The Unintentional
“Rebirth of a Couch Potato”

I have been a couch potato virtually all of my adult life. I am seventy three years old. For most of my life I have lived a very sedentary existence. I was never active in organized sports and my working years have been mostly behind a desk.

During January and February of 2011, I underwent a series of operations. The first two operations were for minor hernia repair. During the second hernia repair operation, the surgery team noticed an anomaly, that upon further investigation, revealed an Abdominal Aortic Aneurism, which was large enough to demand repair. Since the location of the aneurism precluded the use of stents, the repair was performed as open heart surgery. During my first post-operation visit with the surgeon, he removed the stainless steel staples from the incision site, pronounced the surgery successful, and said he would see me in a year, if I were so inclined. Then I began a several week recovery period.

In the weeks that followed I began to look for a rehabilitation program to facilitate my recovery from the operations. At the urging of mutual friends, I decided to engage the services of Brian Morris to begin a professionally supervised physical training program. Brian works at Elite Body in Great Neck, NY, as one of several professional trainers.

We agreed on two, one hour sessions per week, and began the sessions in early May of 2011, a decision which I have not regretted for one moment. The first several sessions took place at my home, except for a couple of sessions, which Brian suggested we do in Prospect Park.

From the beginning of the training with Brian, I decided to do whatever exercises he chose. I did not question the efficacy or appropriateness of the exercises. After only a few sessions, he suggested that I try some sit-ups. At this point I was convinced that I would not be able to do even one sit-up, but Brian assured me that I could. After only a couple more sessions, I was able to do fifty sit-ups. This convinced me that Brian understood me better than I understood myself, and my confidence in him increased considerably.

During one of the early sessions in my backyard, I lost my balance while Brian was leading me through an exercise on the steps leading down from the deck. I fell backwards onto the concrete surface of the yard and scraped my forearm, causing a small amount of superficial bleeding.There was no real damage done by the fall, except to my vanity, but I sensed that Brian was concerned than it might deter me from continuing the training. I told Brian it as just one more reason why I needed the training.

As the training continued I became aware of other benefits which were unexpected. My intentions when I began the training were only to facilitate the recovery from my traumatic open heart surgery. My intentions were good, but limited by my world view. l was unable to see the many benefits of being physically fit. Many of the problems which I was having prior to beginning the training, I had written off to just getting older. My muscles had undergone significant atrophy, resulting in loss of strength and consequent decrease in my ability to meet the demands of even slightly strenuous tasks. My gait was unsteady and wobbly. I had a limited range of movement in my neck and shoulders which impaired my ability to turn my head to check for opposing traffic.

After only a few training sessions I began to notice improvement in some of the problem areas mentioned above. My weight leveled off and began to trend downward. I felt stronger and more confident; my balance was much better. The constant improvement was noticeable in my day-to-day living.

One day, after about 8 months of training, I kneeled down on my living room floor to pet my cat, and after a few minutes I raised back up to a standing position. All this was done without conscious awareness. Reflecting back on my first few weeks of training, I remembered how difficult and time-consuming it had been for me to lie down on the floor to do some exercises, and then return to a standing position. This frequently required Brian’s assistance to help me back up or hold on to me to prevent me from falling. I’ve come a long way since I started my training program.

Old assumptions about health and well-being are being replaced by insights based on my own experience. Up to this point in my life, my world view, or consciousness, was lop-sided. It was not mind and body, but more like mind over body. Now I am using my new ‘direct’ knowledge, gained through my own personal experience of exercise, to begin to alter my world view. In a very real sense I am being re-born.

By the end of the first four months of training, I began to feel like a new person with a perspective that I never intended or anticipated. Brian has become my Avatar as well as my physical trainer.

Elite Body also offers a martial arts program called Ving Tsun. At Brian’s suggestion, and with his encouragement, I attended a trial class. After a couple of classes I asked to become a regular member. By becoming a member of the class, I also became a member the very large, international Ving Tsun family, complete with brothers, sisters, uncles and so on. Cornell Campbell is the head of our local family, and is known as our Si-fu, or father and master teacher of the Ving Tsun method of self-defense. The class was challenging, but I felt good about my physical readiness for the class. I wasn’t aware of it, but Brian had prepared me by including some of the basics I would need for the Ving Tsun classes in our training sessions. Now instead of just physical training classes, I am training for participating in the Ving Tsun class, like a baseball player trains to play in baseball games.

The combination of personal training sessions and Ving Tsun classes is very effective. Brian is also a long-time member of our Ving Tsun family, so if I am having difficulty with some aspect of the Ving Tsun exercises, he makes adjustments in the exercises he selects for the personal sessions.

The experience so far has been very rewarding and very challenging. I now look forward to the journey, excited about the possibilities for the future.

Finally, if you would like to hear more about my re-birth from a mundane life as a ‘couch potato’ to my new life as an active and physically fit person, please get in touch.

I also want to thank my friends for encouraging and supporting me in my efforts.

Make Love, not War.