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Teaching at Teaching Drum

October, 2015
This past summer I had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Teaching Drum Wilderness School in the north woods of Wisconsin to teach a Gokhale Method Foundations Course.  Teaching Drum has year-long immersion programs, designed to foster awareness in self and community, as well as teach wilderness skills such as hidetanning, basketry, primitive cooking, and lodge construction. Read more
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Good Posture for Dining Pleasure

September, 2015

Eating is an essential part of life and can also be a delicious, healthy, and pleasurable experience. But for many people, sitting down for a long, leisurely meal causes tension and pain. Have you ever found yourself considering going out to eat and having second thoughts because you know you are going to be squirming in your seat before the end of the meal? We at the Gokhale Method Institute believe that dining can be a delectable experience for all of your senses. Here are a few tips on how to stay pain-free while dining:

Stacksitting

Stacksitting is a comfortable and healthy way to sit down for a meal. Find or construct a wedge for your chair—a sweatshirt, jacket, or scarf will do. At home, you may want to have a folded towel or blanket handy in your dining area for this purpose. When you don't have a wedge, you can use the edge of the chair like a wedge. Position your legs slightly... Read more

Beauty, Art, and Posture

August, 2015
I came home from my visit with the Sami with a treasured possession, my new Sami knife and sheath. I had commissioned my student and friend, Fredrik Prost, a Sami handicraftsman, to make a knife for me and he had it ready for me on my arrival in Sweden. Fredrik encouraged me to put it into use right away when we cut birch branches to make our “mattresses" in the lavoo (traditional tepee). I would have balked at using a thing so fine and beautiful for an activity so rough and pedestrian, but he insisted - the knife was made to be a working knife. Since my return to California, the knife has harvested okra and zucchini from my garden, trimmed apples from our tree, and cut thin slices of the dried reindeer meat Fredrik sent me home with. Read more

Sleeping on Birch Branches in Samiland

July, 2015
This month I traveled to Northern Sweden and joined my friend Fredrik Prost's community for the annual marking of their reindeer calves. It was an amazing experience I will never forget. Though the Sami have given up many of their traditional ways, many persist and in the coming months, I will share aspects I found inspiring or educational. Traditional Sami housing is a tepee or lavoo, with long birch poles forming the main structure (these used to be transported from place to place by domesticated reindeer), and stitched reindeer skin providing the cover. The top of the lavoo is open to let smoke from a fire escape. Read more

This is How We Roll

June, 2015
Most of us strain our upper backs habitually. Whether we’re slumping forward with our shoulders and head, or exaggeratedly pulling our shoulders back, we irritate the rhomboid attachments in the thoracic spine (upper back). The spinal muscles, either from being overstretched or overstrained, become “knotty” and sore. Additionally, to the extent that the upper back becomes stiff or even rigid from habitual hunching, it is challenging to stretch and mobilize the regions that most need attention. As with a rusty bicycle chain, stiff areas tend to remain stiff, and mobile areas compensate and become hypermobile. Read more

Posture Makeover

May, 2015
In this season of shorts and bikinis it is easy for us to pick ourselves apart. Wanting to take care of our bodies is a natural, healthy impulse, but when it gets focused on body image it can become an unhealthy obsession. You can help transform negative thoughts about the shape of your body, or the wrinkles on your face, into positive ones by focusing on posture. Read more