intenSati
Clever name. Very catchy.
Mix of workout and shout-out, intenSati in Bay Area
Meredith May, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, January 31, 2011
Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle
Tamra Sattler (foreground) shouts affirmations during an intenSati class, which got its start in 2002 in New York.
Fourteen women face the mirror in warrior pose.
“Hey! Are you committed?” their fitness instructor calls out.
“Yes!” they roar in response.
“Will you play full out?”
“Without any doubt!” the students yell back, now throwing boxing punches.
Cher booms through the stereo, “Do You Believe in Life After Love?” The women crouch down, slap the floor and jump.
It’s not aerobics. It’s not therapy. It’s not yoga or martial arts or cheerleading practice.
It’s all of it.
IntenSati, a new cardio class making its way to the West Coast from New York, has students tone their bodies and minds by shouting affirmations as they exercise.
Started in 2002 at Equinox Fitness Clubs in New York, intenSati now has 150 trainers, hundreds of classes throughout the United States, Canada and Japan. The model Iman is a fan.
Creator Patricia Moreno has more than 60 men and women show up for each of her five weekly intenSati classes in Manhattan. Her new movements morphed into an actual movement, and in 2010 Moreno published “The intenSati Method - Seven Secret Principles to Thinner Peace.”
Secret No. 1? Add a little self-love to your squats.
“What’s been missing from the whole fitness industry, basically, is love,” said Moreno, who describes herself as a “mind-body life coach.”
“If you love your body only when it’s thin, that’s conditional love,” Moreno said. “If you say things to yourself that are powerful and lovely, encouraging and optimistic, while putting effort into it, you are being the healing that you need.”
Growing up in an obese family of 10 brothers and sisters, Moreno hit 200 pounds by age 12, and although she matured to a healthy weight, she always struggled with her self-image.
She got the idea for intenSati while running on a beach and shouting affirmations as part of a workshop led by the empowerment guru Anthony Robbins.
“Even though I wasn’t fat anymore, I was always running from the fat girl instead of leaving the idea of me being fat behind,” she said.
Her shift in perception hit her like a current. She realized that much of the fitness industry motivates from the premise that you don’t like yourself, and working out is only a means to lose weight or to sculpt buns of steel. What if exercise could be a portal to honoring yourself, to quieting the critical mind and focusing on what you want to achieve for your life?
She combined the word intention and sati, which means mindfulness in the ancient Sri Lankan Buddhist Pali language, to make a play on the word intensity. She combined spiritual teachings from Deepak Chopra, Pema Chodron and Anthony Robbins into a high-intensity routine designed to burn 650 to 800 calories in an hour.
Eileen McCarthy, a therapist and fitness instructor who began teaching intenSati in Mill Valley in August 2009, starts each class by asking students to pick a goal for the workout while they warm up with stretches, asking them to take full responsibility for their lives, bodies and health.
“Do you look to others to determine if you are a success? How about looking inward? Only YOU know!” she said, starting off a recent morning class at Roco Dance and Fitness in Mill Valley.
The class is split into three choreographed sections. Students learn a series of yoga, martial arts and cardio moves, each one accompanying a call and response chant. After learning the steps, McCarthy combines them into a longer dance sequence.
The repetition of the steps and affirmations meld into a full-body mantra. The workout starts with calming stretches, and quickly transforms into a heart-pumping series of punches, kicks, jumps and imaginary basketball dribbles.
Marcy Schaaf of Mill Valley became a devotee after wandering into an intenSati class when her weight-lifting class was overcrowded. She’s been coming for three months straight.
“I find myself repeating the affirmations throughout the day,” said Schaaf. “Somehow, saying it while you are working out anchors it in your body.”
Students regularly ask to record McCarthy so they can take her words with them on vacation. One mother uses the affirmations to calm her son before he takes the plate at baseball games.
After her first intenSati class, Jan Hiti of Mill Valley felt serenity.
“I have been having some issues at home, and this class made feel like I’m OK; I am in control,” she said.
McCarthy was living in New York when a friend suggested intenSati as a way to get her energy back after her brother died. Halfway through, she wanted to sit down. The trainer asked her whether she was going to give up or keep on going.
“It hit me on so many levels,” McCarthy said. “IntenSati affects you if you are ready to see things and make changes. Saying what you want out loud means it’s no longer a secret. Therefore you might have to do something to get it.”
IntenSati Classes: 9-10 a.m. Mon., Thurs., Fri. Roco Dance & Fitness, 237 Shoreline Highway, Mill Valley. $16. 9 a.m. Tues. Osher Marin Jewish Community Center, 200 N. San Pedro Road, San Rafael. $15 members, $20 public. emcc9@hotmail.com.
