Susan Harrow

I grew up surrounded by a family of Aikido experts.  My brother and father began training at NY Aikikai more than 40 years ago, and my Uncle and cousins in England all hold high level degree black belts in the art. I took a few classes in Aikido as well, for a short time when I was twelve years old. You can say that the Martial Arts are in my blood!

It wasn’t until six weeks after the birth of my second child, and at the age of 35, that I began MY ‘formal’ Martial Arts training.  Signing up for classes at Tiger Schulmann’s Mixed Martial Arts (a hybrid of Aikido, Jiu Jitsu and Karate) back in February of 2000 was the best move I ever made – it changed my life for the better! I lost more than 40 lbs and gained a tremendous amount of self-confidence and discipline. I earned my first degree black belt in November of 2003 – one of the highlights of my life.  Training has become a way of life for me!

In addition to my continued MMA training, and having been a huge Bruce Lee fan my entire life, I signed up for JKD (Jeet Kune Do) classes. Jeet Kune Do translates as “The way of the intercepting fist”.  I love Bruce’s philosophy of using ‘No Way as Way’, and that each individual has his or her own ‘style’.

When I turned 40 years old I was in the best shape of my life, both mentally AND physically.  I was in better shape than most 20 year olds!  I became a Certified Personal Trainer and started my own part time/in home personal training business – Tigress Personal Fitness.   In addition, I teach women’s self defense and safety awareness – of which I am extremely passionate!

In 2008, after my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer,  I founded the ‘Moms Who Kick’ – a non-profit organization – to help raise awareness and funds for breast cancer research.  The monies raised are donated to the American Cancer Society. To date, the Moms Who Kick have raised more than $25,000!  The Moms Who Kick is a unique twist on a very important issue.  It began as an idea consisting of Martial Arts Moms, over 40 years old, ‘Kicking for the Cure’!

In a nutshell:  The Martial Arts help me in my business by giving me the tools and confidence to train others.

I am a strong, motivated and passionate leader.

At the age of 45, I am in the best physical and mental condition I have EVER been in, and as a result,  I LOVE my body!    I have a high level of self confidence, self discipline and self esteem.

I have a strong sense of empowerment and inner strength – and I attribute it all to my Martial Arts training!

Joanne Hutchins is a Certified Personal Trainer and a First Degree Black Belt in Karate.

She delivers powerful and motivational safety seminars to corporations and women’s groups.

Joanne is the Founder of the ‘Moms Who Kick’, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to raise funds and awareness for breast cancer research. More information can be found at http://www.MomsWhoKick.com and http://www.TigressPersonalFitness.com

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Susan Harrow

I’ve been doing martial arts since 1998 (12 years now) and it has helped me tremendously in both my professional and personal life. I own an on-site corporate wellness firm, The Back Rub Company. We provide companies chair massage, fitness classes, wellness workshops, weight loss challenges, nutrition and more. I started out as a massage therapist and toured with Cirque du Soleil as their personal massage therapist. Once I returned from tour, I slowly transitioned out of doing massage into running the business. I had stopped training martial arts while I was on tour and getting the business up and running (about 4 years).

I noticed that once I went from being active everyday (spiritually and physically) to becoming a ‘desk worker’ my energy levels dropped, I started to gain weight and I began to lack patience to say the least. I knew that I had to go back to training or I would flip! Martial arts has become an integral part of my life.

Professionally, it has helped me to stay grounded, focused and become a better leader. The fundamental teachings of martial arts, especially my system, are to ‘flow’ like water, blend with the opponent/ circumstance and then redirect the energy. This is so essential in business where we can’t control certain situations so becoming aware, opening up and then committing to and acting on a decision is vital.

Personally, I have more energy, I’ve dropped 30 pounds since I started training again and I feel amazing about my strength, flexibility and the way my body has bounced back into shape! I also fell like my spirit is back, like I’m more connected with my inner wisdom/knowing. Training the martial arts is a lifestyle. This is a way to live one’s life in a profound manner. Everything overlaps.

I train a system called Kensho-Do in Phoenix. It is the only system of its kind and is a blend of both hard and soft styles. It’s a myriad of systems, mainly Chinese Kenpo, Shorei-Ryu, and Tai Liu Chuan Fa Kung Fu. We also blend Aikido, Jeet Kune Do (Bruce Lee’s system), Pananjakman (a Filipino kicking system), Aiki Jujitsu and more. Kensho-Do is not an art of controlling the physical body, but rather the art of controlling one’s mind. For once you can control the mind the body will perform knowing no physical limits.

Tips:

1. Meditate everyday – just a few minutes of quiet time can help get you re-focused, re-energized and clear your head. You can do it anywhere. Even if you’re at work, just push your chair away from your desk, sit back, close your eyes and breathe.
2. Take the teachings of martial arts (flowing, blending, re-directing, grounding, balancing, etc.) and apply them to everyday situations.
3. Find a system that works for you and go with it. You may like the hard, quick movements found in karate or you may be drawn to the flowing, pretty (but deadly) movements found in Kung Fu. Try a few systems and go with your intuition.
4. Challenge yourself. For most martial artists, this is a lifestyle. It changes the way you think and interact with others and especially yourself. Don’t give up. You can do anything you put your mind to.

Tiffany Richards toured with Cirque du Soleil as their personal massage therapist before launching The Back Rub Company, and on-site corporate wellness firm providing chair massage, fitness classes, nutrition, disease prevention, weight loss programs, stress-reduction seminars and more, in 2005. With more than 100 wellness experts throughout the U.S., The Back Rub Company provides education, healing and stress-relief to thousands.  Health and wellness has always been a part of Tiffany’s life and martial arts has played a valuable role in that. She is passionate about what she does and walks the talk. Her personal life and business life are fully integrated. Tiffany believes strongly in setting goals, putting on her big girl panties and enjoying the ride!

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Check this out — Booties to go.
While this product may not help your health, it can cause a heads to turn bolstering your self-esteem…

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In the beginning her coaching practice attracted women who were living small lives, preoccupied by things that didn’t matter. Brown now attracts women who want to move into a state of joy and who have a substantial effect in the world with their presence, their words, their work.

“There’s a whole secret dialog that goes with that,” Brown says, speaking from her own personal experience. It’s often the seemingly small unimportant things that are having a large cumulative effect. In her shower stall, for example there is room on the shelf for three items across. Four of those were hers, two were her husband’s. She put hers in the back so he could access his more easily.

One day she thought, “Forget that. I’ve got more stuff I need more room.” So she moved her stuff to the front. Result? He didn’t even notice. “That`s when I realized there were so many little things I was deferring. Things that had bothered me for a long time. I was doing all this so it would be more convenient for my spouse, dismissing what was best for me.”

This may seem insignificant but these subtleties accumulate and suddenly women find themselves at a place where they’ve lost themselves in the process. “Smart women think this doesn’t happen to them,” says Brown, “And yet it does. I speak about this in terms of integrity, keeping a wholeness about yourself and your needs, keeping promises to yourself. You don’t gain or lose integrity in one choice but in the many choices over time.”

Another way that women give away their power is in how they make requests of others. For example, when a woman wants to go to the movies she may ask her spouse, “Do you still want to go to a movie today?” Asking in this way defers her own needs. Instead Brown recommends saying, “I’m going to go to a movie do you still want to join me?” This puts the power back in your hands as no matter what he says you’re still going and don’t have to explain it. Contrarily, if you say you’re going to go that could be construed as a subtle diss to him. Asking in this way you’re neither deferring your power nor being over-controlling. “True power doesn’t need to control or accommodate,” Brown notes.

In her practice Brown teaches non-judgement. That means not judging your body, what you eat, how you react at work or at home. “Judgement and learning can’t co-exist. If you choose to go down the path of judgement you set yourself up to go to this moment again and again and get stuck. Once you choose learning everything opens up and becomes curiosity-driven. It’s a compassionate lens and everything is new. This works even if you feel you need to go to store and indulge.” Brown recommends looking at that experience and recognizing that you may need to do it to learn from it as an experience of contrast to behaviour you actually want in your life.

“Notice “what is” and that truth is neutral. If you’re fighting reality you’re spending a lot of energy fighting “what is” and that energy isn’t available for other parts of your life.

Brown considers herself fortunate to have had coaches who were excited with whatever she brought to them no matter how “negative” or extreme. “They thought everything was ‘awesome’. They were my compassionate witness and my unconditional champion.” We need constants like this in our lives, whether it be a coach, parent, or friend who teach us, believe in us and see every act we do as revolutionary and necessary for our progress so we can internalize these qualities for ourselves.

Kathrine Brown, North America’s most innovative weight loss coach, is the developer of the process Conscious Weight Loss: weight loss while life happens and the publisher of the ezine Wisdom Connoisseur: your voice of clarity on weight loss, which has subscribers in 10 countries.

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At first, a few weeks ago, he stopped his car on his way home, leaned out his window and said I was looking leaner by the day. I fondled his two tiny dogs while we chatted about my Aikido training.

Yesterday, when I passed his house on my walk, he mentioned that he kept seeing me on the CNBC The Oprah Effect and that I looked good on the show. I joked that it was all the make-up and good lighting. But he kept hedging. “You are about one-third of your original size,” he said.

“Oh TV ads ten pounds,” I said. “I was the same weight then as I am now, I just looked chunkier on TV.”

Finally, he came out with it. “I prefer women with more meat on them.” Well, I’m not sure he noticed but I’m not his wife. So this is not information I need to know.

I confess that after that conversation I spent some time fretting over my arms getting a bit too cut from Aikido weapons training with the jo (long stick) and bokken (wooden sword). But I like the way they look. Kind of like Michelle Obama’s arms only shorter and chubbier. It’s happening naturally. My sweetie Will said that my arms looked toned and fit. His opinion is the one that matters.

But here’s the thing. I want to get to the point where I don’t fret for even one second about what anyone thinks about my body. Which leads me to the next point. Why do men think that they can just comment on it and tell me that I don’t match their preferences? I’m in a relationship. So is my neighbor. What does he care about the muscularity of my arms anyway? Who is he to say that my onion is too big or too small?

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It’s common that “small” sexual degradations of a father toward his daughter lead to a diminished sense of self.

I was at dinner with a dear friend of mine and she said to me, “Do you know how much I’ve held myself back because of the way I look? I don’t think I deserve to be in front of people the way I am.” She is a luminous person, full of compassion and brilliance. She is “heavy” and has always worn loose fitting clothes. She is a leader in her field and has held prominent positions at large and respected spiritual organizations. She is like so many of us.

This wearing away at self-esteem started long ago when her father would pinch her and pit her against her mother. She got fat so her mother would be the thin one. At prom time she put on a dress and her father pointed at her breasts and said to her brother, “Look at those sagging five pound sacks of flour.”

This was one of many inappropriate comments that lead her to where she is today. Holding herself back from giving her full light to the world. And hers is a very bright light.

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Body image does not only effect women who feel they are overweight, underweight/skinny women are taunted also. In a community where curves are accepted and the more “bootylicious” the better I was constantly put down by family, friends, and acquaintances for being a size 0.

I never had an eating disorder but I did have a high metabolism and at 28 years old, 5’9, and shopping in the juniors department my body image really caused me to be insecure as an adult woman and a mother. I had no curves, no love handles, nothing about my body said I was a “woman”. Those insecure feelings kept me out of the public eye for a while until I was comfortable enough to embrace it and make it work for me.

Learning to be comfortable in your own skin is a process and self acceptance and self love is such a necessity among women. Especially when you are in business and have to represent yourself or your company. I have also learned that the most important element of a person is who they are inside and not what they look like outside and once you exude that type of confidence other people around you start to feel the same. No matter how big or small you are.

Being an African American woman and being what our community considered too thin effected my dating habits. Most black men want curvaceous (thick) women with a big butt. I was neither. So what did I do? I dated white men. Thus, noticed the distinct differences between Caucasian men and African American men which prompted me to write my debut non-fiction: black men vs. White Men: the Black Woman’s Choice.

So the experience changed the course of my life and I am now a published author because of it. I still have my moments of insecurity when someone reminds me I am skinny but I am so comfortable in my own skin now that it does not matter to me anymore. I love public speaking, I love writing books, and I love being the center of attention. Because writing gives me confidence no one is able to take that away from me.

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Be familiar with my content and style.

Approach me with all the information I need to know to get me to say a wholehearted “Yes.”

Suggest a topic, idea, angle of story that has a unique twist.

You will not only get publicity on my blog, but on all my social networks.
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NEW!

I’m now writing two new blogs on body image and self acceptance as well as PR & marketing.

Self acceptance is one of the most overlooked elements of creating a successful marketing and PR campaign, and a loving life. To that end I’ve started a blog called, http://www.ismybutttoobig.com and I’m writing for the Huffington Post.

Two ways you can contribute and get publicity here:

Comment or guest blog for http://www.ismybutttoobig.com
Comment or be interviewed for http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-harrow

I’m actively looking for psychologists and people who have insights about how they are learning to love themselves (every part). Fascinating stories will get priority. Extremes interest me as well as the ordinary moment that has a big insight to go with it. For example I’ll be interviewing a woman amputee who is a marathoner and a mother of quintuplets to discuss her body changes through the years and through her training and pregnancies.

NOTE: I’m NOT looking for stories about bulimia, anorexia, or depression etc.

I am seeking other business people, moms, and gals like me who have struggled with a critical mom, perfectionism, unacceptance from lovers/partners/husbands or themselves. Other topics: What your mother taught you, what you’re teaching your daughter. What it feels like to look in the mirror every day. How does what you look like effect your PR campaign, being a public person, in the bedroom, with your friends. What’s the best/worst thing a friend ever said to you and how have you incorporated that into how you feel about your body. Complete, compelling, poignant, brief stories will be given priority.

Please contact me here.

For the subject select: answer query.

NOTE: Be sure to let me know which blog you want to contribute to.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Other Info.
I welcome all your comments and contributions on all of my blogs at any time!

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