COVID-19

ALL OF ME In December 2020 I received an email from Gokhale Method® offering a five-day trial period of exercise classes and dance parties with posture lessons. Every day for five days! I was thrilled to receive this email and joined on January 1st. From day one I knew I had found something very special. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, I swam to stave off the pain I felt in my back and hips. But when the virus struck I wasn’t able to swim. Eventually my back pain returned to being constant. This showed me that being dependent on an external circumstance, swimming in this case, to feel good, could not give me everything that I needed to heal.

Claudia Cummins is a yoga and meditation teacher, poet, and talented writer. Already familiar with Esther’s book and DVD, she joined the 1-2-3 Move program on Thanksgiving last year. It quickly became a favorite way to lift her spirits and do her body good throughout the darkest times of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this essay Claudia generously shares her beautiful account of discovering the 1-2-3 Move dance party. You are invited to visit and enjoy more of Claudia’s writing and expertise on her website.

It’s no secret that depression and anxiety are rampant these days. So many people worldwide are feeling the effects of the ongoing pandemic, and dealing with its many, varied results, not to mention other stressors. It can seem that there is so little in our lives that we can have influence over, exacerbating feelings of powerlessness and depression. In addition to the range of standard therapeutic interventions like psychotherapy and medication, there’s something all of us can adopt that will help boost our mood: adding exercise to our routine.

I recently came across a New York Times column by Tammy Chen, DDS, describing the “epidemic of cracked teeth” she’s seen in her patients during the COVID pandemic. Dr. Chen names two suspected culprits: the slumped posture many people adopt while working from home with improvised furniture, and excessive anxiety and stress. Both of these culprits lead to jaw clenching and tooth grinding. Read my latest blog post to learn more about the connection between posture and dental health!

I’m a longtime cyclist, former elite-level mountain bike racer, and Gokhale Method teacher. Learning and applying Gokhale Method techniques helped me reduce lumbar strain caused by unhelpful posture habits I used to employ while riding. I continue riding to this day, along with my whole family — now free of lower back pain. In my humble opinion, bikes are the most perfect exercise equipment of all time. This is especially true for the COVID era! The wheel base between two bicycles is around 6 feet, so riding with others can be done safely. Add Gokhale Method techniques to the mix, and you’ve got a recipe for full-body health.

Whether you are on the road, in a campground, or just stuck at home during quarantine, you can always exercise. I’ve been dancing since I was a young child, so I have a very strong bias for dance as a way of exercising, but I also like to change it up with other types of exercise. It turns out that we have a lot of options, even when we can’t access the gym. Chair Pose (Utkatasana in Sanskrit) is a great example of an at-home, equipment-free exercise which can strengthen a variety of muscles in very little time. You don’t have to spend forever and a day in Chair Pose to reap its benefits. This makes it a perfect fit for our busy lives.

How are you faring? Here in California, we’re still squarely in shelter-in-place mode, settling into “normal-for-now.” Some people, whose professions allow it, are still acclimating to the experience of working from home. How can we optimize our home work environments? I recently had a discussion with a full-time writer. Steve decided to have a new writing desk built to specs, and was curious to get my take on how to make sure his new desk, and home working environment more generally, is supportive of healthy posture. Read on to learn more!

Back, neck, and joint pain may be flaring up for many of us, especially those who have come to depend on palliative interventions such as massage, chiropractic, and physical therapy.

Does it seem to anyone else like the ribbon of life just tangled dramatically? It makes sense to feel this way — we’re living in a rapidly changing world with new information coming our way all the time. One way we may be physically experiencing that change is in our daily pain levels, which can increase due to myriad reasons: working from home on unfamiliar furniture, stress manifesting as tension in the body, eroded sleep quality from anxiety flare-ups, childcare we are suddenly having to do unassisted. Now

Coronavirus is a quickly-developing story, and one we’re doing our utmost to address.

We’ve all had a rough week. The spread of coronavirus has led to major disruptions in our existing routines. Schools in many locations are closed and parents are navigating homeschool and childcare without as much support from teachers and caregivers as they are used to. Students and workers, whenever possible, have had their environments shifted from the physical to the virtual classroom and workspace. Countless workers in the service industries and in the arts are facing the sudden dissolution of their livelihoods with minimal safeguards. And healthcare workers are on the frontline of the fight to slow and