second video of the progression of the series within the next two months where we take these basic ideas and develop them for even more specific results. Click on the photo to view the video.
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We are pleased to bring you the Walking video in digital download form! Judith outlines basic Aston concepts applied to walking. Stay tuned for the release next month!
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Additional Pilates Anytime Tutorials
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Find a moment of suspension in your body during Footwork on the Reformer in this tutorial with Aston Kinetics applied to Pilates.
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Apply Aston Kinetics concepts to The Hundred!
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Latest Classes
2016 Schedule of Events
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Aston Kinetics 103: Bodyworks I
With Judith Aston and Brian Linderoth
May 12th-15th, 2016
Investment: $695
MSTM, Makawao, HI
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Aston Kinetics 104: Bodyworks II
With Judith Aston and Brian Linderoth
Prerequisite: AK 103: Bodyworks I
June 15th-18th, 2016
Investment: $645 until May 4th, $695 standard fee
MSTM, Makawao, HI
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Aston Kinetics 101&102
With Allison Sagewind
June 24th-28th, 2016
Investment: $795 until May 13th, $885 standard fee
Reno, NV
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Beyond Fitness Professional Training, Level I
With Judith Aston and Brian Linderoth
July 10th-16th, 2016
Incline Village, NV
Register by May 14th to receive an early discount!
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AK 103: Bodyworks I
With Allison Sagewind
August 25th-28th, 2016
Reno, NV
Investment: $695 until July 14th, $775 standard fee
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Beyond Fitness Professional Training, Level II
With Judith Aston and Brian Linderoth
Prerequisite: Beyond Fitness Phase I
September 9th-17th
Incline Village, NV
Register by July 30th to receive an early discount!
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Ak 104: Bodyworks II
With Allison Sagewind
Prerequisite: AK 103: Bodyworks I
November 3rd-6th, 2016
Reno, NV
Investment: $695 until September 22nd, $775 standard fee
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