Photographer: Jay Sullivan
Wardrobe Stylist: Jill Heller
Hair Stylist: Netty Jordan using label.m at crowdMGMT.com
Makeup Artist: Christina Lee Adams
The globally renowned fitness expert and creator of The Tracy Anderson Method
shows a softer side
For a woman in perpetual motion, there is a stillness at the core of Tracy Anderson. And it’s not what you’d expect.
Anderson, globally renowned fitness expert and creator of The Tracy Anderson Method, a blend of muscular-structure and dance-cardio workouts, has helped many thousands of men and women, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna and JLo, achieve the bodies they’ve always wanted. But unlike most fitness experts, Anderson rarely raises her voice in class. There is a quiet, zen-like wisdom to her approach: “If you’re being yelled at by your instructor,” she says, “you can’t listen to yourself.”
Anderson, trained as a dancer and choreographer, takes after her mom, a professional ballerina, who has been teaching children at her dance studio for 40 years. “She makes every child feel comfortable moving in different ways to be sure they are all comfortable in their own skin,” she says. “My mom taught me that moving and connecting with your physical self was something I should do every day. She’s made me feel comfortable in my skin since I was
a child. ”
And doing the same for others is a personal passion. With five studio locations–including a brand-new studio in New York City’s Tribeca neighborhood, with another opening in midtown Manhattan this year–and more than 170 DVDs (including the wildly popular Metamorphosis series, and Pregnancy Project and Teen Meta DVDs), Anderson, mother of two, is the creator of the largest bank of fitness content ever created. But her commitment runs deeper than helping sculpt surface muscles. “It’s about taking a holistic approach, a whole-body, whole-self approach,” she says. Her message to women: “We need to get comfortable in our bodies and honor ourselves--sooner rather than later.”
For Anderson, it’s all about balance. “We want to align ourselves with technology, but there’s an understanding we need to have about what is balanced in the way we move and live.” That’s where mind-body wellness comes in: “Wellness means learning how to solve the equation of how to create balance where there is imbalance,” says Anderson. “It is a constant conversation within yourself about how to balance your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual self, every single moment of every day.”
Anderson always loved exercise, but was genetically predisposed to weight gain. “I learned at a young age that you are how you move, but that didn’t mean you are going to get the body of your dreams.” Until she figured out how you could, and created her signature Method.
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