How to Set Your Mind to Improve Your Fitness Levels
One of the biggest parts of developing your fitness levels especially in ballet, is mindset.
Fortunately my co director Kern, is one of the most advanced individuals I have ever met when it comes to the subject of the psychology of motivation and success, having worked with professional professionals athletes as well as society’s higher achievers.
Kern is a researcher and developer at heart, hence why the information and techniques he creates are generally far beyond other coaches in the personal development field. Over the years he’s helped me transition from professional ballet dancers into two more successful careers and of course the success of Ballet Body Sculpture.
When I’m working with my private clients motivating and inspiring them to reach higher levels of fitness, the coaching training he has given me is invaluable as is the business and sales training. So I though it would be a good idea to get Kern to run a blog post to give the Ballet Body Sculpture audience so tips on how to combine fitness and mentality to achieve better results.
So here’s the first blog post from Kern:
When I’m out with Asta, simply by association and physic, I’m often mistaken for a dancer. Maybe it’s also the long hair and cloths that tend to steer people to thinking I’ve had a background in that direction. In truth, I’m your typical male who can’t dance, won’t dance, and looks rather strange in a too too.
The truth is I approach fitness in a completely different way to most people, with a considerable amount of body mechanics knowledge — coming from ten great years as the partner of a very, very good dancer — of course — Asta.
I first met Asta when she was a principle performing in the famous West End theatres of London, and the first time I saw her dance was the lead in Sleeping Beauty. I cannot tell you how inspired and touched I was watching her dance, and of course when a guy in tights tried to seduce her on the bed when she was sleeping, I didn’t feel a pang of jealousy at all. It was art, and he was gay.
From that point I learned just how dedicated and talented ballet dancers really are. Six days a week, dedicated beyond belief, and perfectionists. They’re symbiotic connection ... the mind connection with the body is so finely tuned, it’s like a racing driver intouch we every aspect of the car they are driving. They know instinctively when a part of their body is just slightly under-performing. It’s a sensory awareness that develops of over years of practice, like all top athletes. To perform at the highest level in ballet, you have to be at the top of your game, because there are plenty more to take your place, just like Roger Federer at the top of his game.
The money of course— for even a principle ballet dancer can’t be compared. They put themselves through the commitment and the pain —for the love mostly. For the art. So I guess few of us really understand the mindset or the focus it really needs to succeed in this unique world.
Most of us do not have a strong symbiotic connection, we are completely out of tune with our bodies, and generally take them for granted. We may diet or do a little exercise, but our minds for the most part are not focused in the right direction to dedicate out bodies to years of working-out every day to achieve the look we admire in a pro dancer.
None the less, it is surprising just how much we can achieve just by gaining the right mindset, and developing some realistic expectations. If we want to develop a better physique, we usually have to deal with some limiting belief patterns about what we believe about our body and what we think exercise will do. So during these blogs my intention is to work on your mindset, give you some tips, as well as mind and body hacks that will get you where you want to be as quickly as possible.
Some of the information I’m going to share with you is only available to my Mastermind group or those who are training in advance states of awareness on the Human Blockchain. However, Asta has twisted my arm to give her followers something unique, so I hope you enjoy the blogs.
Please feel free to ask any questions you like, if it’s not fitness, diet or ballet related that’s ok, as you may know I write and coach on a diverse range of subjects including female empowerment, relationships and business.
Generally, how we treat our bodies is directly related to how we feel. Some people exercise to feel better, others only exercise when they already feel positive, and many to escape from something. So what’s happing in your life and all around you, has a direct effect on how you are going to approach the fitness subject.
A powerful mindset. Lesson one — being honest with yourself
To achieve what we want in life, we have to develop a mindset that will accomplish our desires. It’s sounds simple, but is it?
This truth is, it’s really as simple as you make it — and this means you have to be honest with yourself. The game is an inner one, whether you are looking to loose weight, tone up or get fit; you have to wrestle with some inner demons, and generally they come down to a poor self-image in many cases, and a lack of belief.
We govern our realities by what we think, which transpires into what we do. Some people prefer not to think, it’s actually a conscious option - an escape, and others are totally governed from deep within the subconscious — victims. People who are obese or grossly overweight tend to be in an unconscious state when it comes to their size. It’s not in their reality to change, it’s just what is. There may be a penny dropping moment, but for many the concept of a change in behaviour is just not in the mind.
The mind is constantly open to addiction and bending the individual’s thinking towards a twisted view of reality, thus their behaviour tends to support thinking that really is to their detriment. Being overweight, or even developing tummy fat is a serious risk to the individual’s health whatever the size. It’s not cool to have if you care about how you look; it’s not cool to have because of the toxins we retain in our bodies; and it’s not cool to have as it puts excess pressure on other organs.
If you want to live longer, you have to get real with yourself— and if you want a dancers body, you have to get real with your vision and take some definitive action.
Given that some peopler think their bodies are special, and not open to the normal dietary or exercise results, let’s start with that.
We are all made from cells that behave in a certain way, we all have muscle, we all have fat — they both serve a purpose, and their development is governed by behaviour. This means our behaviour across the board programs our metabolism to burn quicker or slower. Strength and staminer is a different subject for the moment, as we are simply sticking with metabolism to start, and the why is simple. If you do exercise and your metabolism is like a slow burning fire, it will hardly make any difference; you’ll get bored of little or no results, and say “that’s just me”.
So, address the metabolism first and your results will be progressive. To do this we need to exercise regularly. This does not mean go at it like the end of the world is coming any day soon ... it might be, but let’s say we’ve only got the rest of your life to get your body into condition. Expectations are important to manage, if you’re thirty, you’ve had a fair few years of progrmmaimg your body one way, so thinking one or two intensive workouts is going to roll ten years back of sustained negative behavioural pattern is a little naive. You have to be realistic.
Approaching your metabolism first, is the way to go if you want to loose weight, and this can be done by changing your behavioural profile across the day. Exercise classes increase your flexibility, stamina and tone muscle, as well as improve posture and poise if it’s ballet related, but if you want to loose weight you need to add to this metabolic retraining across your day
Personally I lost 9kg in 30days with this approach — when I started to pile the pounds on after I hit fifty — and it really is a cool way to maximise gains on top of your classes.
You have to think of your body like a machine. A vehicle you need to take care of by the daily maintence program you give it. Obviously, what you choose to put in the tank as far as food is important, but the human body is a survival mechanism that’s been on the planet for a fair few thousand years — perfecting its system in line with a driver who these days is completely inept at figuring out what’s best for it.
Under all the layers of confusion modern society has laid down on us, we have an intuitive nature that is highly attuned to putting us in peak condition if we let it come to the surface. It’s the same with all aspects of our lives, but we seldom have faith in millions of years of evolution any more, just what it says in the side of a packet — written by people who are in the main just as dulled down in their mindset as we are, but worse still, want to sell us their wares; it’s the blind leading the blind, and unfortunately that leads no where.
So that’s the first lesson in mindset. It’s a beginning and that’s always the best place to start.