"Super Fly..."

I’m a big fan of Cirque de Soleil type shows and have been lucky enough to have seen quite a few of them, from the touring companies to the permanent stages in Las Vegas (like LOVE, Viva Elvis and Le Reve). The shows all incorporate a variety of talents, but I am always most fascinated with the aerial arts. The strong, muscular bodies pulling up and down the theater on trapezes, swings, silk cords, and hoops never fail to amaze me. The performers seem almost superhuman; able to tumble, climb and fly through the air.

So, I was very surprised to learn that my former Pilates teacher at Body, Mind, and Soul Studio, Merrily Stanley, was actually learning and practicing aerial performance at a South City studio right here in St. Louis, called Bumbershoot Aerial Arts.

We had lost touch since my Pilates lessons and reconnected on Facebook. I saw pictures of her pulling, climbing, and wrapping herself on the aerial silks and had to find out more.

Merrily initially became interested in aerial arts when she saw Pink do a sling performance on the MTV Music Awards a few years back. She Googled “Aerial Arts”, found Bumbershoot, and immediately signed up for a beginning class.

At the time, her husband was in Iraq, she had a teenage son at home and she was getting bored with “gym stuff” for her workout. Once she started the 1st level Silks class, she realized that her Pilates training gave her an advantage and she quickly progressed to more advanced practice. For Merrily, even though she was scared of heights when she started, it ”felt good from the beginning”. It gave her confidence when she saw she was strong from the start, and she loved hanging upside down, which was “really decompressive”. (However, she was reminded of the incredible amount of grip strength needed for aerial today while practicing trapeze after not doing it for a week. Her forearms were about to explode).

The types and levels of classes are listed on Bumbershoot’s web site (www.bumbershoootaerialarts.com), but what Merrily loves about the place is that they’re really great about breaking things down for their students: movement by movement, skill by skill. She says they really make something unique and kind of foreign, accessible to everyone who wants to learn.

The atmosphere is very welcoming and, not only does she love and trust the teachers, but she gets a lot of encouragement from her fellow class members. They spot each other and depend on each other, so they have to trust one another.

For Merrily, it’s literally been a shot of confidence. Besides the amazing physical benefits (like core strength, flexibilty and balance), she’s also overcome some fears and fulfilled a desire to perform that she wouldn’t have done otherwise. She had always wanted to be in plays in high school, but didn’t have the nerve to audition, so it was a real “rush” last year when her silks class did a performance dressed as superheroes!

It has also helped her in her own Pilates teaching, and she’s working to be an assistant instructor at Bumbershoot. She gets so much satisfaction from seeing people progress, and it’s a great balance with her Pilates practice. (And don’t think you have to be a Pilates instructor to do this. She’s taken classes with a 70 year old man and a 12 year old girl).

She even did a silks photo shoot called “Trash the Dress”, wrapping, pulling and climbing in her wedding dress (after the wedding, of course), and she’ll be doing another group performance on October 19th and 20th.

She admits it’s not always easy and has the rope burns and bruises to prove it, but this has a real place in her life and it’s worth both the physical and time balance challenges. She wants to continue learning and teaching others the beauty and enjoyment of both aerial arts and Pilates.

Bumbershoot Aerial Arts Studio
2200 Gravois Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63104
314.898.3259

Body, Mind, and Soul Pilates
629 North New Ballas Suite 211
Creve Couer, MO
314-995-7020

"Higher Ground..."

Who knew?? All these years I’ve been reading weight loss books from The Pritikin Diet to The Atkins Diet to the currently popular, Flat Belly Diet. And now I find out that, according to Columbus, Ohio Rabbi Areyah Kaltmann, all I needed to do was consult the Kabbalah for weight loss advice. He is offering a six-week course called "Diet Divine: The Kabalistic Secret to Weight Loss" to help people look at food and self-control differently. The program focuses on Jewish mysticism; the spiritual quest to understand God and the soul.

Rabbi Kaltman is not a nutritionist nor is he a personal trainer, however, he says the Kabbalah teaches that limited beings, such as people, can accomplish extraordinary things. His program tries to help people look at food and self-control differently. The basis for that is in Jewish texts, he says, including some by Kabbalist rabbis who lived 250 years ago and wrote about imperfection. In the texts, they taught that God is most happy when imperfect people overcome their limitations, such as a tendency to binge. "According to Jewish mystical teachings, it's OK to be imperfect," he said. "If God just wanted angels, he didn't have to create the world”.

He says the reason the human head sits above the heart is because the mind must rule over emotions, and those emotions, when they get out of control, often lead to compulsive eating. He also cites Maimonides, the great rabbi who lived 800 years ago and wrote a book about nutrition. Maimonides said to eat until you're three-quarters full and then stop. The Talmud also teaches that food should be eaten slowly and savored. So, according to Kaltmann, "saying no is really saying yes.”
"When you say no to unhealthy food, you're saying yes to your family, you're saying yes to a healthy life," he said. "You're saying yes to feeling like a human being and not an animal."

Other Jewish scholars, like Rabbi Deborah Orenstein, have addressed the teachings too. In her 2007 Rosh Hashonah sermon, she noted that the process of losing weight has instructive parallels to the Jewish practice of Teshuvah. Teshuvah literally means "return" and is the word used to describe the concept of repentance in Judaism. Teshuvah is most frequently associated with the High Holy Days but people can seek forgiveness for wrongs they have committed at any time.

Some of the parallels she draws are:

Taking responsibility- She explains that your level of physical or spiritual fitness today is based on what you did in the past, and choices you have made. Understanding what you’ve done wrong in the past is a precursor to change, but it doesn’t cause transformation. For a different result, you have to make new choices.

Loving and Caring for Your Body- Since the first stage of Teshuvah is physical self-care, we need to make peace with our bodies and be kind to them, in order to effectively carry out the work it takes -- physically and spiritually -- to maintain our fitness.


Giving Some Things Up- Of course, if you’ve ever tried to lose weight you know this. You might have to give up desserts, trans-fats, or large portions. You may even need to stop stocking junk food in your pantry. This also goes, she says, for all kinds of temptation we renounce yet keep accessible.

Taking On New Patterns- Healthy eating (like Teshuvah) is undermined when we confuse it with deprivation. She says both are enhanced when we consider not just what we are renouncing, but what we are gaining. (or, in the case of weight loss, losing).
What healthy foods can you add to your diet to give you better energy? How will losing weight make your joints stronger? With what positive habit might you replace destructive patterns?



Keeping At It. Small Changes Make a Big Difference- Be aware that, with both Teshvuah and eating habits, results are not immediate. You don't practice patience once, or eat well for a day, and see dramatic changes. Persist, and you will.


Judaism embraces the idea of persistence--from the efforts of Moses in ancient times to the modern struggles of Israel to find peace. These lofty goals can work just as well for the individual in a personal struggle with weight loss and maintenance. It's the attitude of not giving up that helps weight losers reach and keep their goal. Another Jewish value which came into play was, that at some point, they experienced an epiphany or moment of truth about their weight.

But faith-based weight loss is nothing new. Christian programs, in particular, have existed for decades.

In March 1981, First Place 4 Health was started by 12 men and women at a Baptist church in Houston. Described by its director as “a Christian Weight Watchers”, the program now has 12,000 chapters in the United States and 20 other countries. In Bod 4 God, Steve Reynolds “The Anti-Fat Pastor” lost more than 100 pounds and launched a successful weight-loss program based on four “keys” from the Bible in his church and community. These programs foster the ideas that gluttony is a sin and human bodies are temples.

Having a keen awareness of just how difficult it can be to distinguish physical needs from vaguer, but no less powerful emotional ones is how all religious practices helps us grow. So, using those same skills to guide your body to health really does seem to make sense.

"It's Not JUST A Sandwich..."

Whenever I fly into or through Midway Airport in Chicago, I try to plan my flight connection around lunchtime because I am obsessed with the Potbelly Sandwich Shop located between the A and B gates there. And when I visit Chicago, even though the city is a mecca of amazing and different foods, I try to have at least one lunch at one of the many Potbelly locations there. When we first discovered it, we took the train into the city, dragged our suitcases down the steps and through the revolving doors at the Potbelly on State and Lake because we couldn’t wait to eat there.

So, I was so excited when I saw the sign go up in the former Provisions location on Olive and Old Ballas, announcing that we too were getting a Potbelly here in St. Louis. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Big deal. It’s just another sandwich shop like the 8 million others in every strip mall”, but you’re wrong.

Sandwiches usually don’t come to mind when we talk about a healthy eating plan, but if they’re made with the right ingredients and put together carefully, they are the perfect “My Plate” creation.

And Potbelly does it right from the start. They use oven-roasted turkey breast from the whole breast (not pressed), Black Angus roast beef, and all-natural chicken breast. Both the chicken salad and the tuna salad are made in the store daily. The breads are what make the sandwich amazing though. I’ve always gotten the multi-grain and it’s not just brown processed bread like some places. It’s a nutty, grainy and hearty bread that’s the perfect complement to the meat and/or cheese you order on it. They also have “regular” bread which is actually kind of a French sourdough, but still yummy. The Turkey Breast sandwich with Swiss or Provolone clocks in at 450 calories, and the Roast Beef and Provolone at 460. They really are filling enough to save a half for later in the day.

I was kind of disappointed that the St. Louis store doesn’t offer the “Skinnies”, which are thin cut bread and 1/3 less meat and cheese. The skinny TKY is only 294 calories and the skinny “Hammie” is only 332. I was told that since this location just opened, we’ll have to wait for the Skinny option to be offered.

If you’re not a sandwich kind of luncher (if that’s not a word, it should be), their salads offer high protein, filling combinations also made fresh to order. The Uptown Salad combines their chicken with fresh and dried fruits like cranberries, apples, grapes, greens topped with walnuts and blue cheese at 520 calories with 28 grams of protein, and the Farmhouse Salad mixes chicken veggies, greens and hard –boiled egg for 410 calories and 37 grams of protein.

Their soups change from day to day, but their 8 oz. Chicken Noodle for 150 calories, and their 8 oz. Garden Vegetable for 110 calories can be paired with a Mediterranean salad for 214 calories to make a meal.

Of course they do offer cookies and shakes and even a sandwich called Big Jack’s PB&J (and you DON’T want to know how many calories are in those), but it’s good to know there are lots of options that keep you from undoing your hard work in the gym.

And if you go in, ask them WHEN they are going to have the Skinnies on their menu. Maybe if enough people request it, they’ll put them on sooner!!
For now, I’m just happy I don’t have to wait for a trip out of town to have one of their yummy sandwiches!

To find a Potbelly near you, go to:
http://www.potbelly.com/Shops/ShopLocator.aspx