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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

Six Tips for Springtime Gardening

April, 2015
Spring brings renewal. All around us the earth is alive with the sounds and smells of new life. As the weather grows more inviting, your yard and garden may be calling. For many people, gardening and outdoor work are favorite pastimes, yet the fear of back pain can be inhibiting. Let the Gokhale Method help you to thrive alongside your plants! When planting flowers and digging in the dirt, use hip hinging to save your knees and lower back. Maintain your spinal shape as you bend from the hips. Take a wider stance to reach the ground more easily. When you feel your hamstrings pulling, bend your knees to keep from tucking. Check to see that your knees track over your feet and that your shoulders remain back for good blood flow to your arms and hands. Try resting one elbow or forearm on your thigh as the other hand performs your gardening tasks to reduce the demand on the muscles in your back. Read more

The Posture-Power Connection

Gokhale Method teachers facilitate their students’ self-empowerment
March, 2015
There are few things as disempowering as a broken back. By "broken back" I mean to include painfully herniated disks, significant stenosis, as well as severe muscle tension and other less sustained spinal phenomena that constitute "non-specifc back pain" - and nonetheless hurt like heck. I remember this state clearly, and have some journal entries to fill gaps in my memory - "...maybe I'm paying too much attention to my back. Maybe it's in my head..." 28 years ago, I felt like a broken straw. Read more

Better Posture, Better Sleep

Taking a healthful mid-day nap - it can happen any place at any time if you are able to improvise. Burkina Faso.
February, 2015
I’ve had lying on my mind lately. I mean flat out, horizontal, no holds barred, delicious, snooze-inducing lying down. It’s not talked about much in the debate whether we should sit, stand, or treadmill our way to better lives. But I say, hey, lying is where it’s at when you are tired, when you need a break, when you need a rest. My son Nathan knows this quite well. When he Skypes with us, he is usually in his bed, covers pulled up high, computer set on the covers. He works lying, surfs lying, thinks about algorithms lying down. Read more

Fredrik's Journey to a Pain-Free Back

Fredrik Prost, traditional Sami handicraftsman
January, 2015
Fredrik Prost’s journey in posture is a poignant one. Restoring one’s natural architecture is a return home for anyone - a return to one’s personal past, ancestral past, and genetic past. For Fredrik, it’s additionally a return to his living Sami relatives and those alive in his memory. The Sami are an indigenous group of reindeer herders living in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Fredrik is a traditional Sami handicraftsman working with reindeer antler, metal, and wood. Being of a younger generation and between a traditional lifestyle and a modern one, his working posture included hunching over his work. As a result he had developed upper back pain for which conservative treatment failed to give him relief. He discovered my book, and the pictures and philosophy resonated for him - I was describing things he had seen with his own eyes. Read more