Mind/Body is on the


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These talented trainers are taking the discipline into promising new areas


By Patricia Glynn


Move!


n his book, Perfect Health: The Complete Mind Body Guide, Deepak Chopra, the holistic health guru, challenges contemporary notions about fitness. “Aerobics for your heart or weight training for your muscles … are not comprehensive enough,” he argues. “The ideal is to balance the whole system, mind and body.”


For decades, health clubs have tended to focus on cardiovascular and strength training, and, more recently, have begun to introduce programs that are, possibly, inadequately described as mind/body disciplines: yoga, tai chi, Pilates, Gyrotonic, etc. The growth in popularity of these approaches demonstrates both their appeal and the value of the benefits they provide. According to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (SGMA), the sports-products trade group based in Silver Springs, Maryland, participation in Pilates in the U.S. increased by 500% between 2000 and 2009. By then, there were 8.9 million Pilates enthusiasts, and, by 2010, there were more than 20 million yoga practitioners. Chopra, a physician, author, and cofounder of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing, a mind/body retreat located at the La Costa Resort and Spa, in Carlsbad, California, would agree that that’s progress. But he would also insist that it’s not enough. What Chopra argues for, instead, is a paradigm shift. It’s not a matter of sports, or traditional exercise, or mind- body practices. Rather, all movement should be mindful. Physical activity should be thoroughly, completely, integrated—not pitting one part of the body against another, or body against mind, feelings, or spirit.


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56 Club Business Internat ional


| DECEMBER 2011 |


ihrsa.org


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