Mindful Movement: A Conversation with a Practicing Kinesiologist

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Well, greetings to everyone joining us today for the Living to 100 Club Program. I'm your host, Joe Casciani. Each week we bring you thought-provoking discussions on topics related to living longer and celebrating aging. Here at the club, we're building a community of everyone who embraces the reality that we are now living longer than any generation in history. Club members want to establish new habits, learn new information, and make decisions that impact our mental and physical health. And most importantly, how do we make it over those hurdles and obstacles and keep moving forward. Our guest today is Gabriel Shaw. Gabriel is a practicing kinesiologist, clinical exercise physiologist, and performance specialist with over 10 years of experience teaching movement. His focus is on active rehab and functional mobility and stability. He has a proven track record helping people reach activity goals rehabilitating joint injuries, and improving mental health. Before becoming a kinesiologist, Gabriel worked as an emergency medical technician in both field and hospital settings. Gabriel enjoys all things movement. Most of his free time is spent in activities such as martial arts, dancing, running, climbing, and so on. Gabriel's mission is to empower our coming together on the path of self-discovery Integration and Transcendence to help us connect more deeply with our true nature. Gabriel, welcome to our program.

Thanks, Joe. I really appreciate that, and I love a lot of things that you said about The 100 Club in terms of developing new habits but also getting over those obstacles. And so maybe those are a couple things that we'll touch on today, but thanks so much for having me.

Great, you're so welcome. I'm glad we could have this conversation. I'm looking forward to it. I always like to begin by asking our guests to tell us a little bit about the journey that brought you to where you are today.

Absolutely, happy to do it. And I think that where we get in life is, is often so much we, we don't know until we, we can look for— we can look back on it and say, okay, here are the steps that led, but you never know how things are going to lead, uh, while you're in the moment. But, you know, I grew up, and when I was a really young kid, I was always fascinated by comic books and Ninja Turtles and all that from being a very, really small kid. And then I had the lucky fortune that I had a friend when I was about 12 years old who suggested that we go and sign up for a kung fu class together. Well, I was lucky that his dad said, "If you're going to do kung fu, I don't want you coming home punching and kicking me, so you better have a friend to do it with." And of course, it's always good for all of us to engage in activities with other people, right, to develop friendships and connections, because that's a big part of what's going to help us live longer as well, is that social health. But anyway, so my friend grabbed me and we went, and we went to kung fu class, and immediately the first day, uh, fell in love with it, just learning the different movements and learning the different athletic, uh, movements in the body. And we were learning different animal styles, so we were also kind of acting out these different things, right? And we were learning, um, There's these sequences. We're learning flowing sequences, which is kind of similar to dancing, which I do a lot of now. And then, also jumping and crouching and all these kinds of things. And so, I just enjoyed— that is what really turned me on to moving my body and how fun that could be in terms of how fun it can be to move your body and get into your body. And that's one of the things I really try to strive for today. And everything that I teach is really to help give people the experience of how fun and how much it can feel really good to be in our body, even if we have some pains or some limitations and things like that. I'm sure we'll come back to that later on. But I also had some— part of this kung fu school was also, they also taught tai chi and qigong and some meditation practices like that. And that was a big part of this kung fu school, was kind of the virtue of health and longevity and vitality. And So I started learning a little bit about meditation and tai chi and qigong and this depth and mindfulness and learning to connect my mind and body together in that way as well at that time. And I was just a teenager then, so I didn't always grasp the depth of how important that was. But as I continued that kung fu practice and I did other martial arts as well through my teenage years, but as I got I got to be a young adult and I started teaching a little bit of the kung fu, I had a couple more senior instructors kind of pull me aside and say, "Hey, this kung fu that we're doing is great and I'm glad you like it. But if you really want the deep stuff that's going to keep you going long and really dive deeper into what is this thing, that life that we're doing here, yeah, I might suggest that you get into what we call the internal arts," which is more that meditation and the tai chi and qigong type stuff. And so, I had some people steer me that way, which was lucky. And so, that's how I got more into that and I've just been continuing been on that journey ever since with learning from different masters and traveling and always seeking out better teachers. But of course, as a young man, uh, you also need to— as a young person, I should say— you need to, um, make, uh, you need to develop some skills so you can contribute to this culture that we live in. And so this— and seeking to develop some of those skills and contribute more, I wanted to be involved in health. So that's where I went to EMT school and started learning about emergency medicine and started getting a job on ambulances and emergency departments. And I really loved that. I loved the adrenaline of it. And I loved the science and learning about health and seeing bodies, you know, from the inside and seeing living tissue and pumping. Um, but what I learned doing that was, um, I learned kind of two things. The first most important thing I learned was that the people in those positions, although it was great to be able to help them, they weren't in the position where they were really wanting to take ownership over their own life and their own change. They either couldn't do it because it was an emergency for them, or they had progressed too long in their condition, or they were relying on the system, or for whatever reason it is. I realized I wanted to get more into prevention and work more with people who are ready to take the reins themselves to change, to change their own life. And then the other thing I got exposed to during when I was working as an EMT is the notion of trauma. And the notion of trauma, obviously, is it has to do with the body, but actually trauma that I was experiencing as a professional and as a lot of healthcare professionals experience, the psychological trauma of having to care for people and seeing that. And that was really my first exposure to trauma and learning how we deal with trauma and things like that. And that didn't come back into play till much, much later, but it's something I still focus a lot now.. But in trying to go to more prevention, I— that's when I decided I wanted to study kinesiology. And kinesiology is the science of human movement. And so I went in and did a degree in kinesiology, which was focused on clinical kinesiology. And I also have a strong focus in psychology and neuroscience as a part of that, motor learning, motor control as a part of that. And that's kind of an effort to bring together what I do in terms of my tai chi teaching and my movement teaching. Teaching with the health focus, health and longevity focus that I've always had, you know. And then after graduating university, kind of going into more the field where I was doing tai chi and dance and movement training, and then that is— that's where that idea of trauma started to come more up. And I started realizing that some of the biggest limits to people moving in their body or feeling comfortable or feeling good in their body or feeling strong are not only a matter of doing a certain amount of exercises, but are also a matter of this kind of trauma that we're holding on to in our body, or just our stress and our tension, or learning to feel the body is a place that is an uncomfortable place to be. And so that's where it comes back to, like I said at the beginning, is trying to help people get to that place where they can get into their body as a comfortable and fun place to be. Um, and that's a little bit of how I got to where I am, and I'm sure a couple of those other pieces we'll touch base on through the rest of this conversation.

Yeah, what a great history, what a great journey you've been on. And starting with the kung fu, that, I mean, that left that kind of strong impression on you about your awareness of your body and the fluidity of our body. And that just kind of mushroomed over the years for you, your interest in your skills and your training opportunities, training classes. So you offer training now. Tell me a little bit about the classes you offer. Who are your clients? What, what, what do you teach?

So Everything that I teach is around fluid movement and freeing up stress and tension from the body and functional mobility and stability. And so we could talk specifically about what mobility and stability is, but the training methods I teach are in functional movements. So people come to me either for private sessions, and I do those virtually as well. So I'll do virtual or in-person movement sessions where people are trying to recover from injuries or more specifically, They're trying to reintegrate their whole body so that they can go back and perform better at their dance or their martial art or, or whatever activity they do. Maybe they've done some physiotherapy, but they still feel quite— not quite safe, or they keep getting re-injured. And so I help to progress them from an injury back into their sport or their activity. That's what I do a lot in private sessions. And then I also teach group classes in all kinds of integrated movement, mostly around Tai Chi and Qigong and dance. So I'll do those in-personally and virtually as well, where I'm teaching people how to do fluid movement, where it's mindful movement practice in Tai Chi class, or fluid movement, which is mindful movement practice in dance class as well. So focusing specifically on Yang Family Tai Chi and West Coast Swing dancing. And whether it's the tai chi or the functional movement training or the West Coast Swing, again, it's all around helping people release that tension in their body so they can start feeling better and moving easier.

Would you say most of your clients then have some type of trauma or psychological constrictures or whatever impacted their, their need for this kind of movement training?

I would say so. Um, there's definitely a range, right? There's definitely a big range. And a lot of people who come to me privately, some of them suffer from more significant mental health issues. So I have a couple of clients who have had even just brain injuries, let's say, which is more physical trauma but still impacts them a lot psychologically. Uh, I have some clients who struggle with depression or addiction. And then I also have a lot of clients say in my regular Tai Chi classes who are quote unquote regular people, but we all have psychological issues oftentimes, don't we? Or we all are, we all are exposed to stresses and traumas that we hold on to that, that create dysfunctional behavioral patterns. And some of those behavioral patterns are movement patterns. And so that's why I work with helping people identify those so that they can move more functionally. But, um, but a lot of that is related to the significant mental events that we've all had in our lives. And so sometimes people don't even realize how significant that is for them until they come into a Tai Chi class and we get that energy moving, and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, for some reason some things can come to mind. And so having a supportive community is an important part of that too.

Yeah, well, that's interesting because, you know, most of my listeners on this program our seniors, you know, the 50+ age group. And, you know, you— I'm sure you've worked with older adults a lot and you understand the importance of mobility and balance and posture with this age group. Can you share what you've learned and how, you know, how important these are to the 50+ age group?

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I should have mentioned, yeah, obviously most of my clients are 50+ age group One of the reasons that I'm bringing forth this idea of that mind-body connection is because maybe not all of your listeners are educated about how the stresses that have accumulated across the course of their life impacts their movement, impacts the way they're living their life all the time. The first thing that I would express to your listeners is that the movement that you're doing, I want to encourage them to get into movement where they're having to really pay close attention to what's going on in their body. And that could be Pilates. Of course, it could be something like tai chi or some kind of training program where it's either working with another professional or even some kind of dance program. Uh, we can talk about other modalities, but something where you're having to actually look at your body and actually focus on it. Whereas a lot of what's taught in, in fitness, and I think a lot of what your people are probably exposed to in the past is something where it's like, just do this many sets and this many reps. And just kind of go to the gym and pump it out, or get on the treadmill for this long, or get your heart rate up to this much. And, and I want to encourage them, it's not as that— maybe movement, they can view it as less of an expenditure activity but more of an input activity. What can I put in that's going to nourish me and also bring my mind into my body in a way where I'm learning about myself? So that's the first thing I would tell them is to try to think about you're picking up something where you're actually learning about your body, where you're having to look into it. That's good from like a grander standpoint. I've been talking about the mindfulness aspect, but it's also good from just a functional— it's also good from a little more practical standpoint, whereas you're talking about for older adults, things that are really important for them are coordination, balance, dexterity, and mental cognitive abilities as well. So, if you can do, you know, there's only so much time in the day. And so, if you can do a physical activity that can help you to improve your balance, your coordination, coordination is a mind-body connection after all, and also something that includes mental focus. So, when you're having to focus on your body that way, then you're developing your mental strength as well. So, those are things that are going to be really important for older adults. So, that's at a practical level. On the more mobility and stability level, I want to just bring up a small point, which is that instead of thinking about movement in terms of big muscle groups, a lot of people just like to go to the gym and lift heavy weights or do the most— the more common movements. I want to encourage people to think more proactively about more physiotherapy-type movements where you're learning how to move small muscle groups in the body, where you're moving in multiple planes of movement, where you're working like your rotator cuff, let's say, or your hips or your core. And training those small muscle groups, which often can get overlooked in often common fitness programs.

Yeah. Can you give us some examples of even this small muscle movement of what type of— if you were speaking to a class right now and you wanted to improve strength or do some strength conditioning, what specific— could you share some? Yeah.

So a really good— a really easy example for that would be your hip stabilizer muscles. Okay, both on the outside of your hip and also the inside of your hip and in your groin. But we'll just talk about the outside of your hip for a moment 'cause it's really kind of easy practical tip for people, which is there's these muscles on the outside of your hip, which is called your glute medius and glute minimus or your glute, most people just call 'em your glutes, but there's glute maximus as well, which is the biggest muscle in the body, which is important. But right now we're talking about smaller muscles. The glute med is what most people refer to and that's on the side of your hip. And this is a muscle that's very, very important for balance and stability and also power and activity. But because it's a smaller muscle and because it's on the side of your leg, it doesn't get worked as much when people are like walking on a level ground or when people are doing, uh, forward direction movements like running, cycling, walking on a treadmill, even things like squatting and lunging. These are forward-facing, forward-propelling movements. Uh, don't— they often don't work that glute med as much as they could. And then, then that starts to deteriorate and you start to get muscle imbalances where you're focusing more on the quads, let's say, on the front of your leg. And this can, uh, go into like knee pain or lack of balance, uh, or other types of injuries or hip pain later on. One of the things that's really easy that your listeners can do is include some lateral movement into their training. So instead of just thinking about squats or lunges or walking on a level surface or running or biking, if they also think about doing something where they're moving laterally side to side, and that could be as simple as putting a band around your feet and then taking big steps to both sides, you're going to feel that in the side of your hips. And you might— or something called like a monster walk. So you can think of something called a monster walk or things on the ground that are called like side plank or things like that that can start to work this glute med. But they can look it up too, glute med strengthening, and obviously there's more or less functional ways to work it. But that would be an example of something that often gets overlooked in training, whereas from my perspective, that's one of the most important things to work. And one of the reasons— to make that simpler for people— one of the reasons it doesn't get worked is people just move in this linear plane of movement too much. And really, we want to be doing things that also move us side to side as well. Side to side side and then also rotating. But for the point of this example, we're talking about the side-to-side movement. If you think about most sports, there's going to be a lot of side-to-side movement. If you think about, you know, activities that you're going to be doing in nature, there's going to be a lot of moving on different leveled surfaces or climbing or different things like that. So yeah.

Yeah. Okay. That's good information. So walking is good, of course, but that's, that's more of the large muscle, large glutes, gluteus maximus. You're talking about the additional kind of drilling down a little bit more specific in doing that side-to-side movement, strengthening those smaller muscles.

That's right. Yeah, that's right. And walking can be great. It's so great. And I really advise people walking. And there's a lot of reasons for that that are different from what I'm talking about, that this example, right? So there are benefits. One of the things that you can do to really get all the benefits of walking and get some of this stability training, not only in your hip, but also say your ankle, your knee, is to walk on a surface with a variety of, um, structures or, or textures. So go, go hiking, for example, instead of just walking on flat ground. Go hiking, even if it's just on a trail that's not even too much hilly, depending on your ability level. Even if you're doing something where it's uneven ground, or even like on a beach— a beach can be really good because the shifting sand underneath your feet, it's gonna be a lot harder for those stabilizer muscles. You're gonna tire quicker, but that's kind of what you want to if you think about exercise-wise. So the first thing I just say is if they can try to walk in some uneven ground.

Yeah, good, that's good. So cobblestones, for example, or some rocky paths without being too dangerous, of course. Yeah, yeah, like uneven ground, that's an important point.

Yeah, yeah. And you're— I'm sure your level, you know, your listeners cover a variety of levels of ability, so you could think about a cobblestone path for somebody who doesn't want to go too dangerous, but progressing into more difficult hikes for people who want to get a little bit more vigorous exercise.

Great. That's great. Let me ask about one more then. How about balance? There's always a risk of falls, and even innocent trips or whatever, there's consciousness, awareness about the risk of falling. So any recommended exercises to maintain that balance?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So the first thing that— what I was bringing up about glute med training and that side to side and that walking on uneven surfaces, that's exactly for balance primarily. So that's really going to help for balance. Your glute med is one of the most important balance muscles. Now obviously tai chi is going to be a great exercise for building balance, and there's two reasons why tai chi is a great exercise for building balance that I'm going to talk about that can incorporate other exercises, whether people are doing tai chi with me or not. A lot of other places, um, that's going to be great. But the two The reasons it's great are number one is because you're moving slowly. So when you have to move, when you have to move very, very slowly, then you're actually getting more strengthening done and you're working those stabilizer muscles more. Like it just kind of makes sense to me when you think about if you'd walk at regular pace, you're only spending, you know, a fraction of a second on one leg at a time. So you're kind of always falling. But if I slow you down and make you take, you know, 1/5 the speed and do a step, you're going to be spending a lot more time in that balanced position. So you're obviously working a lot more of the stabilizer muscles. So just trying to do any exercise that you're moving much slower is going to really help. The other reason it helps though, and this is a point that I think is really important for your listeners, is the other reason it helps is because it starts getting you into that frame of moving your body that feels good and can build your confidence in moving your body in a way that it feels good. And the reason why that's important specifically for falling is, do you know what the biggest predictor of a fall is? Do you know what the biggest predictor is?

No, no. I used to think ladders that are too short, but— Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, exactly. Well, I'm talking about intrinsic factors. It's not necessarily world factors because there's a lot of dangerous areas or whatever, but the biggest, the biggest predictor of a fall is fear of falling. So when— so the reason why it's important for your listeners to kind of drill down on that is because when you are afraid of falling, then you're hypervigilant and then you're always taking these uneasy steps. It's kind of like you're always looking for it, waiting for it to happen, right? And you don't have that confidence that you kind of need to like really move forward with the world with that confidence. And so that just doesn't happen willy-nilly. Like some of the people are going to be scared of falling and they're going to be, you know, and now I don't want them to get scared. I'm telling them that's more likely. But what I am telling them is they can find a movement, a way of moving, whether it's Tai Chi or something else, where it can develop your confidence at being in your body. That's going to be a really key way. And one of the ways that develops that confidence is by moving slower and also by developing that mind-body connection that I was talking about earlier.

Those are great tips. Great. Thanks. Thanks for that. Let me ask you about chronic pain because many individuals, of course, have longstanding chronic pain issues and there are recommendations, I'm sure, for movement and physiology and a lot of this. So what are your thoughts about helping people move through some of that chronic pain? Manage it better?

Yeah, yeah. So I like what you said about, uh, managing it better. So the, the first thing that I'll say is that they can do it. They can overcome it. Again, having that confidence, uh, and not only you having the confidence that you can do it by putting— but put yourself in the driver's seat. The more you can take ownership over, you're gonna solve that, and you're gonna— even if it's just developing tools, right? So I've got a friend who's a colleague of mine who has spina bifida and therefore he's got, uh, back pain on a persistent basis, he doesn't just roll over and say, okay, therefore I'm going to have back pain because the spina bifida is incurable. He's got meditation tools that he uses, he's got myofascial release tools that he uses, like self-massage. He's got his— yeah, he's got his massage therapist, there's other experts that he goes to, or he gets his— or he's got his exercises that he, that he does when he— that it helps. So the, the point I'm trying to bring up is, first of all, the— is whoever your listener is, whoever the person we're talking to who, who is having that persistent pain, you can develop the tools to manage that on your own ongoingly. You really can. And so what I'm trying to do is not ask you to put that on your doctor to give you the pill or put that on somebody else that they need to fix you. It may not be something that goes away like my friend's spina bifida or other people that I've had accidents. It may not be something that goes away forever, but it can be something that using mindfulness strategies, using massage, using exercise, you, you can, you can learn to manage by use yourself learning the tools. So that's the first thing I'd say is kind of take ownership over yourself and then move forward. A couple of other practical things that really do help people are there, there are a lot of guided meditation tools out there. I've got a couple, um, that, you know, if people want to contact me, I, I they can find those somewhere on my YouTube channel, or I can help people direct those to those. But there's also like an online meditation program that I like called Syncuition, and Syncuition has like guided meditation, uh, programs that can really help people where you're just being guided. Um, but learning the skill of mindfulness, learning, uh, mindfulness is really a skill where you have to learn how to pay that close attention without judgment. That can be really powerful because When people have chronic pain, what happens is it, is it builds on itself because you're always reacting to the pain, or you're reacting to the pain by hoping it's not there. And so you're mentally kind of stressing yourself out about it, which makes it worse. And so learning how to be with that pain in a way that's non-judgmental through mindfulness can be really helpful. And then on top of that, a lot of times what happens when we get this negative feedback loop of feeding the bear by stressing out about our pain, what can happen is physically we start to guard that area. The muscles around that area start to get very tense because they're scared of anything moving it to— and then what happens is the muscles start to tense up, and then when muscles are tense, it's not getting as much circulation, they're not getting as much work, and they're reducing their range of motion. So then that pain can start to get worse. So again, that comes— so what you want to do is do something like tai chi, like dance, where you're— where you can just even just intuitive movement. If you can just move in a way slowly where you can really try to relax and loosen that area up through breathing too, where you can learn to let go of that guarding and that therefore increase that mobility. That can really help people too. So loosening it up, uh, by releasing some of that guarding through breathwork, through slow movement, can, can, can also really, really help with chronic pain as well.

Yeah, yeah. So that guarding, that's kind of the expectation that what we're going to do is going to be painful, and we bring those expectations into the activity, and already that sets up a challenge for us, um, something to kind of tiptoe into, and then we pull back from it, and it creates a bigger, a bigger boundary. I can imagine that.

Exactly, exactly. That's exactly what I'm talking about, and I call that being in your own way. So you're just, you're in your own way because, and I'm actually talking physically, actually, you're actually literally in your own way because you're tensing your muscles that need to work to do whatever activity. So you're preventing yourself from doing the activity, kind of causing your own pain in a way by like, by going in with that expectation. Not to sound like a broken record, but one way to avoid that fear that you're going to hurt doing it is go slower. Just go slower, relax as you go, and if you start to feel the pain, start to shift what you're doing and do, you know, go a different direction with the movement or do a different range of motion, um, or just see if you can ease into it. But oftentimes what happens is we ask our bodies to do too much too soon, and then we reinforce that pain cycle.

Sure. Yeah, I'm thinking this probably applies to anyone, not just the person who's experiencing chronic pain, but anybody who has some kind of preconceived notions or mindsets about what this physical activity could cost me or what it could trigger in me. So, I'm thinking your recommendations would really apply to anybody. It's not just the person with pain, but anybody who's got these kind of stereotype notions about what I should be doing as a 70-year-old or as an 80-year-old. Right? We're careful to not bust through those beliefs. We're kind of limiting ourselves, as you say, we get in our own way. I can imagine that this really applies to anybody.

It does, yeah. We're talking about chronic pain here, but, um, or persistent pain, but what now, what you're saying in terms of those self-limiting beliefs, now that comes to again our trauma or our wounds, because that could be your interpretation of what you should be doing activity-wise as a person of a certain age. Or for some people, it could be they're afraid of looking silly. Or for other people, it could be they're afraid of appearing like they don't know something. So they don't want to learn because then that would be exposing themselves as somebody who doesn't know. And that's going to be very common for people who are like— who have been very successful in their careers, let's say, for a long period of time and have become an authority position in one area. They don't want to necessarily always be exposed to, you know, being seen as somebody ignorant. But so yeah, so for anybody, that's getting in your own way. If you're afraid to look silly and so you're not doing an activity that may help you, or if you're afraid of appearing like you don't know— of course you don't know, that's why you're going to somebody to learn— that can be in your own way as well. That's the same thing as persistent pain. And it all comes back to, again, what our pains are, right? We were talking about physical persistent pain a minute ago, but now we're starting to get into a broader field of maybe your pain is being embarrassed in your peer group or something like that.

Yeah. Yeah. Even the fear of falling, I'm thinking that probably inhibits us in so many ways. I mean, for obvious reasons, but also, you know, am I doing something that people my age don't do, or, you know, Am I trying to do something that's out of my comfort zone? I better be super careful here. So I'm thinking it all can put us in, you know, these kind of limited zones and not, not get that full body movement and control and awareness. And as you say, the ownership of our body and our— the fluidity of our body and being free to make those movements.

And that's also why you brought up awareness a moment ago, and that's also why I'm encouraging people to get into activities that cause them to learn about themselves. Learn about your body, but also learn the way that you're showing up in the world, because it's those limitations that are going to prevent you from getting the results that you want. And you don't even know those limitations. You don't know what your limitations are until you look.

So these are really important lessons, valuable information. And I'm wondering, are these classes available on your site, or what? Are there some programs that are online that people can access?

Yeah, that's a great, uh, that's a great question. And there, there are some great programs available online for, uh, a variety of different areas like this, right? And if people are, you want to reach out to me, um, they, they can. I'm happy to direct them. One of the things that I do is I put out an email newsletter a couple of times a month where I highlight some other professionals that are also doing great things in this field, where I'll promote people who are doing different meditation courses or different movement workshops that that I think are really good. And so people can just go to my website, coachgabrielshaw.com, and get on that newsletter. And, you know, I'll share a lot of things that I don't get paid for that are other things that, that I like that other people don't have to be movement experts to, you know, go and find that can really help them. But then also, I myself, like I said, I offer virtual training. I'm offering different virtual workshops every month. I've got a— depending on when this podcast is getting released, I have a virtual tai chi Introduction workshop that's going to be coming up at the end of September. And but, you know, they can hear about that through that email newsletter as well. Now the website again, coachgabrielshaw.com.

Okay.

And then scrolls to the bottom, it just says tell me more, and does that sign up right there?

You can sign up for your newsletter and access a lot of information that you already have online on your site. That's good. Yeah, that's—

yeah, exactly. And, um, you know, it's kind of a bonus for people signing up for that newsletter. I also have a mobility and strength functional training program they can do at home that's free. When people sign up for that newsletter, they can grab that. And there are a lot of people doing things online as well, which I love, and that's why I'm promoting all these people, different people in different areas, just kind of based on the listener and what kind of things interest them. And that kind of brings me to sort of the next thing that I would encourage these listeners is to find something that they enjoy so it's not a hassle, so that they can find a community they can get involved with, so it becomes a social time, and so it becomes a positive thing, and it becomes something that's going to encourage them to want to do more for their health and live longer and take care of themselves because they want to be able to go on their Saturday biking, biking club, or they want to be able to go to their tai chi class, or they want to be able to do they're hiking and then the national, you know, maybe they're going to different national forests like some of my clients do, or, you know, to try to find something that they enjoy. So, the other thing.

Yeah, for the social interaction as well as the actual involvement in these activities, the community programs. That's great. You know, we're about out of time, Gabriel. I'd just like to ask, what one thing would you hope our listeners take away from this conversation today?

The one thing that I would hope they take away from this conversation is to move mindfully and view movement as a way that's nourishing them and helping them to get inside and learn about their self as opposed to expenditure or getting or putting everything out. Everything in our society is about go, go, go, quicker, quicker, quicker, give more, put out, and then distraction. Escapism, and we get that in all areas. And it's so easy to get that same thing in your fitness program as well. So again, I would encourage people to move inside, move in instead of working out.

That full awareness, that mindfulness about what, how we're interacting with the world around us and be aware.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Well, you've shared some great information for us. I know our listeners are going to love it. We're about out of time, but I always like to remind our listeners about a few items before we wrap up. I'm pleased to announce a co-sponsor for our podcast, A Mighty Good Time. Are you looking for ways to engage and stay active? Check out amightygoodtime.com. It's a one-stop shop for events and activities for those 50 and over, free to search and free to post. amightygoodtime.com. There's also a new offering on my website where individuals can arrange one-on-one coaching calls with me to discuss bouncing back from setbacks. How can we tap into our resilient self? How can we find ways to make it over those obstacles we face on our different journeys? Take a look at the Work with Dr. Joe tab on our website, livingto100.club. Also, be sure to subscribe to our email list to receive our newsletter and other announcements. And finally, pick up a copy of my book on Amazon, Living Longer Is the New Normal. I think that whatever age you're at, inspiration and a positive mindset can be put to good use. That's my message in the book, and that's the message I'm sure that our guests would agree with. Gabriel, you offered a lot of uplifting, encouraging words for my listeners, and I really thank you for that.

Yeah.

And just quickly, for those who might want to contact you, do you have an email address you'd like to share?

Yeah, they can do that at coachgabrielshaw@gmail.com. Uh, or again, then the best way is to just, uh, go to my website, coachgabrielshaw.com, and it's Coach Gabriel Shaw on all the social medias there on as well.

Great. Well, thanks so much. And thanks to everyone for listening to this episode. Hope to see you next time.

Thanks, Joe.

Hi, I'm Laurie LeBay, and I wanted to tell you about Alzheimer's Speak. Which is another great podcast. You see, my own mother lived with dementia for 30 years, and I felt lost. Did you know every 3 seconds someone in the world is being diagnosed with dementia? Odds are it's going to hit your families too. We want to help you connect to services, products, tools, research, and stories so you can be prepared. Please subscribe to Alzheimer Speaks on your favorite podcast platform.