He works with the body, he considers it a work of art, he knows how to support and celebrate it. Sara Ventura, author of the book With your head held high, published by De Agostini, is the fitness coach we all need. His book was born from the need he felt to help people get closer to the best image they have of themselves.
Sara ventura He thus makes available to his clients, usually show business people or models who work with their bodies and with their confidence, his experience as a former professional tennis player with 15 career Italian titles to his credit.
Today he has his own gym, he is the technical director of Sara Ventura Body & Art, a space with an industrial look, almost New York, in Ripa di Porta Ticinese in Milan.
For the month dedicated to Pride, he gave us his thoughts on how to accept his own body, starting from his personal experience, even from his homosexuality. Sara said she learned not to be struck by negative comments on her physical appearance, which some have defined as masculine, and to champion a new thought, which goes beyond body positivity to spread a message of neutrality.
“Our body is undergoing more and more an obsessive image of control. Our physicality inevitably affects our emotional state, we must understand and recognize it. Taking care of ourselves involves a continuous dialogue between the self and the self-image. Cultural standards push us to find what is wrong, rather than to feel how we are. As if we were separate parts.
As if there was no relationship between being, having and appearing », Sara Ventura begins in sharing with us her flow of thoughts on the subject.
What advice can you give us in order to be able to accept yourself as you are?
«We have to build the sense of our existence beyond external conditioning. Each person is different, there cannot be an equal path for everyone and they cannot exist in the same way as stereotyped aesthetic canons. Body reality is different from that ideal image that has been proposed to us for some time. We are made of meat, pimples, fat, wrinkles. Even in the life of an athlete you face every day with the performance limits of your body, with the passing of time, with pain and injuries. For years I have felt this sense of inadequacy in my tennis career. From the realm of appearances we pass to the exhausting dimension of daily performance. To inevitably end up not remembering who you are and what you really want. Everything is put on the same level. Any diversity is leveled. Even in acceptance we lose the dimension of ourselves, as in continuous judgment. It is essential that we become us again, to draw his own portrait and make it the place in which to recognize oneself “.
She works with the body and trains people who work with the body, how can you be neutral in this area, we are led to judge ourselves for what we see of ourselves and in others …
«There is a lot of talk about “body positive”, but in order to avoid losing our extraordinary uniqueness once again, I would try to start from “Neutrality of physical appearance”. Where finding contact with our body through movement creates an essential connection with “being”. Tennis was a great school of life. I understood that the talent to express oneself needs freedom. That freedom that allows you to never do what others do. Our path should be tailored to us at the moment we are living. Training allows you to develop a discipline where you no longer need someone to control you, but feeling good becomes your primary need. Sport taught me to find my own speed, to find the courage to leave without delaying and in the same way to allow myself to stop when I felt empty. Finding a dynamic balance between stability and movement ».
How would you define beauty?
«Today I look in the mirror and I don’t care beautiful or not beautiful, masculine or feminine. Only “I recognize myself”. Loving yourself is the beginning of an endless love story. This is my definition of “beautiful”. In my work I try to bring people closer to the best image they have of themselves and if they can’t “visualize” it, we create it together… Slowly with patience and dedication. There are moments in life where to find yourself you must have the humility to ask for help. It is not important to reach a destination, but to perceive the sense of the path ».
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