A Pilates Prescription
For Good Health
Master Pilates teacher Julian Littleford is 45, handsome
and English. His body posture, muscular tone and fitness reflect
the success of an exercise method developed in the 1930s by Joseph
Pilates. As a 17 year-old studying dance in London, Littleford
turned to the Pilates method to improve and awaken his mind/body
connections. Realizing the wisdom of the process, Littleford studied
with Alan Herdman to become one of the original trainers in the
Pilates method at his London studio during the late 70s. He has
worked with a variety of artists, including Rudolf Nuryeyev and
Mikhail Baryshnikov. When Littleford moved to New York for eight
years to take the position of principal dancer with the Martha
Graham Dance Company, he also took with him his Pilates knowledge
and training, continuing to integrate it into his daily exercise
regime.
Littleford points out that clients show-up at
his Del Mar Pilates studio for a variety of reasons, including
a desire to
improve
their core strength, flexibility, and tone, reshape their body,
or diminish injury pain. “Awareness is the first key to
change,” he explains. “I learned that my body was
an instrument for moving through life with health and ease.” Besides,
he adds, “Pilates method works because it is intentional
movement that brings awareness to the interconnectedness of one’s
own internal and external structure. It is a kind of East meets
West philosophy, where the teacher supports the client to look
and listen to his/her damaging habitual body patterning through
concentrated breathing and movement. Awareness with correction
by a trained teacher can lead to making concrete changes in as
little as thirty days, which is profoundly liberating.” Littleford
knows from experience that the Pilates method allows one to work
on correct form and range of motion, while breaking through inner
barriers. “With practice,” he concludes, “this
leads to the healthy reshaping and remapping of both mind and
body.”
Master teacher Littleford is a founding member
of the Physical Mind Institute and opened his own studio in San
Diego in 1990.
He visits Rancho La Puerta as a master teacher and is the director
of Pilates training at Pilates de Mexico in Mexico City. He
was the athletic trainer for Cirque du Soleil’s Drallion touring
show in Southern California and is currently the Pilates program
director for the San Diego Padres. — Ingrid Hoffmeister
Deborah Szekely: A Healthy Diet Of Service
by Ingrid Hoffmeister
photo by Vincent Knakal
On May 3, Deborah Szekely celebrated her 83rd
birthday. The majority of those 30,000 days she has spent striving
for the civic, political, economic, social, and cultural rights
of all people. Szekely is a rare woman — a role model and,
a modern day hero — embodying life’s dichotomies
and challenges, proving that at any stage of life one can make
a difference
Undoubtedly, Szekely’s heritage, upbringing,
and early marriage to Dr. Edmond Szekely (fondly known as the
Professor),
a remarkable Hungarian scholar, author, and philosopher, affected
her intellectual, moral, and social values. Never constrained
by conformity, Szekely’s healthy sense of responsibility
has spilled beyond any imposed boundaries, reaching the lives
of countless people, rich and poor, touched by her personal mantra,
“Work
is fun. Working for others is more fun.”
This mantra
first found its voice in 1940 as an early pioneer and co-founder
of the internationally known fitness spa,
Rancho La Puerta in Tecate, Baja California, Mexico. Its
motto Siempre
Mejor (always better) has mirrored Szekely’s own passage
across time, attesting to her extraordinary powers to bring
about change. In 1952, she founded Tecate’s first school
for deaf-mutes and their first public library in 1955. Three
years
later, she opened her second spa, the Golden Door, northeast
of San Diego.
Szekely earned a reputation as an authority
in the fitness and health arena, which strengthened her muscle
power enabling
her
to stretch into local politics, run for Congress at age 60,
and serve on numerous local and national boards. She served
as president
of the Inter-American Foundation in Washington, D.C from
1984 – 1990
and founded Eureka Communities in 1993, a national leadership-training
program for CEOs of nonprofit organizations. In recent years
her concern over the difficulties encountered by new immigrants
to our country led her to the founding of the New Americans
Immigration Museum and Learning Center
Among Szekely’s
dozens of distinguished awards and accolades are Humanitarian
of the Year, Woman of the Year, Philanthropist
of the Year, and Mrs. San Diego 2002. All these reflect the
soul of a woman who cares beyond measure about the lives
of others.
During an acceptance speech in 2002 she said, “The
more I did for others and with others, the more I received.
Thus my
greatest thank-you must go to the people I met and worked
with along the way. They all were my teachers. They didn’t
see me as an outsider, a Jewish woman with no money, no college
and
no connections.”
Born Deborah Shainman, her Jewish
immigrant parents met in New York. Her Austrian mother became
a nurse with a passionate
interest
in health and well-being, while her Polish father’s
entrepreneurial spirit led him to open his own prosperous
clothing factory. As
president of the New York Vegetarian Society, Szekely’s
mother brought up her two children on a fruitarian diet.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s when fruit became
a scarcity,
Deborah’s parents moved the family to Tahiti, French
Polynesia. The five years there imprinted on her mind an
enduring consciousness,
an awareness of the good life lived in harmony with nature.
It
was there that her parents became friends with Professor
Szekely whose theories on healthful, natural living as a
basis for preventative
medicine lead him to set up the first of several simple health
camps. The Professor was a prolific writer and while in Tahiti
wrote his first book (The Essene Gospel of John) that was
translated and published in England and subsequently was
translated into
half a dozen languages. A second book followed, Cosmos, Man
and Society, a guide to health, fulfillment and contentment
(published
in 1936), was considered a prophetic masterwork. The Tahiti
camp lead to others in Jamaica, California, and Mexico.
The
family stayed in contact, each summer visiting one of the Professor’s
camps. Upon graduating from high school, Deborah took what
was to be a Christmas holiday job as secretary to the
Professor; a year later they were married.
World War II
changed the course of both their lives. Edmond, then the
director of the British International Health and
Education Center in Leatherhead, Surrey, England, was
stranded in America
with a new bride and cut off from income. He faced the
prospect of being considered an enemy alien. Little did
they know
that the temporary solution that they chose — — moving
to Tecate, Mexico and opening a health camp in the summer
of 1940 — was to set the course of their lives.
By the time the war ended, Rancho La Puerta had become
their
home.
They called the health camp The Essene School
of Life as it was modeled after the camps of the Essene
Brotherhood
of Jesus’ time.
The goal was to share the virtues of a simple, healthy
life in harmony with the laws of nature. The camp became
a popular destination
for Hollywood luminaries. In 1949, the San Diego Union
sent a reporter to investigate. The resulting three part
story included
such headlines as, “Romanian Professor Founds Cult
Across Border At Tecate,” and “Essene School
of Life Springs From Brain of Visiting Cabalist.” The
reporter was contemptuous as he described Szekely’s
beliefs that human health begins with healthy soil which
means good food so no commercial fertilizer
or poison sprays should be used. He went on to denigrate
everything. The three interviews, when read today, are
considered prophetic.
To celebrate Rancho La Puerta’s 60th anniversary,
Deborah reprinted the three front page stories. The ones
that made her
cry when she read them in 1949, today make her proud
as they validate years of hard work. In the year 2000,
she attached this
note to the reprint: “How far we, you, I…all
of us…have
come since our beginnings at Rancho La Puerta.
The 70s
presented new challenges when the state announced that
a highway interchange would run through the Golden
Door Spa.
Szekely saw this as an opportunity to realize her dream
of creating a new Zen-influenced spa. She visited Japan
to study
the traditional
Ryokan inns, which were designed to welcome and restore
the weary traveler. The rest is history. The Golden Door
is renowned
as
a world-class spa.
Long-time friend Mary Walshok, Associate
Vice Chancellor of the University of California, San Diego
has been Szekely’s
partner on a variety of innovative social initiatives
and considers her an exceptional individual, who is comfortable
moving simultaneously
between many worlds. “She is a dear friend and
an extraordinary role model who will doubtlessly continue
for two more decades
to be a force for creativity and good in the San Diego
region. Passionate about the arts, she has a great
love for music, the
theatre and all forms of cultural and artistic expression.
As her spas exemplify, she has a wonderful ability
to understand
what is necessary to be a business success. At the
same time, she knows what it means to be a poor person
in
America or a person
who feels estranged from the dominant culture because
of his/her immigrant status or social position. Deborah’s
unique quality as a social interpreter enables her
to move across many communities.”
True to her
principles and loyalties, Szekely’s healthy
approach to life has produced an extraordinary woman
of service and devotion. For her 75th birthday Audrey
Geisel wrote, “Hat’s
off to Deborah and her spirit of Eureka!” And
so say all of us.
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