Spotlight on: IntenSati by Patricia Moreno

Hey, hey, hey! Howwww's everyone doin'? I HOPE you're enjoying what remains of summer and gearing up for what I'm sure is going to be a just outstanding fall! Can I get a *raise the roof* for the return of patterned tights, corduroy, and pumpkin flavored-EVERYTHING?! Not to mention my favorite autumn guilty pleasure: candy corn!

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Fall will be here soon enough, and I've had so many summer adventures that I wanna tell you all about! As you know if you've been following this blog since I started it about a year ago (!), I try to go to as many free, outdoor, fitness events as possible. Lucky for me, there are more free fitness events around the City in the summer than I have time to attend...but I did have a fun time trying :-) My favorites were definitely those organized by Lolë, a women's active wear company with a community spirit; FITiST, and Hudson River Park. I reviewed several meetups last summer, and wrote this one recently. Last Tuesday was the last meetup at the pier, and let me tell you: it was a doozy!

I have made a habit of checking out the instructor/studio/method to see what they're all about before the weekly meetups. I'd heard of IntenSati before, but I had no idea what it entailed. IntenSati is a "transformational" workout that combines aerobic movements derived from dance, yoga, and martial arts combined with empowering mantras or affirmations that are repeated in sync with the exercises. The method, along with other other incarnations of the original--WarriorSati, CoreSati, and SoulyogaSati, to name a few--was designed by Patricia Moreno to "motivate you to live a life you love in a body you love now" (source).

In my opinion, workouts are by nature empowering. When we harness our will power and inner motivation to get off the couch and exercise, it is a triumph. Don't get me wrong: body acceptance and self-love are important building blocks of a sustainable, healthy lifestyle. We should all love our bodies the way that they are, right here and now, because look at what they afford us: the ability to run, jump, bend, stretch, kick, punch, squat, lunge, vinyasa...our bodies are incredible machines. But can we conjure self-acceptance simply by repetitively chanting empowering mantras while air-punching, high-kicking, and beating on an imaginary drum?

For those who believe in the IntenSati method, words are powerful and words can transform you. Can me a skeptic, but I just don't buy it and think that learning to live the life that you love and getting what you desire out of life requires real work, and is something achieved in places beyond the gym, yoga mat, or IntenSati studio.