Meet Sifu Slim
NSCA-CPT. Professional Speaker; Wellness Coach; Researcher; Author; Fitness Leader. All done with empathetic awareness, Lectures/Interviews can be done in English, Spanish, or French.
From Renaissance Man —» Guru.
Founder of:
The Maintenance Workout
This is a video for fit people who wish to maintain fitness despite busy schedules. There are other less vigorous maintenance workouts Sifu offers.
18 Forever
YogaP
The Aging Athlete Project
Operation BITWIC
Sifu Slim has been a world traveler since 1978.
He has been a business traveler since working on the Paris Stock Exchange in 1983. He and his friends used to run through the streets of Paris and do push-ups and calisthenics under the outline of the Eiffel Tower and, in the summer time, jump right in the fountains at Trocadero to cool off. “We weren’t the only ones ‘les guardiens’ were after…” he confesses.
His European roots are important in his ethic of seeking the slower, old-school ethic. “When I look at my family’s home villages in Germany, Ireland, and Alsace-Lorraine, I see how people are still connected to the land. This is important in grounding ourselves, literally, spiritually, and emotionally. Being in the earth, touching it, working with plants and animals, being in nature–all of this is import for the natural order of things.”
As a young man, Sifu was also into resistance training with weights and machines three to four times per week, but, in his early 30s, realized that it wasn’t the way to continue for his lifetime practice. Too much sluggishness, joint pain, and muscle soreness. It also negatively impacted his practice of other sports like golf and tennis.
Sifu worked at special events as a professional mascot for 4 years from age 28 – 32. This was a lot of fun and helped him get super fit, but it also resulted in some repetitive stress injuries from doing hip-hop dancing in a heavy, cumbersome outfit. He found lots of help from his practice of Myotherapy–a series of techniques he learned in 1986 from a family of health and wellness practitioners who studied Bonnie Prudden’s “Pain Erasure.” Sifu now offers seminars and workshops in staff acupressure.
Watch The Health Tips Interview on YouTube.
After that he spent 5 years visiting a highly-skilled Japanese-American RSI (Repetitive Stress Injury) Consultant who taught him healing through Shiatsu and Proper Biomechanics. Sifu Slim adds, “He even taught me how to walk.” During that time, Sifu spent time coaching high school amateur boxers.
After this, Slim began doing martial arts: Tae Kwon Do, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Jeet Kune Do. He also did Yoga, Tai Chi, and perfected his Maintenance Workout. Just when he thought he knew enough for his lifetime of fitness, he was referred to a trainer of Olympic athletes who initiated Sifu into Functional Training. “Every time I saw a new specialist in therapeutic movement, they gave me a new set of exercises and a new way of thinking. Since one can’t do everything, I mix many different training modalities into my daily routine, varying things by day. The floor exercises — mostly Functional Training and Yoga postures — I do at least 5 days per week.”
Starting with Jack LaLanne workouts at age 6, and PE and scholastic sports after that, and over three decades of Maintenance Workouts, Sifu Slim has done over 13,000 fitness workouts. He says that not to be boastful but to show how he has picked up on the passion which started with Jack LaLanne at an early age and has never stopped. One of his softball coaches once told his team’s base coaches to “send him” (tell him to go for the next base whenever there’s a long fly ball past the outfielder and the throw might come in close) “because he’s always in shape.”
Sifu Slim is not a “gym rat.” He advises people to get outdoors as much as possible so they help stave off things like nature deficit disorder. Getting grounded to the earth (skin touching the earth or in contact with something that is conductive like concrete) is another priority.
Bruce Lee (one of Slim’s idols) might have been the best mover of his mass in modern history; he was even once the Cha Cha Cha Champ of Hong Kong. If Bruce were alive today, he might tell you to take it a bit easier and to take a more balanced approach to life. As many professional athletes and workaholics do, Bruce went at things a bit hard, even excessively. A life practice is there to keep you alive and well, not burn you out. Remaining a good amateur may keep you more well, with less injuries.
Being fit, promoting healing, and educating himself and others are Sifu Slim’s main passions. Slim reads, writes, and interacts with other intellectuals and healing people on a daily basis. Years ago, someone told him he was a Renaissance Man. He looked that up and said, “Okay, let’s go with that.” He speaks three languages, reads and writes daily, has spent some years dancing salsa and old school hip hop, is involved in his community, and takes time out for travel which could be termed voyages of learning with courses, seminars, and lots of reading.
The default setting in all of this is to keep moving. Move each morning, move during the day, and stretch before you go to sleep. That tells your body that you need it. It will respond by strengthening itself and you will become more balanced and, with a blessing, more well.
“None of this gets any easier,” he attests. “But feeling good on a natural high never gets old.”
When he turned 53, a wellness contact told him: “I present you to others as a guru. That’s really who you are. You have done your work, you continue mastery of self, and you help others. Why don’t you roll with that?”
“What about the sense of humor and silliness?” I asked.
“Keep it. Having a light heart makes time pass more quickly, more joyously. Laughter is good. Besides, your being trapped inside the body of Gilligan is obvious and it’s hilarious.”
“Okay,” I responded. “Sifu Slim is now a fully-fledged Sifu.”
The goal now is to maintain that through work, daily practice, mindfulness, and honoring life.
Imbalance and fallout are common among this group and Sifu promotes a more balanced and sustainable approach to revolutionize athletic expression.
His Press Releases can be found here:
Sifu is the only non-PhD chosen to be published in the upcoming Volume of Sports Psychology
IAP Book Series – Advances in Cultural Psychology: Constructing Human Development
Kindly consider him for your Podcast and reach out if you would like to appear on The Real Show with Sifu Slim
Here’s a clip of Sifu being interviewed.
Dr. Jill Stocker Interviews Sifu Slim:
Are You Raising a Child Athlete?
