Author: Shelly Webb-Morales
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How to know when it’s time to add mindfulness to your fitness classes:
It’s quite difficult to stay in the present moment. Even outside of the gym or studio, our brains like to toggle between past-mind and future-mind. And for our students, working out is often accompanied by difficult thoughts and emotions: frustration over not seeing changes quick enough, or thoughts of being “less than” or “not enough”…
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All The Reasons Why Mindfulness Is Not a Waste of Time
You just finished teaching a particularly challenging group exercise class and decide to end the session with a bit of quiet reflection. Your students aren’t used to the tradition of Savasana, and some have even admitted to you that they dislike yoga, so you decide to ease them in gently, offering options for different ways…
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When & Where to Use Mindfulness in Your Fitness Classes
The great thing about mindfulness is it can be practiced at any time. This means you can use mindfulness techniques at the beginning, middle, and end of your group fitness classes or personal training sessions. At the start of your class you can cue grounding techniques to help your students arrive, ease out of their…
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Using Mindfulness To Overcome Your Nerves Before Teaching Fitness
“How did you get over feeling anxious before teaching?” Can I loop you in on a secret? I’ve been teaching for over a decade and I still get incredibly nervous sometimes before teaching. Teaching fitness classes is essentially the ultimate form of public speaking. Not only are you speaking in front of a group of people, you…
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Your Superpower as a Fitness Professional
As a fitness professional, you play a vital role in nurturing the overall health and wellbeing of the people you work with. But one of the most important roles you have as a fitness instructor or personal trainer, might just surprise you. It’s your hidden, but not so hidden, superpower. As someone dedicated to helping…
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Mindfulness While Getting Ready To Workout
Think about all the things you do to get ready for the gym. Finding the right pair of shorts or leggings, making sure you have your Hydrojug. What about all the things that are often overlooked because they happen so often? Brushing your hair, putting on your shoes, sipping water…these are all opportunities where you…
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Mindfulness: The Simple (but not easy) Act of Paying Attention
What is mindfulness? It might be easier to think of times when we are not mindful. Driving home after teaching several classes back to back at the studio, pulling into your driveway and realizing you can’t remember the trip home. You were too caught up wondering if you remembered to turn off the speaker system…
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Do you REALLY need a teacher for meditation?
This is a great question to ponder, and one I’m sure you’ve asked yourself before considering enrolling in a meditation course, signing up for a live workshop/class, or booking a reservation for a mindfulness retreat. I can hear myself wondering the same thing before I began my 100 hour meditation teacher training, “Do I really…
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How Busy People Find The Time for Mindfulness & Movement: The Waiting Game
I have heard this one many times before, and I have even said it myself, “I’m so busy, I just don’t have time for _______.” I just don’t have the time to sit and meditate. I just don’t have the time to fit in a workout today. Usually the posts I’ve seen that follow up…
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Walking: A Moving Meditation
Seated meditation is not everyone’s cup of tea. And that’s okay. Just because you find seated meditations, especially seated meditations in silence, difficult doesn’t mean you’re bad at practicing mindfulness. Mindfulness can be found in many different activities (washing the dishes, combing your hair, coloring, petting your dog or cuddling with your cat, even going…