In this series of posts, our Southern US Editor Jennifer Mathieu Henshall shares her POV while on her journey to getting certified by theLONDONmethod in the original Lotte Berk Technique.
The year is 1999. I’ve just finished a particularly sweaty 60 minutes on the treadmill and am ravenous. As I head back across campus to the townhouse that I share with my four college roommates, I reach into my backpack and pull out my post-workout snack – a package of SnackWell’s Fat-Free, Devil’s Food Cookies. Once home, I settle down to eat my dinner – a Subway turkey sandwich with low-fat mayo, a side of Wow! Doritos and a Diet Coke. As I eat, I applaud myself for making such healthy and wholesome choices that evening.
Looking back at the way I used to train and eat, I’m not surprised that almost 20 years later, I was diagnosed with several autoimmune conditions. Yes, over the years, I have refined my nutrition (i.e. I no longer eat fake food or thrive on artificial sweeteners), but it’s taken me a lot longer to get my fitness practices in-check.
A discovery that would change everything
Several years of running half-marathons, full-marathons and heavyweight training propelled my body into a state of self-attack. And, it wasn’t until a terrible autoimmune flare-up that I experienced at the end of 2019, I knew it was time to address the fact that I needed to stop overtraining once and for all, as it was doing more harm, than good, to my mental and physical health.
The last time I experienced an exercise-induced autoimmune flare-up was while I was training for the 2016 Boston Marathon. I didn’t know it at the time, however. For months leading up to the diagnosis of my autoimmune condition, I just assumed that the fatigue, brain fog and depression that I was experiencing were from the tough training regimen I had outlined for myself.
Undoubtedly, the training was putting a lot of strain on my body, but my system had become so inflamed, that it began attacking itself. I was immediately put on anti-inflammatory medication and began feeling better within a few months’ time.
This time around, my doctor increased my medication dosage – a drug that I will more than likely have to take for the rest of my life. And as someone who believes in the symbiotic relationship between Eastern and Western medicine, I knew that, in addition to taking more medication, there were several other things that I could do to heal myself.
Finding an alternative form of movement
One of them was to immediately cease all high-impact exercise and overtraining. I decided to revamp my entire workout routine and to focus on barre workouts alone. I slowly eased my way back into exercise and found that barre’s low-impact and mindful movements were exactly what I needed to begin feeling better both inside and out.
As I mentioned in Part 1 of “How I Found My Way to the Barre,” I discovered barre almost five years ago while training for Boston, my second marathon. And, I’ve been a barre instructor for almost as long. I’ve always loved barre fitness but initially used it to supplement and refine my other more intense workouts. I’m not sure if it’s a function of coming into my own during a time when the fitness culture touted low-fat foods and high-cardio moves, but unless I felt completely defeated after a workout, I didn’t think that I had worked hard enough – until my body proved otherwise.
Yet, after my most recent autoimmune flare-up, I turned to low-impact, controlled exercise to heal myself. Movements that involve bodyweight, concentration and an acute awareness of one’s heart, mind and soul – those of the ORIGINAL Method – have provided me with the mental and physical results that I’ve been searching for my entire adult life. I’ve learned that it’s not about having a “perfect” body, it’s about having a happy, healthy and thriving body. And, the ORIGINAL Technique provides all of this and more. I am overjoyed at the opportunity to train with The London Method, to learn the roots and intricacies of Lotte Berk’s ORIGINAL Technique and to document my entire experience along the way. I want to absorb all that I can about the Fairfax Family Recipe, so that I may instruct others in the hopes that they, too, will share in the magnificent healing powers found in this remarkable form of movement medicine.
See you at the barre!
About the Author
Jennifer is a barre instructor, personal trainer, clinical aromatherapist and author who discovered barre — her soul-mate workout — while training for the 2016 Boston Marathon. As a long-time runner, former bodybuilder and melanoma skin cancer survivor, Jennifer’s recent battle with autoimmune disease has changed her fitness focus to one that incorporates more mindful, purposeful and low-impact movements.
A former communication professor and mother of two daughters, Jennifer is excited to share her thoughts and experiences on ways to create and maintain a strong connection between the mind and body through barre.
