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Melissa Perkins

Welcome to the live louder podcast. Sponsored by FITKYT our special guest today is Nina, Nina brings so much joy and energy and light to the world. She runs an online and face-to-face business called the mat with Nina. I personally think that she's one of the best trainers I've ever worked with and in the world, it's true. It's all true. She does a blend of Pilates, Hiit, Kickboxing and mindfulness. It's a space where we meet to push the boundaries and find stillness in chaos. A place to reframe our challenges, and to use discomfort to bring us into the present, to our freedom.

Let's sweat, shake and build resilience together and welcome to the Live Louder mat, Nina!

You're always somewhere different, tell us, where are you at the moment? What's happening in your life?

Nina Markowitz

Yeah, so I'm in Mexico City. I've been here for about, it's almost been 10 months getting close to a year, crazy. I know it started off as three months just I had the online subscription service and I thought I've been in LA for 10 years and might as well go somewhere else and I've always wanted to go and yeah now I'm here.

Though it's all very exciting. And I'm here for good.

Melissa Perkins

Do you love it that much?

I know what happened….you found love?

Nina Markowitz

No. The opposite, honestly.  I decided that I am not dating anybody anymore! In general, other than that, it's a whole different world. So, no love.

Mexico City really is craving something like (my class) this, but it doesn't have anything like that.  Mexico City is a place where people come for wellness and for self-discovery and for health, in a more, kind of holistic sense, but there aren't a lot of, studios or exercises that reflect any of that. It feels like 20 years back in terms of getting the mindfulness holistic exercise program.

Can you explain to our listeners? What is it that you do? And what are you trying to create in your classes?

It's Pilates with some kickboxing in there, Hiit, Dance all in the one place on your mat.  Where I've been able to kind of step away from what's happening, elsewhere and come right back into my body and to kind of watch the way that I show up for myself. When things are challenging, when things are hard and it's like exercise is the perfect way for you see. Okay. Here's my boundaries or third. It's been. Whoa, like it's right there in front of me. What am I going to do? Am I going to slow down? And I'm going to stop my going to listen to The Voice in the head. Okay, no, no, no, no, it's a place like where fear shows up so quickly. And so, I really try to integrate eight using those feelings of discomfort to bring you back and be like, oh no and talk to yourself. Like this is just the feeling. This is temporary. It's a move. I'm choosing to do it. Strengthened choosing to build, it's not forever. I'm experiencing it. Hmm and then able to reframe that and be like Oh discover isn't as scary as we think it is and they get stronger. We need to find that boundary. Breathe through it and then push past it to get stronger and more comfortable with discomfort, you know, and to that kind of my whole. But what I want to bring into it like at the hard exercise, I'm sore all the time. But I want to be where you can like, show up for yourself and and see how strong you are and to fleet to yourself. You know. Yeah. That's what I love about it.

Melissa Perkins

Plus, I can feel that energy and it's also a mental. So, you're trying to stimulate the mental feelings with challenges, so take us through that. Like what you get when you're doing the class?

Nina Markowitz

I suppose, it's funny because my friends that know me really well when they take the class, they're like, oh this is interesting. This feels like I'm getting an insight into what's happening in your mind because the way that I do it is I'm taking the class with everybody. I'm doing the move because I do believe that in like a fast-paced class it's really important for form is also very important to me, so I feel like to model that for your students while they're doing it is important. So, like they one less thing to think about so I'm doing it as I'm going to class. I'm working through my own feelings of discomfort for my own.

Setting those boundaries of these other voices that came into my head and just I'm taking that conversation. I have with myself in my head and putting it externally. So hopefully the other person that's feeling similar things or thinking similar things.

It's alright, I am resilient. Oh, right, this is just temporary. Oh, how am I talking to myself? What am I saying to myself? And, you know, I've done like years and years of therapy ever since I was like eight years old. and the most, to me, powerful version with my learned, like working with your body and your thoughts and working with that voice and really feeling it in your body and using, like the feelings that come up in your body.