Be Cool - Do Asahi

Finland's Asahi Nordic Instructor of the Year 2024 Samuli Viitanen is a physiotherapist, a professional musician, and now an Asahi teacher!

The Asahi Nordic Association in Finland chose Samuli Viitanen to be Instructor of the Year 2024. In this blog he tells of his experience as an Asahi teacher and his musical background. Translation by Margaret Vainio.

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Hello, I’m Samuli Viitanen from Järvenpää, Finland. I am an advanced Asahi level instructor. Much to my surprise, I was chosen as the 2024 Asahi Instructor of the Year! This is a great honor for me and will motivate me even more to continue to spread the beneficial practice of Asahi. Thank you to my Asahi friends and colleagues for this vote of confidence!

Samuli in the orchestra pit of the FInnish National Opera during a performance.

THE TIMPANI IS MY MAIN INSTRUMENT

My professional background is full of both music and active sports. I have played timpani in the Finnish National Opera for 20 years and have taught timpani playing in the Art University Sibelius Academy for 15 years. Sports and physical activity have always been a big part of my life. When I was younger, I was really interested in track & field as well as freestyle footbag.(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freestyle_footbag) I was even accepted into the Finnish Freestyle Footbag team and competed in the European Cup in Paris in 2000. Now that I am little over forty, I am more into bicycling, walking and golf.

Samuli practices Asahi throughout the day, and sometimes in unusual places!

Last spring I certified as a physiotherapist. I decided to start broadening my career to become a health professional in addition to being a musician. At the same time I became an Asahi teacher. My passion is to take Asahi in new directions, especially with musicians. I also want to introduce Asahi to younger people. I don’t have a weekly group going yet, but it is in the plans, when the time is right.

DR. YRJÖ MÄHÖNEN, ALIAS ASAHI-GEORGE, GOT ME HOOKED

I got introduced to Asahi in 2023 when Dr. Yrjö Mähönen came to a Regional Physical Therapists’ event to present the three basic Asahi series. Dr Mähönen is an Internal Medicine & Geriatric specialist and also holds a black belt in karate. I was sold on the spot and wanted to add more Asahi into my life immediately.

Being a professional musician is very taxing. I knew from the first Asahi movement that now I had found the perfect means to care for a musician’s body and mind. I had a long chat with Asahi-George after the session he presented. We talked about the challenges professional musicians face and how Asahi could help them. He noticed my sincere interest and gave me a little memory stick with the series so I could check them out more closely.

I began learning and reviewing the Asahi series by myself, using them to break up long periods of practicing or studying. Just a little more than a week later I presented a practice lesson of Asahi for the percussion students at the Sibelius Academy. Since they really liked it, I knew I had to certify to become an Asahi teacher and start spreading the method among musicians.

ASAHI NORDIC’S CLASSES ARE VERY ACCESSIBLE

Fortunately the Asahi Nordic teacher training is designed to be very simple. In the fall I did the beginning teacher training and in February I went back for the advanced training. So far I have taught Asahi to orchestra musicians, people in mental health rehabilitation, neighbors in my own back yard and people walking by the stop where I get on the train. I also had the opportunity to teach it to young musicians at the Art University Sibelius Academy and at an international percussion workshop in Portugal.

Samuli teaching Asahi to young percussionists in Portugal

So, dear reader, if you are thinking about becoming an Asahi teacher, my advice is: “Go for it!” Find the next training and register now! Think about your own areas of interest and what groups of people you would like to work with. Then start creating something new! The Asahi wellness practice could be called the chameleon of mind-body practices because it can be adapted in so many ways to fit everyone’s needs. Ask for more information about Asahi training here.

Also from the viewpoint of a physical therapist, the Asahi movements are a good alternative to the traditional exercises used by therapists. Asahi movements can be done standing or seated. Since Asahi doesn’t require getting down on the floor, this makes it so much more accessible for people with physical limitations. And the movements are more interesting to do than the typical printed exercises that physical therapists usually send home with you.

ASAHI PROVIDES THE EXERCISE MUSICIANS NEED

I intend to take advantage of my background as a highly trained musician in order to promote Asahi to musicians in Finland and all around the world. As I mentioned earlier, Asahi is the perfect exercise for people who work for years in demanding musical professions. The path to mastering their art takes years of practicing. Most start playing an instrument as children and continue throughout their whole life. The demands musicians must meet for musical and technical achievement rise constantly. The level of competition and the intensity of practicing compares with that of top athletes.

Both a musician’s body and mind benefit from practicing Asahi. Asahi serves as a great warm-up or cool-down method before and after playing. Also, when preparing for a performance, Asahi helps sharpen concentration and mental focus. Concentrating on body sensations brings a sense of calming and self-assuredness whether you are preparing to engage in something extremely important, or just dealing with everyday business as usual.

(photo coming)

In 2024 I contributed a six-part series to the Finnish Musicians’ Union Magazine. Because of that Asahi has ended up in the mailbox of several thousand Finnish musicians. I introduced Asahi Series One completely in the first four articles. In the last two I chose moves from the other series that are particularly good from an instrumentalist’s point of view.

I practice Asahi every day by myself because it is counteractive medicine to all the hyperactivity of modern life. In my opinion, our modern lifestyle distracts us physically and mentally from life’s simple and peaceful beauty. A disturbing decline in body awareness and in how to use the body has become an unhealthy development of our day. This creates both physical and mental disorders. Being able to switch back to a heightened sensitivity and peace of mind makes Asahi a great way to practice being in the moment.

Another age group I want to focus on are people around my age, who are adults living the busiest years of their life, and those much younger than me. Asahi has elements that bring peace and stability in the midst of everyday life. Every parent of young children longs for a little time to themself, at least long enough to have a cup of coffee. And when you can put your cell phone in flight mode, then you can get the daily circus thoughts calmed down, at least for a little while. Allowing time for your bodywork and wellbeing will counteract the social media overload and the constant flood of bad news.

BE COOL - DO ASAHI

In my opinion Asahi is something a really cool because it generates self-confident movement. Think about how it feels to meet someone whose speech and gestures radiate peace and equilibrium. Someone who is present in the moment, who hears and is receptive to communication, who moves with a distinct self-assuredness…What other practice can better tune people internally to the same wavelength than the peaceful and conscious movement of Asahi? My prediction is that Asahi is going to be the trend of the future!

Asahi is a fabulous key to the world of body awareness! It is fun to do Asahi in the middle of a crowd of people, for example, because I like to bewilder people with what seem to be strange-looking moves to them. Other days, when I want to have a moment to myself, I like to go home by way of the forest and do a short Asahi series. Asahi is so handy in that you can do as much as you want wherever and whenever you want.

During an Asahi practice you can work through different emotions. First, you can allow yourself to feel them in your body, and then you can let them work their way out of your system, sometimes even coming out as tears. Asahi literally rehabilitates the body and the mind.

ASAHI BECOMES A WAY OF LIFE

Even practicing Asahi in the middle of a crowd of people, I can tune out everything around me and spend a moment focusing on my body. The body knows only the present, with no memory of the past and no anxiety about the future: that’s why it is safe to allow yourself to trust its wisdom. The twinge of embarrassment disappears quickly as you forget about thought processes and concentrate on body movement.

Just a couple repetitions of a single move is a step toward better body awareness and peace of mind. While waiting for the train in the morning, I find it’s a wonderful way to wake up my body gently to see what kind of a day lies ahead. In my work as a physical therapist, I start the day with an Asahi series. Between each appointment, just doing a couple moves helps me to loosen up and prepare me to meet the next client. And naturally, before playing percussion, I use Asahi to awaken physically and mentally and get myself into the proper state for practicing or performing. In fact, the new holistic warm-up method for percussionists that I am working on is based on Asahi. I will be sharing more about this later…

ASAHI NORDIC OFFERS MANY POSSIBILITIES

In order to carry out my plan to teach Asahi to musicians in Finland and abroad, I need to develop a strong foundation in the practice. This means following the Asahi Nordic educational system for instructors. My next goal is to become an A-level instructor. As a teacher and practitioner both, I feel it is important to practice Asahi and its movements regularly. I muse continuously about what it will be like to start teaching my own groups and how I could use internet to spread Asahi around the world. We shall see where Asahi takes me, and where I eventually take Asahi. It takes two to tango, as the expression goes, and in this tango there seems to be a real emotional charge!

Thank you for your interest in reading along this far! And thanks to Asahi Nordic for the honor of being Asahi Instructor of the Year 2024. Wishing you health in your daily activities. In closing I am tossing out an invitation to join in on a little Asahi practice - catch it and pass it on!!!

Categories: : Asahi and Music, Asahi Around the World, Asahi as a Warmup, Asahi Nordic for a lifetime, Asahi Nordic for All, Asahi teachers' close-ups, Asahi Throughout the Day, Asahi vs. Stress, Interview