Integrative Exercise - Commentary by Debbie Rosas

What is integrative exercise? An endless source of ideas to expand the personal and professional richness one desires in the pursuit of pioneering new ways and methods of getting fit and healthy where there is finally room for the subjective experience to be honored. We work in a marvelously always-expanding industry - fitness. A world where we are no longer bound to follow and teach a core of similar content. It is a world where educational backgrounds, practices, and beliefs sit side-by-side to inspire, educate, and motivate each other. While our industry's shared cultural literacy relies on communicating using similar definitions and context, it is the emergence of integrated exercise with modern and ancient wisdom that will dramatically shift the direction and context of our work as fitness and health professionals. Even faith and prayer are now part of our industry statistics. In fact, The National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine reported that 62% of adults use prayer for self as a complimentary alternative form of medicine. We work in an environment where the people we help and teach are very often as well informed as the teacher. Peak experiences are no longer isolated to a "runner's high." They are now a part of a wide range of experiences related to fitness and wellness, that includes meditation, chanting, energy work, and personal transformation. A more private and spiritual experience is becoming a part of the gym scene. In the past, as professionals, we had a simplistic doctrine to follow - an institutional norm. A new consciousness and approach to fitness is emerging: One that supports an individualistic experience, where what we do for ourselves as teachers, and for others, our students, is filled with moments of acute awareness - a profound sense of knowing and well-being. The future of athletics is presenting an experience that unifies the body, mind, emotions, and spirit. Beyond relaxation, one now finds bliss. Beyond fun, one finds ecstasy. Beyond the physical, one finds rapture, the sacred, and a deeply personal experience - their "workout." Integrative Exercise, as a label, gives us the opportunity to learn from, and play on, the universal playing field: A field where science, mysticism, martial arts, dance, art, and the healing arts are ours to use what is "out there" to create with and inspire the world to fitness. Expand our knowing? Yes. Learn from each other? Yes. As professionals, it is our responsibility to question, research, and communicate among ourselves, sharing our methods and systems to collectively create a future beyond the current status quo. We must use our minds to look at and into other minds to understand a greater intellectual arena. We must use our bodies to experience and explore the mystery of the unknown. There is an intently unifying experience accessible to all humans. The body is the sense organ we heal and train to become fit and healthy in order to perceive the greatness and mastery of being a spirit embodied in flesh. Our future is a path where there is opportunity for both student and practitioner to know self - the self that arises out of expanded personal experiences. Questions: What is your definition of "Integrative Exercise?" If the body is a masterful design whose job it is to survive, what do you see your fitness practice contributing to the evolution of the "workout" as presented today? How do you see your specific practice influencing the transformation of people in the process of "getting fit and healthy"? Should the word, "exercise" be replaced with a more descriptive word for describing integrative workouts used to get fit? Is there is a limit to the number of practices you feel can be integrated before the benefit of each is lost?