Urmi - Today 'Kinetic Living' Also Has It's Own Online On-Demand Videos Which Started In The Pandemic And Was Rewarded The Best In Entrepreneurship By Times Of India (Fitness Coach, India)

 

Focus on the quality of food that they are feeding their body which again means choose nothing that comes out of the pack, choose nothing that has a self life of more than fifteen days

1. Tell us about your upbringing and journey?

My parents always encouraged us to pursue what we love including extracurricular activities in school. My dad was always of the belief that you could do the most of bit professions or be an off bit kind of person in the world but you must try to and be the best in what you do.

He always tries to encourage us to be daring and be courageous and my mom always encouraged us to have our minds so I think those were the great best of both worlds coming together. 

Another thing that is part of my upbringing was attention to good quality food and attention to life experiences in the form of extensive travel that my parents made possible for me and my sister which has enriched my way of looking at life and the quality of life.

About my journey, I can say I am an average student inspired by sports and turn into a school topper and an extremely extraordinary student in my Twelfth standard to MBA school as well and I am an MBA turned professional dancer, turned fitness coach, turned energy coach and turned an aspiring trailblazer and somewhere between becoming a fitness coach and energy coach I also learnt a lot about leadership and entrepreneurship.

2. What is your fitness mantra?

My fitness mantra first is enjoyment be present in whatever is a workout I am doing for a day, be it yoga, be it cater belts, be it running. 

Second is enjoyment extremely important for me and third is challenging my mind and body when I don't get excited by mindless workouts beyond once a week. All of my other workouts are fun and intuitive.

You do you is another fitness mantra as another thing is not identifying my body as a machine and identifying it as a living being.

3. How did you form to decide on Kinetic Living and what is the growth of this organization till now? 

I had just come back from Kerela as in my stint as a professional dancer and I moved back to Bombay and a lot of my friends were curious about what I was doing that's when I started teaching them bodyweight exercises and I always like to move my body as a unit.

So I didn't teach dance but I taught the takeaways from movements which are mindfulness, breath posture form, techniques along with sports-based strength and conditioning exercises that's when I realized that I love teaching as well and then I decided to form kinetic living.

The word kinetic comes from something an adjective that my mentor from advertising these used to describe me as an individual and that word really stuck with me. 

It was given to me by mentor Alvin Saldana and the living comes from not wanting it to be limited to fitness but this approach can be applied and extrapolated from a fitness of a liegen flow to the life flow. 

That's what is called living and everyone can set their energy motion and set their aspirations and dreams and motions to achieve their best potential and that is what is called kinetic living. 

Strengthening your body can help you empower you on that journey to maximizing your potential as a human being.

Another interesting thing one of my students pointed out is living in a present tense means you are always present which is so important and which is also a result of all kinetic living workouts.

Kinetic Living started as one on one base training when I started out visiting clients houses to train them from there I progress to doing group sessions in Bombay's one of those prime suburbs Bandra which is a hub of fitness.

That's when I also was invited by Nike to become a trainer with them and conduct training on their behalf and I think that put me on a platform where my talent as a coach and as of athlete could be a showcase and to regular people for general fitness and it gave me a loud voice to communicate about kinetic living. 

So in a way, My growth and the organization's growth has been very much hand to hand. From there on kinetic living was started as group classes and private Training from third parties studios and that was from 2012 to 2016, I also became a master trainer during this time which allowed me to speak about kinetic living to many trainers. 

In 2017, the kinetic living studio came about its own creative space which I feel gave me a lot of liberty to come up with very innovative programs like shred, like kettle belt workshops doing trainer mentorship, doing running based programs, doing pilates based programmes and in one year.

I also progressed kinetic living from just a one-floor organization to a two-floor organization where an imported pilates equipment because I am a huge pilates proponent and practitioner as well. From there on kinetic living has also been broadcast. 

Today kinetic living also has it's own online on-demand videos which started in the pandemic. In 2020 August, kinetic living was also rewarded the best in entrepreneurship by times of India. She Unlimited Award in the health and fitness category. 

4. What are some major misconceptions about diets and exercises?

I think the first one is that you need to diet to lose weight unfortunately the word diet has become very negatively associated with calorie restriction instead of focusing on including the good ingredients and the healthy ingredients. People focus on the elimination of the things that they crave and not substituting them with highly nutritious foods. 

Another misconception about diet is you can just calories and calories out and yes to lose weight and fat you need to be calorie deficient which means burning way more calories than you are consuming in a day but the quality of where those calories are coming from is also very important so again focus is going back to nature of food of what you are eating. 

Are you eating natural, unprocessed foods the majority of the time?

Second is exercise, no one can out-exercise a bad diet, you can do spot reduction, your body has a way of losing fat wherever naturally it chooses to and where it predisposes to, all you can do is exercise your whole body do some strength training, some cardio training maximum three times a week and strength training minimum two times a week and your body will come to it by-shape. 

Another thing is to secure PCOD lifestyle disorder they need to lose weight, yes losing weight may give you a lot of benefits when it comes to hormonal health but the way you go up by achieving the weight loss is more important. 

And most people to lose weight just go against the actual goal of hormonal health.

5. How can one maintain a healthy lifestyle?

What one can do is focus on the quality of food that they are feeding their body which again means choose nothing that comes out of the pack, choose nothing that has a self life of more than fifteen days, choose nothing that comes out of tetra pack and cut down fast sugar and refined flour as these are the major culprits and as simple as it sounds. 

It's more about not knowing what to do, everyone knows what is the way to live a healthy lifestyle but it is more important to practice even half of it so the best way to practice is simple, stick to basics and remove unprocessed food from your life.

And get in thirty minutes of movement be it climbing stairs or be it washing utensils, be it washing clothes, be it working out, be it hiking, and do something for thirty minutes and feed your mind with positive thoughts. 

If you feed your mind its turn stands for beauty if you keep comparing yourself to others on social media about how they look, how they do exercise, how they behave, what they wear then you will never be happy with yourselves,

So feed your body, your mind good quality thoughts and food and feed your body good movements which means don't punish your body just because you need to lose weight. 

Do movements that help strengthen your body and when you start strengthening your body, realize you cannot go fast.

6. How can one have a successful career in your field? 

One is you should have a knack to help people, to genuinely care for people. The second is you need patience. The third is you love working out. 

If you don't do that you will eventually become monotonous and you will approach this as any other job and I think another one which is common across all successful people in their field is doing what you love that is when you can be unique in your field because you will do things and you will think creatively, you will be able to think creatively and out of the box when you will love what you do.

7. What is the piece of advice you would like to give to the one who wishes to lose weight? 

Stop trying to lose weight. Your attempts to lose weight and your focus on weight loss taking you away from weight loss instead focus on consistency and focus on enjoying your workouts focus on enjoying physical activities because physical activities have way more benefits than losing weight. 

Weight loss is a side effect, it is not the end of at all so don't keep weight loss as a goal you will never lose weight. 

Keep a goal as exercising for thirty minutes, three times a week. Keep a goal of eating healthy, keep a goal of staying happy, keep a goal of sleeping well. Most people are not sleeping well and overexercising.

8. How do diets and exercises contribute to overall well-being and happiness? 

On a physiological level, exercise releases endorphins and serotonin which are happy hormones. It is one of the best natural forms of anti-anxiety or anti-depressants. 

Diets, you are what you eat set that because when you are naturally eating food you are eating from nature, you are eating what you are meant to consume the day you are born. 

Any kind of processed food eliminates and strips the food of its nutrition be it vitamins, be it minerals, be it the actual quality energy that you need. 

If your body gasoline, if you are feeding the body merciless gasoline it is not going to run then why do you expect your body to run well if you are feeding it junk food? So, physiologically this is what is needed.

Secondly, mentally your mindset changes when you do exercises. You are more resilient to pushing of body and your mind then for that one hour of the day or thirty minutes of the day that benefit translate to your day as well and your ability to see and feel and ability to take charge of the situations not more and that can change the way you approach the situation.

And make from negative to positive and from sadness to happiness, from an unwillingness to willingness because you cannot control bad or ups and down in your life which affect your well being and happiness but you can control your body, mind and exercising helps you do that through a positive mindset as well and faith in yourselves and on an energetic level, your body is a mass, you have a physical body.

Have an unsubtle body, the subtle body is comprised of your energy feel your chakras also in yoga what we called it and when you do not express your emotions well or when you do not exercise, your body experiences stagnation to its energy as well and along with that a negative thought also create a lot of knots and blockage in your physical body through muscle tension, through facial tension but also your energy gets blocked.

And your chakras get blocked and it's a philosophy in yoga that when certain chakras are responsible for certain emotions without going into too much detail you can experience physical ailments as well due to mental stress and that compromised your well being and happiness as well.

9. In the times of Covid-19 how you have made an impact on the lives of many people? 

In times of Covid-19 when there are fewer and fewer external simulations offered. People are trying to use food and TV and screen and internet and social media to stimulate themselves. 

What is needed right now is to slow down that stimulation and focus on going inward and one way to do that is through mindful exercises because exercise helps you connect with your body that in certain spiritual or energetically terms called it to feel grounded. 

When you feel grounded, you stay in the present and you can turn around the situations from a negative to a positive light and that's what is needed in the times of this pandemic.

So now I am trying to make an impact on many people by the reason I am giving this interview is also one of those reasons for people to know about kinetic living as much as possible to look at fitness and health as a crucial part. 

Growing as a human in life because your body is going everywhere with you and your body is a tool to experience this life through your body experience life. 

Why did you not want to upgrade this body as you keep updating your apps and your phones then why would you not want to upgrade your body and I am doing this through a lot of programmes that empower which is again for hormonal health issues by tweaking their habits through prana which is more about being aware of the body and breath aspects which is a lot more on spiritual and yoga side and shred help people go deepen into the basics and foundation of exercise and mental training.

- Urmi

Urmi also popularly known as Coach Urmi has a cumulative movement experience of over 24 years in sports, training, professional dance, Pilates, Yoga, Kalari, kickboxing, running, Animal flow and Kettlebell training. 

She is the founder of Kinetic Living: a training pedagogy that believes that the start of mental transformation starts with the body. Kinetic Living uses mindful training and eating to help a person also develop awareness towards their life as a whole. 

Kinetic Living uses dynamic workouts with mind body disciplines to help people become fit from within. 

It encourages people to look at food as fuel. It believes that if one focuses on strengthening their mind and sharpening their body, good looks is a side effect. 

Kinetic Living workouts have been featured on Hot Star, TATA Sky, YouTube originals, GQ, Vogue, The Hindu, India Today, The Week, Mid-Day, Mumbai Mirror, and has won the TOI UNlimited Award as the best brand in the health and fitness category in Aug 2020.

- Interviewed By Kusum Jha