Syena has been a Fitness Instructor since 1971. She's taught
many types of popular fitness classes including Step Aerobics,
Resist-a-ball, Dance Aerobics, Slide Aerobics, Core
Sculpting, Pilates, and Yoga, to name a
few. Working as a personal trainer she understands
how difficult it is for many to become balanced in their approach to
fitness and wellness. Our Western culture obsesses about
the physical body, ignoring our amazing body-mind
connection. Syena's personal weight loss experience in her
twenties valadated her understanding about our
obsession with the physical body's atractiveness; and
totally ignoring the impact that
our body-mind has on our health, well being, and our
weight issues. Any obsession takes us 'out of
balance' and when we're 'out of balance' we struggle with our weight more,
our self image, happiness, and our lives. Our soul craves meaning,
playfulness, a juicy life, things that make our hearts sing.
 This understanding inspired MoTiYoGaChi's birth. Syena witnessed many struggling with stress, dehydration, poor eating habits, exhaustion, lethargy, and a belief system in which the only solution was to work out, 'harder and longer'. When Syena's weight was at an all time high, and struggling to reduce her size from a 13 pants... back to her comfy size 7... she knew this 'harder, longer' approah was working against her. In Syena's words.... I'd been miserable at 147 lbs and was beginning to realize how obsessed I'd become with getting back to my comfortable goal weight of 125 lbs. At this time I was teaching about 12 classes each week, so I knew I was getting plenty of exercise. My diet was healthy and balanced. So, I asked myself some serious questions like... What if I never got back to my desired weight? Am I willing to focus so much attention to 'NOT being at 125 lbs' for the rest of my life? All the hours I'd spent thinking about what I could eat, what I should I eat, how can I knock off more calories and still have enough energy to teach 12 classes? 2001 /\ Syena I knew I was eating good food, not too much. I wasn't eating from emotions... which I had done before. The only thing I did realize is how obsessed I'd become with 'not' being able to get to my goal weight for well over a year. I realised how, out of balance my obsessing about my weight had become. I didn't really like weighing 147 lbs and being a size 13, so I decided I'd fill my days with important family goals, family fun, and some interesting hobbies when I wasn't teaching class. Another words begin to love my life and 'live' it, no mattter what my pants size! I committed to NOT giving any more energy to my rediculous obsession with weight. I even threw my scale behind the dryer, so I wouldn't be tempted to weigh or even think about my weight if I looked at that scale! This made sense to me... and worrying about my weight had become futile and exhausting. So, I set new intentions to envision my new garden, to plan summer's activities with my daughter. We adopted a sweet golden lab puppy from our local pound. I began to really enjoy my life. I took time to decide what was really important to me. Setting priorities like the importance of family, over self absorbtion with my weight felt really good. I ordered some fruit trees to set out in our yard, and spent time envisioning my future passive solar home, greenhouse and garden to be. When any thoughts of weight or diet came to the forefront of my thought I'd say the word 'cancel' to myself and put a new thought into my thinking. Sometimes by just asking a question to myself. What exactly do I want to create in my future? What do I want my home to feel like inside, outside? This seemed to stimulate images and feelings as my creativity stirred. The amazing thing was... after about 6 weeks I noticed how 'loose' my jeans fit. Then I realized they'd come out of dryer this way. Wow! I hadn't stretched them out yet! Hum, I thought. That's strange. Maybe they were my husbands 501 jeans. I looked down, nope, they were mine. I tugged at the scale behind the dryer until it was free, stepped on it. Wow, I weighed 126 lbs. I was in a mild state of shock. I kept going over and over in my mind, how this could be. The only thing I'd really changed was my focus, releasing obsession... So I guess that was enough stress reduction to balance my hormonal reactions and bring my metabolism back to a normal state. ThiMy story demonstrates perfectly the mind-body connection and how linked the physical is with the mental and emotional states. This understanding gave me a new approah to fitness and also was a huge factor in the inspiration behind MoTiYoGaChi's birth. Back to MoTiYoGaChi... Syena wanted to teach a class where participants felt more energized when they left class, yet very calm and completely de-stressed. Syena created and combined rhythmic'Tribal' movements and added fluid synchronistic movements similar to Tai Chi and Yoga. This unique blend combines to energize every cell in the body and calm our busy brains every time, whether we are 8 years old or 80, out of shape or fit as a fiddle! MoTiYoGaChi is more than a physical exercise program. The movements are put together in such a way to dissolve blocked energy, and inspire a stress reducing, 'peace of mind' that carries one into a deeper state of relaxation at the end of class. This new 'peace of mind' may be one's personal reward right after doing this movement class, but also one may even notice a calmer mind extending well beyond into the next day or two after doing MoTiYoGaChi... How much better can it get than this? Syena is also a Certified Reiki Master Teacher, Access Bars facilitator and believes proper body movement allows our energies to flow, supplying energy to our organs, our cellular tissue, which is one of the keys to living a long and healthy life. Eastern Cultures actually have words in their language to describe this energy available to us. In China it's Chi, in Japan it's Ki, in India it's Prana, and in Hawaii it's Mana etc... Certifications: * 2010, Access Bars Facilitator |
