movement patterns

A big part of the Gokhale Method is about changing habits. We ask the body to replace movement patterns that may have been ingrained for decades with new (old), natural patterns. We may understand the new patterns intellectually and practice them diligently, but our old patterns tend to linger and reassert themselves. If we are tired or not paying attention, the body slips back into familiar grooves. Dance turns out to be very helpful in circumventing this problem.

However different the language, costume, or climate, traditional dances the world over share the same underlying body architecture. They represent a living fossil record of the way we humans are meant to move — not just in dance, but in everyday life. The dances I saw on my travels — and often joined in — had different rhythms, moves, histories, and styles. Yet beneath all that variation, the bodies performing them shared an unmistakable common architecture.

Think about all the things that happen in your kitchen. You're orchestrating ingredients—chopping, dicing, grating, sautéing, steaming, roasting. You're wielding an impressive array of gadgets: grinders, mixers, air fryers, microwaves, dishwashers, ovens. You're navigating spaces from floor-level drawers to overhead cupboards, hoisting grocery bags, cantilevering heavy pots, and balancing precarious stacks of dishes. There's one essential component we don’t think about much—until it starts complaining. Our own body.

As the world tunes in to the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina from February 6–22, we’ll marvel at skiers flying downhill, skaters carving ice, and athletes who’ve trained for years to make a few minutes look effortless. We know about the grueling workouts—in the gym, on the track, on the snow. What we rarely consider are the thousands of quiet hours in between: how these athletes sit, walk, stand, and recover when they’re not officially training or competing.

Rob Buirgy reached out having sustained a multiple fragment compression fracture of his T12 vertebra (in the middle of the back). Despite being in a body brace afterwards, having already followed the Gokhale Method for a couple of years, Rob’s instinct told him that our method would be able to help him regain an active life. More recently, he has also fully recovered from a whole knee replacement. In this blog post he explains how healthy posture set him up for success… —Esther Gokhale