You don’t have to be the best in history to be above average. But most things that are worth doing (being an entrepreneur, amassing a good amount of money as a result) have a very steep learning curve and then it flattens out. So maybe 1000 hours gets you better than most people (above average) and then the next 2000-5000 hours gets you the be the best in your circle of colleagues (i.e. good enough to make a great living at it) and then from 5000-10,000 hours is the subtle refinements that are needed to be the best in the world.

Now how the heck does that relate to corset waist-training? Because it relates to quality, patience, and reasonable effort — the three foundations for what is needed in a suitable corset and successful waist-training, and because it relates to happiness in life!

Quality corset-making requires that the maker put in time, period, in practicing his or her art and craft. Period. There is no short cut. That’s why say that until a corset maker has made 100 of one style of corset, they are not even close to being good at their craft. Period. Maybe it should be more like 1000?

I’ve seen it in the young corsetieres who join the Romantasy team: within one year of receiving more orders than in their private practice, assuming they don’t have a readymade “attitude” that they already know it all, they improve more than 100 percent. More than, patterning ability, corset fit, comfort, artistic beauty, and durability of their corsets.

That’s why you need to know precisely WHO is making your corset. Don’t buy a corset from a website whose “About Us” page doesn’t contain a photo of the owner and each corsetiere, or the one who will make your corset. Don’t buy a corset if you can’t find out the precise experience level of your corsetiere and about how many corsets (of your style) they have made. Don’t buy a corset if you can’t talk to one or two clients who have worn a corset made by that corsetiere, or until you have read sufficient comments about the quality — and business values — of your corsetiere that you are 95% certain you are talking to someone who knows what they are talking about, and cares about you and your satisfaction.  Certainly comments posted on my website and others will be positive. But don’t take for truth comments posted on so-called “more objective” sites such as the BBB or Yelp. Did you know both organizations actually post positive comments on top about that business,  if the business pays them a required monthly fee? Plus in my experience, Yelp was so aggressive in trying to get me to join, that on their fifth marketing tele call (and three times after I told them unequivocally never to darken my telephone door again!) I had to threaten a law suit and reporting them to the FDA, in order to get them to stop hustling me?   Reprehensible!

As they say, “buyer beware,” and I do hope you will check out the fabulous philosophy and practice words of advice applicable to many aspect of life, in the musings of blogger L. Altusher:  http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/11/how-to-be-the-best-at-anything-you-want-to-do/:

That’s amazing to me on several scores. First, I have been blessed or cursed by an ample rear end, compared to my small frame and Kelly-like (of Regis and Kelly fame) petite upper parts.  I’m usually focused on the other end! Second, I know personally and know from historical reading about corsets, that visually, corsets create  an enhanced derriere and an enhanced bosom. Victorians called it “illusion dressing” and men railed against us wicked women who used it and tricked them into marrying us, then on the wedding night, our butts and bosoms disappeared as we undressed.  So much for sexist, superficial men who got what they deserved, right?

Because of this visual fashion effect, my MTF clients are well-advised upon starting their  journey to become transwomen, not to indulge in expensive, invasive enhancement surgery of top or bottom. Try a $300 to $600 corset first and enjoy immediate results –  and then adjust the figure silhouette with surgery if needed from that point on, especially since waist-training can have permanent figure-shaping and waist-reducing results.

So even if you wear corsets to trim your waist or provide back support, there will be certain fashion and other figure benefits!

At this time of year we also start to think about closing out our year’s books and (gulp!) tax time! Yikes! The article above somewhat amuses me on this score, and says:

“If you plan to lose weight this year you may also be able to lighten your tax burden. The IRS now allows taxpayers to deduct certain weight loss programs as a medical expense.” You must be directed by a doctor to lose weight, and diet foods, spa visits and non prescription weight loss rememdies cannot be deducted. Check out the rules for taxes in 2011 and you might be pleasantly surprised!

If so then you might ask your doctor if he/she could prescribe our three-month coaching program with corsets, and refer them to our Corsets-Waist Training button on our website, www.romantasy.com!! We know that some insurers like Blue Cross will in fact cover part of a corset cost if ordered for losing weight or even back support, and prescribed by a doctor. Nothing ventured — nothing gained!

So does corset waist training have all these effects — without general anaesthesia (a risk in itself), without major skin and organ removal, without a recovery period, without scarring, and without a hefty price tag ($25,00 to $50,000 would be my bet).

For those who by virtue of unfortunate genetics or poor lifestyle choices (or both) exceed the figure size that is conducive to a long and healthy life, the surgery may well make sense. Certainly the lady interviewed as the main proponent of the surgery has lost four dress sizes in one year and 135 lbs. and appeared very happy with the results.

However, I would bet that had she first tried corset waist training perhaps along with our year-long coaching program as well, she might well have lost as much in that first year.

In four months of waist-training without coaching but by following our recommended program,  my best student lost 34 pounds and 6.5″ off his 5’6″ frame. Multiply that times 3 for a years’ continued effort, and you get a possible 102 lb. weight loss and a 10″ to 12″ waistline loss.

Anyone with further information on this new surgery and its beneficial results are welcome to join the discussion and provide further elucidation.

Part of that is the rule that I cannot remove them except for three 1-hour sessions to eat. That means I eat three meals a day, unless I deduct 15 min. from one of the sessions to supply a snack-break in between–which I sometimes do. Since I now cannot get up from my computer and run in the near-by kitchen to snack, I’m  taking in less food and noting a slow reduction in weight. Time will tell if my observation is correct about this unexpected result!

I also note I eat less food during the day because when the braces are in, I feel a wee bit nauseated. I don’t think that I have an allergy to the plastic used in the trays, but suspect that the foreign feeling of the trays covering my teeth and keeping the upper and lower rows of teeth slightly separated, is contributing to the unpleasant feeling. That’s not to say it’s intolerable since I’m determined to stick to the plan and reach my goals in the proper and anticipated time of seven or eight months!

I also noted that the method of training the teeth with Invisalign and I suspect, with traditional metal braces, is similar to corset waist-training. That is, one starts very slowly with almost imperceptible movement and  lets the gums/teeth (or body) adjust before moving to the next (tighter) position. It’s a process I’m familiar with and it feels quite comfortable, because I know it works!

Are their other ways you occupy your mouth and mind so that you cut back food intake when you are corset waist-training? Have you tried Invisalign braces and noted similar things as I do? I’d be curious to learn about your experience.

” After reading your book, I decided to take all of what I learned and get serious with the start of the fall semester. I’ve been working out four days a week with three days of yoga and one day of aerobics. I’ve also finally mastered eating slowly so I don’t bloat. Eating less has not only helped me health wise, but also budget wise! I’m really happy to say that I lost two pounds already and I’ve gone from a 33 inch waist to 31 since I’ve started waist training. Also, a lot of girls have become really curious about trying waist training too! It’s like I’m starting a trend!”

We’re always happy to hear from corset enthusiasts who like to waist train and take care of their health, plus those who do their research first to enhance their chances for a pleasant and successful journey toward their goals.  Jessa has already contributed to our blog and we hope you will, too!

This was the first time I had heard about the “primal-paleo or ancestral health movement .” According to the writer this movement “battle(s) to establish self-ownership and keep the state out of our bodies and out of our kitchens. “

As I’ve paid more attention since the 2008 recession to politics and economics and read a heckuva lot more (just completed In Fed We Trust, a great book seeming to explain well and clearly the run up to spring 2009 and the role of the Fed), I’ve moved toward a libertarian understanding of most things, and toward less governmental control and intervention. I should add at this point that I am not a registered party member and can’t really ever be (a political topic outside the direct or indirect pale of this blog and my corset business!). But it’s interesting to think about my commitment to healthy corseting and waist training, and the role of the already too-large and too-powerful state in the obesity epidemic. I suppose I agree in major part with the speaker at the reported conference who said: “The system wants to keep you sick because everyone makes money from you being sick.”

But at some level that statement is overbroad and simplistic and doesn’t seem  helpful because it’s self-evident. Commercials “force” us to want something and buy certain products. What the government says is the proper food group choices “forces” us to want something.  I’ve long heard that some shrinks want us to stay stressed out so we keep coming for therapy and some medical docs want us to still believe that antibiotics can cure the common cold so they can prescribe them.

But even if we are sick, someone somewhere wants us to solve our sickness by buying their product, and not their competitors’ product. So Pfizer quashes the movement to produce a less expensive generic Viagra (wins in court claiming the Pfizer patent is still valid). So Dr. Atkins claims protein is the “Answer.”

The problem to me is that we fall for this or that ultimate “cure” or “advice” and fail to do our own homework to dig beneath the claims and go for the facts, then make up our own mind. We give too much credence to “the experts.”

The one thing the author said with which I cannot agree is:  “The ancestral health community is so good at using Twitter as a timesaving intelligence tool that transmits relevant data right to your phone, right now, when the story, blog, or research link is fresh and relevant. Twitter is a tool that circumvents the gatekeepers of conventional wisdom and keeps the facts and truth circulating in spite of what the media and establishment want you to know. “

Twitter (and blogs and the web) can just as easily pass on incorrect, poorly researched, non-factual hype, and in that way Twitter also keeps the facts and truth from circulating.

We can never eschew personal responsibility for doing our best to unearth facts on our own, or forget what Aristotle said which to this day is my very best advice to anyone seeking a svelte figure:  Moderation in all!

I asked the results of the lady’s first two weeks on the matter of portion control and hunger. She found that if she ate her normal speed and amount, she quickly went into a kind of agony if she kept her corset on. But she had jumped into the process a bit too fast, to my mind. She began corseting from 7 to 10 hours on a daily basis! No wonder her tummy was moaning in protest after eating a normal-sized meal, even if she had slowed down a bit as she said. We discussed slowing down even more and dividing her food intake into eight portions, more like grazing (as I notice that my two new 16-week old kittens do, coming and going to their food bowls many times during the day).

Of most interest to me was her comment that after she ate, she felt full for much longer a period than normal and did not have to think about food. I had never heard anyone say this before, and I wonder if you, also have experienced this? Many students have told me that hunger seems to dissipate and some report it even disappears entirely after two to four weeks of training, so that much I knew, but this was a new spin on the concept. What do you know?

I was amused to be scanning my pending “spam” folder inside my WordPress blog, to note two pending comments for my approval and posting. Since I own and operate my corset business by myself, I don’t have a secretary to do this for me, thus I get to it when I get to it. I  consider that processing orders for my clients and answering serious corset questions take priority. Today I found a pending comment from a female writer for my approval, and no less that two or three days later, yet another comment from the same person that basically called me a chicken for failing to post her original negative comment against corsetry.  She also  called me ignorant and uneducated for promoting something so unfeminist and unhealthy.

I found these comments not only amusing but  a trifle sad because they reflect a somewhat common superficial, knee-jerk- style response to many aspects of life, or to services  and products, certainly a response that doesn’t augur well for our culture or society, much less for corsets or corset businesses.

It’s rather easy for me to understand and respond to hostility to corsets. Nine times out of 10 that attitude grows out of unthinking acceptance of ancient stereotypes about corsetry, from lack of facts about corsets and those who wear them, or even if the writer is educated, from a mind already made up. I rarely take on the challenge to convince those whose minds are closed.

What interested me most was to note the writer’s hostility, certainly beyond what should accompany ordinary discourse on the topic.  After all, corseting does not cause wars, famine, repossessions, depressions, recessions,  a higher deficit,  job termination, break bones, or in fact, cause any damage at all to the body from evidence in the record.  I could only conclude that the writer is a person experiencing great stress and unhappiness in her life and this causes her general impatience, curtness, and hostility toward others whom she does not know, or apparently does not care to get to know.

As for alleged damage from corset wearing, the writer cites no facts. I rely on about 8000 clients, consultations with about 10 physicians most of whom personally corset, and interviews with about 400 other folks who waist train and tight-lace. I wonder if my writer can base her conclusion on those facts? My conclusion is and remains that for a generally healthy person,  a well-fitting corset (usually custom) worn moderately, seasoned properly, and not overdone, will cause no ill effects whatsoever. Certainly the epidemic of obesity causes far more ill effects than a corset worn in a reasonable way. And most certainly the ‘want your answer now to my comment’ kind of attitude of the writer does not go well with the patience required in learning how to gradually wear and enjoy a form-fitting garment such as a boned corset.

True, there is no modern (this century) academic double-blind authoritative study of corseting and  effects on bodies–and the writer cites none in support of her proposition that corsets damage the wearer. One could hardly expect that Harvard or Stanford could come up with a professor or grant to study such an esoteric topic today. Research that doctors have conducted that I’ve read in historical literature from the 1800s, is extremely sparse and not all that critical of corsets. All remaining inveigling against corset wearing from Victorian doctors seems to be condensed into one or two sentence diatribes, and all the doctors happen to be men.

I continue to believe that the heart and soul of feminism is self-determination. So long as I and my clients choose to wear corsets out of personal interest and we are not forced to do so, then I and they can dress the way we wish. So can my writer, but I am sad that she will miss learning about the magic of corsets.

Soon I’m off to answer her specific points, after I attend to my daily orders and client needs.