Transcription of Stephen Anderson for the show Light #6
Dr. Lisa: This morning on the Dr. Lisa radio hour and Podcast we have with us a special guest Steven Anderson from the body architect up on Munjoy Hill. Steven has a BS in physical education in health, and an MS/CAS in pyscho-physical movement. A unique discipline that combines psychology and exercise science from Springfield College. Steven was athletic director, department head of physical education, department head of health, and coach at Fisher Island School New York. In Portland, he worked as the city’s wellness coordinator for several years.
In 1992 he founded the Body Architect personal training followed by the Body Architect fitness studio in 1997. In 2004 expanded to the Body Architect fitness center at it’s current location at 34 Romasco Lane in Portland’s east end. Steven Anderson’s training technique, psychophysical movement, will gradually establish self correction and self regulation of body mechanics, improve posture and mind body interactions, release muscular tensions and more. The routines developed by Steven draw upon a variety of techniques including Pilates, yoga, and Qigong. Good morning Steven.
Steven: Good morning Lisa, How are you?
Dr. Lisa: I’m great. We have with us, I believe your old friend Genevieve Morgan.
Steven: Yes she is.
Genevieve: Hi Steven.
Steven: Good morning Genevieve.
Dr. Lisa: Steven I’m so fascinated by the work that you do because you and I’ve had conversations before, you know the type of work that I do in my medical practice has to do with Chinese medicine and Qigong. Today we’re talking about light. That’s the focus of our show. There’s a huge relationship between light and Qigong We were talking about that before we came on air. Give me some thoughts.
Steven: The thing I like about light in reference to Qigong is taking in these gentle movements. When you take in light and you take in warmth, that expresses out to others as well. When you start moving gracefully and your presence lifts the boats of everyone else around you. I like that. As people start moving more gracefully they hang on to their energy and they spend it wisely.
Dr. Lisa: I’ve been to your studio. Genevieve and I were talking about this. It’s beautiful. There’s windows everywhere. There’s a sense of airiness and yet solidity. It looks out not only to Portland’s Back Bay but also towards the water. Did you do this on purpose?
Steven: We did. When we first saw the space, we thought it would be a perfect healing environment. There is windows on 4 sides. We’re mirrored a lot of the surfaces to bring the outside in. Our intent was when people stepped off the elevator was to do something healthy. Whether that was through exercise or sitting on the couch reading the paper. We just wanted to create a healthy environment where they would feel good when they came in.
Dr. Lisa: I think it’s really interesting that both of you look at exercise from a healing perspective because most people look at exercise as just a way to get fit and build muscle. You have a very different idea about that.
Steven: I do. The most important thing for me is, for people to feel good, their breath, their posture, and their alignment essentially. If they’re focusing on those things, and we’ve talked about mindful movement. If they’re in the moment exercising doing the correct body mechanics, I try to teach those mechanics that are interrelated and not isolated so it mimics the way the body naturally moves on the outside. Those people just pick up the side benefits of strength and flexibility and cardiovascular. If they focus on the feeling good aspect at first, to me that’s perfect.
Dr. Lisa: Which is what I noticed about my running. I’m a runner, I go out every morning. People will, they’ll say “Oh my gosh, you work so hard, it’s so hard, it’s so hard.” And I’ll say “But that’s not really why I do it. I wake up, I see the sunrise, I run around and look at the ocean.” I think that is the thing. It’s playing. You really want your body to be able to play.
Steven: Truly. If you do things that trade happiness for you, that often times can offset any physiological detriment. If you do it with joy and don’t do it out of a sense of laborious movement, the outcomes are going to be so much better. A really clear body and mind.
Dr. Lisa: Is that why people like sports so much? Playing games?
Steven: I think they do. There’s a couple of things. They have that camaraderie of being with others. There’s personal performance but that’s woven in with everybody else. It takes collectively everyone to do their best so the whole can accomplish. That’s a nice analogy for exercise as well.
Dr. Lisa: Do you see that when you help people align physically it enables them to align emotionally, spiritually, and come back to where they need to be in their lives?
Steven: Most definitely, that’s a perfect question. Often times when I’m sitting down and speaking with people, before we start a lot of these issues come up. We’re about holistic and looking at the entire person. You really can’t fragment or segment the person. I call it exercise in the moment. There are so many issues that people may want to work on. If we start with the physical part I often times see that the other health aspects tend to fall into place.
It really is physical therapy. I’m almost like a health counselor when I’m out there. I think my background in psychology and counseling helps as well. When they’re doing that and they’re in the moment, they’re not worrying about preparation of their next meal or paying their bills, they’re really there for them. Healing really takes place.
Dr. Lisa: Which certainly is a very eastern idea. Mindfulness and being present. It’s something that in this country sometimes we have difficulty with. As we’re very distracted by so many different things. Do you find that if you are able to at least give them 20 minutes of in the moment at your gym and they cane leave and do this on an ongoing basis of their lives?
Steven: Yes because we have many business professionals and we really have to weave this into their lifestyle. It doesn’t need to go by certain numbers or time essentially. I tell people it’s all about the quality of the movement. If you’re given your particular amount of time, I just fill that time up with the best movements for that individual. Everything counts essentially. Then they take that information and there’s residual.
I want to make sure that anything we do behind those doors is usable on the outside. That’s why the term functional training is such a buzzword now. Truly to be function, when you step out so that you can use it in your every day situation. To me that’s the ultimate program.
Dr. Lisa: Steven when you watch children playing, not necessarily in a competitive sports arena, but just playing tag. They have such a lightness and agility in their body. I know that’s something that I strive for in my yoga practice. This sense of lightness in your body. It’s something that you really teach in your fitness center. Can you speak to that?
Steven: That’s a very good point. Often I will use children, sometimes babies as examples of perfect movement. They’re doing functional training in their play. It’s very fluid. They’re very happy. I think we take it a little too serious and really don’t have to. We can lighten up in terms of our attitude towards exercise and be more playful when we’re doing that, then our bodies like that. That inner child really comes out. I think it’s very important that we take lessons from our children as well.
When we’re moving lightly like I’ve been speaking about, we really hold onto our energy we don’t really waste it because with the demands on life there’s so many things to put your energy on. You want to make sure you do that wisely. Fortunately in my generation, never thought I’d be saying those words, we didn’t have all the videos games and all the other distractions. All we had were movements outdoors. When we would come home from school, we just playing sports all the time. That got me in a certain direction.
There’s also an interesting story about that. Growing up in northern Maine, my family they were big hunters. My father was a Maine woodsmen. That didn’t really align with me, shooting animals but I didn’t want to disappoint him. I have 2 other brothers and they followed that same course. I was trying to figure out, how do I not go hunting?
It came to me that if I decided to play sports in school, there was practice every day after school and there was always a sport every season. By doing that it was my way of not having to do hunting and shooting things. I got very good at that because I didn’t want to go the other way. I just participated in sports. I was athlete of the year my senior year. I was good at that so I stayed that route.
Dr. Lisa: One of the things we wanted to touch on is this idea of bringing the light indoors. We know the light, the number of hours is decreasing. We’ve passed through the Autumnal equinox, we’re not quite at the winter solstice. People are starting to get, it’s 6:30, it’s dark, I’m not really motivated to exercise. Do you have suggestions for people who are struggling with that?
Steven: The best thing, a lot of people if they can start their exercise fairly early in the day, or earlier in the day if it fits their schedule, they get that piece done. I also like to always impress upon them that everything really counts. That’s why we have a lot of different classes at different hours in the day so if they came in for a Qigong class at 6 o’clock in the evening, even though it’s dark they have something to look forward to that really connotates light. They’re more attracted to coming in and participate.
I think our facility being so welcoming, and we have such wonderful people there that you’re surrounded by this collective energy, you just feel good just going in. I think that draws people in because they also are aware of that. They want to make sure they’re getting light even though the day’s getting shorter.
Dr. Lisa: What do you have in addition to Qigong classes?
Steven: We have yoga, we have several styles of boot camp for a little higher level of intensity. Again, if you’ve seen our studio it’s sort of like a glorified physical therapy. There’s a lot of wonderful toys to play with. No matter what class, people are getting that same sort of philosophy. Then we have Qigong. I think that’s it.
Dr. Lisa: You have a nutritionist that comes in, is that true or am I making that up?
Steven: We don’t. We would like to add that to our itinerary as well. I do nutritional awareness with people. I make it very clear with people that I’m not a registered dietitian but I give them information if they choose essentially. In terms of being aware of the fuel that they’re putting in their body for the performance that they’re looking for. Water is huge for us as a general statement. I like to have people get at least half their body weight in ounces of water. I find that a lot of people have dehydration issues. We really try to look at that as a base of the pyramid and then go up from there with whole foods essentially.
Dr. Lisa: I also know Steven that you are excellent at helping people recover from injury. Can you speak to that a little bit because that’s a very specialized thing that you do?
Steven: Yes. A lot of people when they come to see me, they have muscular imbalance. We just try to get the body back into that balanced state. When I talk about posture, we want to exercise from a state of a good posture every time. We set people up, we talk about how they should move from the center outward essentially. If we can place people in an adequate environment the body will take over and will help to heal.
Breath is so important, often times I’ll say “During the course of this session you may take a couple of hundred deep breaths.” That in and of itself is tremendous. Then just going through proper body alignment and getting the right muscular strength essentially. If a muscular system is off, it can pull on the skeletal system. It has this chain effect. If we can go back to the root of the problem and get the body responding the way it was designed originally, then it tends to take care of itself.
Dr. Lisa: In past shows we’ve talked about the idea of a kidney chi deficiency, this underlying Marcelle Pick came on and she wrote the book called Are You Tired and Wired? Exercise does tend to be a little draining. The kidney chi is so important, the kidney energy, that really basic energy. How can you help people when they’re completely drained by the stresses in their lives but also need to exercise? What are your recommendations?
Steven: Often times I see a lot of people, they over train. Health and fitness are 2 different categories. Often times people will sacrifice their health for their fitness. They really have to go hand and hand or complement one another. I tell people, you have this bank account of energy. You want to spend it wisely. If you spend it too much, you’ll have nothing left at the end of the day.
By moving correctly with that alignment, they’re really saving their energy. Then by throwing in some specific Qigong exercises designed to get the energy flowing to certain body parts essentially, that’s really helpful. Everything is also linked to an emotion. If I can get them feeling good, they will make better choices in their life no matter what that is, whether it’s eating or relationship with their loved ones. That also has a great healing effect.
Dr. Lisa: You mentioned yourself, you do yoga once a week.
Steven: I do, yes.
Dr. Lisa: You talked about how you got very, very strong and Dr. May said “OK you’re a little bit too strong. You’re not quite flexible enough.” Is this a problem that’s more male than female do you think?
Steven: I think it is. In our society we’ve been taught especially in the fitness world that more is better and that’s not necessarily the case. Smarter is better. Knowing where you are and knowing your strength. Again, as we continue to age we do have to be a little bit smarter. We can maintain our strength well into our older years as well. We just have to be a little smarter about it. We have to be OK with where we are, and then build on that.
I do see a lot of men just working too hard. It’s really not as necessary. I try to put that across.
Dr. Lisa: Do you have any differences in the way that you approach male and female training or is it really just very person based?
Steven: It’s very individual. The information in terms of how the body aligns and how it moves can be very similar. I just basically try to get them back in their original intention, then move correctly from there.
Dr. Lisa: Original intention, what does that mean to you? What does that word mean?
Steven: Original intention is the way the body was designed to move properly through space and have the energy flowing through it. Through living, we tend to contort our body slightly. The body only works on hierarchy, just really wants to survive. It lets you get away with so much improper movement but eventually there’s a price to be paid. The sooner that we can uncover that and get back into original intention, the way the body was designed. When you’re in that original intention, energy courses through your body, you’re feeling good, you’re moving fluidly and life feels pretty good.
Dr. Lisa: And light.
Steven: And very light as well, yeah.
Dr. Lisa: Steven how can people learn more about the work that you’re doing and the Body Architect?
Steven: Probably the best way is to look us up on our website, thebodyarchitect.com. It gives a virtual tour. It will go over a lot of our different philosophies and the features and the classes that we offer. Then we just welcome people to come on up and take a tour. We’re a no pressure club. They just walk around, if it fits for them it’s great.
Dr. Lisa: I think we’ve learned a lot today. We’re leaving, all of us, feeling a little bit lighter for the conversation with you Steven. Thank you so much for coming in today.
Steven: Thank you for having me.
Dr. Lisa: We wish you all the best. You’re doing great work at the Body Architect, you and Antonia. I think there are a lot of lessons that people could be learning for the type of work that you’re doing. I hope people take a chance to look at your website, maybe go visit you and see what you have to offer up there.
Steven: Thank you so much.