Elements

Suffering with back and hip pain, Kapil recalled the upright, elegant posture he had seen in India.

My background and posture in India

I am a 45-year-old software engineer living in California. I grew up and lived in India until I was 37. In my mid-twenties I developed lower back pain and right hip pain, and I recollect having a series of MRIs and medical traction but obtaining nothing more than temporary relief. I also went for Indian massage therapy, which did effectively relieve the pain for some years. Like many modern desk workers, my posture had gradually deteriorated. The massage addressed the symptoms this caused but did not improve my posture.

Here I am 33 years old. I am starting to round my shoulders, sink into my chest and lift my chin.

As Esther often says, older generations, villagers, and the manual workers in India have excellent posture, which includes a J-spine, the head back, and the shoulders back. 

I would observe people around me with upright, elegant posture, and could see that it was healthy, but I couldn’t figure out what I should be doing to get there.

Tall, elegant posture is almost universal among Indian villagers. Firstpost

My father had very good posture and no back pain. I wondered if I had muscle weakness, or if it was just that my body was structured differently. 

In this photo my father is in his eighties and has preserved his upright bearing. Note that his feet are angled outward due to the external rotation of his legs.

Here in the States, I continued to work with various health practitioners to see what was causing my pain. Some sessions with a chiropractor helped, but the relief, though it sometimes lasted as long as a year, was always temporary. I felt that something I was doing was making the pain reappear. 

Getting started with the Gokhale Method®

I found the Gokhale Method through a blogger in the Bay Area, who referred to the Gokhale Method having seen Esther’s presentation at Google. That led me to the concept of postural education. I realized that I needed guidance to restore healthy posture to my body that didn’t know what to do.

Because poor posture is a relatively modern problem, traditional therapies like massage and yoga did not need to address it—and didn’t for me. Even though I grew up in a part of the world where healthy posture was common, I did not know how to integrate it. In many areas humanity has made huge progress, but now, with our posture, we actually need to achieve some healthy regression!

Traditional therapies such as massage may temporarily relieve the symptoms but not the root cause of back pain. Pexels

I read Esther’s book, realized I needed a teacher and decided to take an Initial Online Consultation. It became clear my posture could be changed. I chose to take the 18-lesson Elements online course over about six weeks in the autumn. 

Becoming pain-free and making further progress

The earlier lessons were quite easy because each lesson focused on just one thing, so I had time to practice and adapt. They nevertheless had already helped to decrease my pain by the time we came to the later lessons. The later lessons needed finesse to coordinate everything that had been learned. Walking was the most challenging, with so many parts to consider at once.

The course is well paced and structured, using intelligently designed stepping stones. I could see how the lessons fit together. Reflecting back, if we had started with the later material, it would have been a daunting task.

When we got to the walking lessons, I thought about asking to spread the lessons out more, but I now recognize that the momentum of our regular schedule was important. Mastery was not expected, and I needed that additional input and tips to continue making progress. There is a saying, “without the guru I cannot gain knowledge” and I found this to be true both for the content and the teaching method.

My “Before” pictures as I embarked on the Elements course. I was trying to implement a few principles I read about in 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back. I still had a long way to go.

I have learned to focus on one posture tip at a time, and cycle through them to keep improving on everything I do, whether it is bending or sitting well. Ongoing practice, rewatching course videos, and referring to photographs all help keep things on my radar, reinforce good habits, and create muscle memory over time. 

An active lifestyle is not enough

I have always led an active life—I played racquetball at least twice or thrice a week, I did yoga almost every day, I gardened once or twice a week, and I walked (and still do, almost every day). On reflection I can see that all this exercise, without paying attention to my posture, did not prevent my back and hip pain.

I wouldn’t be able to garden for more than 30 minutes if I hadn’t learned to hip-hinge. My pain would come back. Agricultural workers in India can work eight hours a day, day after day—because they hip-hinge! It is fascinating to see Esther point out this type of bending, in photographs and in ancient art.

Women hip-hinge with ease at a market in Odisha, India, while they examine pots.

I can see that some of our modern occupational hazards arise from sedentary work—so I have always been very careful to not sit for a long duration, switching places each hour. Yet, if I don’t roll back my shoulders, glide my head back, and take care of my rib anchor, none of that matters—I would still have pain. Taking breaks is helpful, but it’s not enough. Posture is a fundamental thing that needs to be taken care of too.

Going forward

I am aware that I have taken Elements only recently and still have a way to go, but the posture that I have learned to recreate in my body has not only stopped my pain, but also feels very natural to me—my neck being tall and my head staying back as I sit at my desk, for example. I would still like to use the PostureTracker™ biofeedback tool that can help me to track my progress and monitor my posture adjustments in real time.

I paused my yoga regime while I was taking Elements in case there was anything I was doing that was contrary to a new way of doing things. Esther then showed me a new way of doing sun salutation which I look forward to resuming shortly. When I learned to improve my posture I made no other lifestyle changes, so I have good reason to believe posture has addressed the root causes of my pain and will be sustainable. 

I would have had many years of a pain-free life behind me if I had made these changes earlier—however, better late than never! I am very fortunate to have found something that has made such a difference to my life.

I have a lot of respect and enthusiasm for the Gokhale Method, and my motivation with this blog post is to spread the word about it. Please share my story to inspire others who suffer unnecessarily with back pain. 

Free Online Workshops

If you would like to find out more about how the Gokhale Method can help support you, whether you have back pain or other musculoskeletal pain, sign up to join one of Esther’s upcoming FREE Online Workshops.

Susan (left) enjoying time with her grandchild and family. 
Susan sent us this photo, commenting, “but check out the C-shaped spine—wow!”

I am a 70-year-old woman. As a young woman I was tall (5’10"), slender, and active as I would ever be raising my six children. 

For the most part, my body and I had a good relationship, but, over time and with the demands of my life, something problematic happened. My body began talking to me: my knee, psoas, sacrum, and lower back hurt, and I also suffered a loss of balance. I mainly saw a chiropractor but also physical therapists, massage therapists, and acupuncturists…the list is long. When you want to function and feel halfway decent, you try everything.

By the time I was 60, I had three fractures in my spine and a diagnosis of osteoporosis. For 10 years I worked hard to control the osteoporosis and did well rebuilding my bones, but even so, I am now 5’6", four inches shorter than I was. Perhaps it is vain to wish every day for the return of my stature, but to stand tall and straight has been a preoccupation. I tried to hide my posture under my clothes, but of course that doesn’t really work! 

Learning to stacksit gave Susan a much-improved position for her piano and organ playing.

In my thirties I started teaching piano and became a church organist. Recently, because of the pandemic, our church music has had to be prerecorded. On Sundays, when the recordings were broadcast, I saw myself seated at the organ and was astonished to see how small and bent over I was. This was not the way I had imagined myself looking. It was horrifying. I knew something had to change.

These people all have open chests and relaxed, posterior shoulders. Young children, our ancestors, 
and diverse populations in nonindustrialized areas of the world today share this healthy posture. 

In spite of the deterioration, I maintained hope of improvement. When I came across Esther Gokhale for the second time in a year, I paid attention. I was inspired by her TEDx talk, interviews, and website. There was wisdom and a depth of insight there that I had not seen before, and a pursuit of positive change that matched my own. There was something compelling in the testimonies of the Gokhale Method alumni, and Esther’s research into ancestral and primal postures. It all rang true and had evidence to back it up. I had to try the Gokhale Method.

For all my efforts and the various things I had tried, nothing up to that point had worked for me. I was afraid that Esther’s approach was not going to work either. I told myself I would give it a year. I started working with Esther and gave her my trust and commitment. I learned my new body awareness methodically through the 18 concise lessons of the Elements online program. At times I worried I would be disappointed again, but Esther’s expectation of a good outcome—combined with her integrity and tenacity—kept me moving forward. 

Susan used to tuck her pelvis and collapse her spine (left). Having learned to antevert her pelvis and 
use her inner corset (right), she now stands tall, regaining length in her torso.

An important step for me was understanding the difference between a tucked pelvis and an anteverted pelvis, and that I could make it happen in my own body. Doing the “inner corset” also made visible changes. I wasn’t bent over from fatigue by the end of the day. I was so grateful. I could be upright again, and I felt back to being myself. Previous to the Elements course, my body had become something to fear; it has now become something I take pleasure in.

So many things have gotten better. I had a tight psoas for decades, which caused pain in my groin. I don’t feel that anymore. Before if I fell asleep on my back, I would wake myself up snoring or run out of breath. That has gone. It had also been difficult to breath when walking; now all of my breathing is much better. Over the winter I have been enjoying barefoot walks along the beach, applying what I have learned about my feet. This attention is paying off and my feet are changing. A small bunion is reducing and the big toe is coming home (Esther said it probably would) while the other toes are relaxing straighter.

Cultivating kidney bean-shaped feet with strong arches helps take pressure off the delicate structures of the forefoot. Susan notices her bunion is reducing and her toes are starting to straighten.

The daily class on the 1-2-3 Move program is very important for me to maintain ongoing improvements—and it keeps me motivated. The online community helps me celebrate and practice what I have gained. I’m inspired by Esther’s beautiful visuals of healthy body alignment and architecture. 

Occasional anatomy snippets woven into the 1-2-3 Move classes 
help participants to understand their own body architecture.

Additionally, the Q&A session following each 13-minute class makes it easy to ask questions. Just last week someone asked a question about the role of rectus abdominis (the six-pack ab muscles) and a huge light shone for me; I realized how these muscles can tuck the pelvis and/or round me forward. Now I let that sort of tension go—and I can stand straighter! I’ve learned how to use my “inner corset” muscles, drawing my deeper abs in and upward like I’m going into ice-cold water. I regularly go quarry swimming, so I know exactly what that feels like!

This entire journey of finding out how my body works has been transformative for me. Best of all, the Gokhale Method has shown me how I can once again live my life upright and pain free. What a gift!