Who is Asia Moore?

I grew up on a small island off the west coast of British Columbia along with one younger brother and one older brother. As a child, my playground was 30 acres of forest, field, orchard and ocean where I developed a strong respect for nature and all its creatures.  I loved school and was very competitive in badminton and volleyball. Other favorite pastimes included fishing, swimming, bike riding and horseback riding and I spent many hours playing, soccer, football or baseball with the kids next door, who were a family of four boys.

I had my first taste of shocking city life at the age of 18 when I moved to Vancouver on the mainland of British Columbia and began work as a typist for a fire insurance company. Several months into this position I became bored with copy typing and decided to look elsewhere for a more challenging career. My search took me to the University of British Columbia where I worked as a clerk in the Faculty of Education for the next year. This too, quickly became boring as I was expected to look busy, even if I had completed all my work, and it offered little motivation to excel, so I took myself to the Employment office on campus and requested a position that would offer more challenge and interest. The employment officer showed me the list of positions available at various faculties and asked me which one I would like and this is how I went from a lowly clerk position in the Faculty of Education straight to an exalted secretarial position in the Faculty of Law.

I stayed at the Faculty of Law for seven years, providing individual support services for many professors at the same time, including the Associate Dean who was also in charge of the undergraduate program. During this time I took it upon myself to provide liaison services for newly arriving international students, communicating with them before their arrival, helping them find accommodation upon arrival, orienting them to the Faculty, assisting in the preparation of their theses, and sometimes typing them too. This is how I became the coordinator of the undergraduate program. 

Then word processing came on the scene. I found this new technology immediately compelling and volunteered for training. Once trained, I became the manager of the word processing department and in charge of producing all teaching materials for the entire Faculty as well as teaching new staff and professors who wished to learn the system.

During these years at the Faculty of Law my recreation time was wholly involved in racing small two-person sailing dinghies at the local yacht club. I also became the first female staff captain – a fancy name for the person in charge of all recreational activities, parties, dances, hiring of bands and keeping the beer cooler full. This was an intense time of competition every weekend and every summer holiday when we would travel the racing circuit to wherever the large regattas were hosted, across Canada and into the U.S. as far as San Diego. I ended my dinghy racing career once I had achieved my goal, which was to be the best in our class in North America. This goal was achieved when my partner and I won the North American Enterprise Championships in English Bay.

After seven years at the Faculty of Law at UBC, I needed a change of pace and decided a change of scenery was also in order. Thus, I sold all my possessions and moved to Scotland where I worked as assistant to a lady lawyer in a law firm in the city of Glasgow for two years. While here, I also helped the law firm move out of the dark ages and manual typewriters into the world of word processing, producing all styles for the firm and training all staff.

When I was working those seven years at UBC in the Faculty of Law, I took an aerobics class on campus. I was always a little frustrated with the class and thought I could design a much better one. 

While living in Scotland I decided to pursue my aerobics idea and designed and taught a unisex aerobics class, which everyone told me would fail. It did start off with a bit of a hitch as, while practicing my routine, I seriously twisted my left ankle and was placed in a cast for two months. However, I was undaunted by this little setback and the pessimism of the locals and forged on with my plans. I began teaching my aerobics class twice weekly at a local elementary school gymnasium and within two weeks, I had to move to a larger facility. This venture was so successful that the income from my twice weekly aerobics class exceeded that generated from my regular full time job. 

The highlight of this class was when one of my students asked me if I would participate in a program for raising money for a senior’s project by teaching a free aerobics class in a local school. The idea was that the students would get pledges from their friends and family for completing minutes of continuous aerobic exercise. I had heard that schools in Scotland could be quite undisciplined and rowdy, but nothing anyone told me could have prepared me for what actually happened on the day of the class. 

Thankfully, I had the foresight to familiarize myself with what type of music was the rage at the time for school kids in Scotland and bought a record containing the sound tracks of a very popular “American” TV show at the time called Fame. I used this record to make a special hour long aerobics tape for this special class. The day of the class arrived and I was granted the afternoon off from my regular legal secretarial job to teach this class. 

I arrived in good time to set up at the designated school, found the gymnasium and dragged my equipment in amidst the most deafening roar of screaming school children that you could ever imagine. There were over 200 of them all screaming and running about – small fights breaking amongst some of them in the corners and not a teacher to be found. My heart was in my mouth and I thought for sure that I would either go deaf from the noise or be trampled in a stampede of frenzied school children ranging in age from about 8 years up to about 15.

I searched desperately for some sign of adult authority and eventually saw what looked like an adult presence leaning against one of the door jams leading into the gymnasium. You couldn’t miss ME – I was the one sticking out like a sore thumb, two feet taller than everyone else, all dressed in my electric blue tights and feeling terrified. I approached the gentleman leaning against the door jam and tried to yell above the roar to find out if he was the gym teacher. I determined that he was and waited for him to bring some control to the mob. Sadly, none was forthcoming and instead he just smiled slyly, removed the whistle from around his neck, handed it to me and resumed his relaxed stance against the door jam. 

A horrible feeling of dread washed over me as the realization that I was expected to call this mob to order dawned and it was obvious that he was enjoying my predicament quite immensely. He had that distinct look of, “so you think that just because you’re some aerobics person come all the way from America that you can control these kids and get them to pay attention?” What could I do? I felt weak at the knees. I prayed and very shortly afterward thanked God for my three foot speakers and what I had previously thought was overkill in terms of my powerful amp and tuner that in my regular weekly classes was never turned any higher than 2 on a scale of 1-10. 

I blew the whistle around my neck a couple of times really long and hard. Nobody could even hear it over the noise those kids were making. I prayed again as I walked over to my sound system and calmly pushed in my specially prepared tape. I thought to myself, it’s all or nothing and cranked the volume up to 10.

Then, the most amazing thing happened. The first two or three notes of the theme song for the TV show Fame began to play over the speakers and the room was magically transformed. All the screaming stopped, all the fights stopped, all the movement stopped and there was silence. You could hear a pin drop. 

I took off the whistle, walked to the center of the hall, told all the students to form a big circle around me and to do what I did, and they did! Mind you, their attention span was way shorter than my usual adult class and they couldn’t hold one exercise for very long, so I was forced to change very frequently, but they stuck the entire hour and followed all my instructions. The gym teacher looked beyond amazed. I smiled a lot and recalled what my regular adult students used to say when they asked me, “how come you can smile all the while you put us through such torture?”

After the class was over more fighting and squabbling broke out as students fought over little scraps of paper and chewed off pencils as they all lined up for autographs for the next hour. My hour of fame all thanks to “Fame”.

After two years living in Scotland I began to feel homesick, I missed the ocean and the forests and decided to move back to Vancouver where I worked in a law firm in the Gastown area for the next four years. For weekend recreation I ground school lessons learned to fly ultralight aircraft. Finally having had enough of the law profession, I decided to make a drastic career change.

I spent the next summer living on Saltspring, training for my ultralight aircraft float ticket and designing a public bus transit system. I studied for and got my Class II professional driver’s license, bought a small, 22-passenger highway coach and began Canada’s only non-subsidized public transportation system. To help subsidize income to keep the public side of the company running, on weekends in the summer I drove private charters to the big city of Victoria and surrounding areas. As well I was a part-time spare driver for the School Board and a part-time gravel truck operator.

The Saltspring Bus Company was also the only public transportation system that allowed 4-legged passengers (so long as they were on their best behavior) and bicycles. I had several conversations with the local transit authorities in Victoria about possible subsidization, which never did happen, but I am glad to see that they eventually did adopt my idea of adding bicycle racks to the city bus fleet. I could write an entire novel about this experience, but suffice it to say that after five long years, I decided to sell the business and move to the nearby city of Victoria and capital of the province of British Columbia.

It was in Victoria that I began my career in the medical profession. Here I worked in a general practitioner’s office as a medical transcriptionist and office assistant. 

I had a short time away from the practice due to an unfortunate medical condition of my own which involved what was supposed to have been a simple laser treatment to a blood vessel in my left eye. This simple treatment left me blind in my left eye and threw my life into chaos. 

I had to relearn even the simplest tasks because when you lose the sight in one eye, you also lose your depth perception. This means that tasks such as walking up a flight of stairs or stepping onto or off of a curb become quite dangerous as you misjudge the depth. You should try chopping vegetables for the first time with no depth perception or filling a cup with hot liquid. Suddenly all the things in my life that I never appeared to give any thought to became difficult and labor intensive. No more flying planes, no more climbing rocks with my dogs, I was afraid to drive – heck I couldn’t even walk safely. Every time I turned around I would walk into someone or smack into a wall. 

After feeling sorry for myself for about six months and eating myself 50-pounds heavier, I went back to work. But I still didn’t do anything about my weight problem. I finally realized that I must do something about my obese condition when I was at work one day and overheard a patient, who couldn’t remember my name, refer to me as the “big woman”. I was horrified when I realized she was referring to me and in that very moment I vowed to make the changes necessary to get my life and my body back in shape.

While working in the medical practice I developed a wellness program and added research assistant, counselor, editor of the weekly newsletter and senior’s aerobics instructor to my resume as well as full time medical transcriptionist and relief office assistant. I taught an aerobics class for seniors twice a week, called Carrot Sticks, which not only helped to control weight, but also boosted energy, self-esteem and increased bone density amongst the seniors. It was during this time that my strong interest in counseling patients about weight loss and other health issues and educating patients to take control of their own health became a strong passion and has remained so during this past ten years.

Sadly this medical practice and the wellness clinic closed after the doctor decided to leave town. After this, I formed my own medical transcription business working with psychiatrists, general practitioners, general surgeons, plastic surgeons, orthopedic surgeons and specialists. All the while I maintained an interest in and promoted natural solutions to debilitating medical conditions, as I truly believe in the power of the mind and body to heal itself once given the proper tools.

I'm happily helping people to make smarter choices about their health so that they can be their best and live long and healthy lives, naturally.


    Asia Moore