sacroiliac joint

In Spring last year we launched the Gokhale® Wedge. For years, our students have been requesting a convenient, ready-made wedge for upright sitting without a backrest, one that doesn’t require folding blankets and other makeshift (pun intended) measures. The requests also specified an attractive item to enjoy around the home or office, and that it be of durable quality, keeping its shape and good looks with daily use.

Many sitting wedges on the market provide a shallow, even slope that simply does not help you antevert your pelvis—at no place do they offer the steep incline that it takes to tip the pelvis forward “over a cliff,” so to speak. Worse, they are often too soft, allowing the bottom, which after all transmits most of the body’s weight to the wedge, to sink in too deeply, sometimes resulting in a reverse wedge! Some commercial wedges are simply too hard to be comfortable, and at best provide only one choice of angle for tipping the pelvis forward.

As infants we all sat easily with our behinds behind us, and our pelvis anteverted. A wedge helps us to regain this healthy angle. Image from Pexels

To implement the Gokhale Method technique of stacksitting, students require a firm but comfortable wedge with a choice of angles to tip the pelvis just the right amount for their particular body. This is required to be able to sit upright and relaxed, rather than the common back and forth between upright and tense, and relaxed but slumped. Stacksitting enables you to avoid compression on delicate spinal nerves, discs, and tissues, and encourages healthy breathing and organ function.

Your pelvis is the foundation for your spine and upper body. With the pelvis anteverted and a J-spine arising from a healthy L5-S1 angle and well-stacked vertebrae, the upper body can be upright and relaxed (a). Without a wedge, most people sit either relaxed but slumped (b), or upright but tense (c).

Simplicity can take longer

It’s astonishing to me how long it took to pare a design for a Gokhale wedge down to its essential elements. We’ve been working on this for over a decade. We’ve hired professional design consultants, graduate students in Product Design at Stanford, and discussed the matter amongst our teachers. After discarding dozens of designs that included sophisticated mechanisms for adjusting the slope of the wedge, or replicated the front edge of chairs from the period of Louis XIV, we finally came to a wedge that is beyond simple by comparison. 

Our wedge, which only saw the light of day in March last year, is the simplest of all the designs we came up with—it’s a simple piece of foam, with a simple covering, and a simple zipper to close it up. Admittedly, the foam has a special shape—though that is not immediately obvious—and is of a high quality, resilient spec. It has just the right amount of give to be comfortable yet firm. 

Meeting needs and expectations

Above all, our students need a wedge designed to translate healthy posture principles into action. And rather than being a one-size-fits-all, this posture-friendly wedge works even as the user’s J-spine and L5-S1 angle progresses. 

Based on eighteen months of user feedback, we can say that the Gokhale® Wedge is serving people extremely well. It has been a great inclusion with the online Elements course bundles, ensuring students are always best equipped to efficiently learn to stacksit. Our students don’t hesitate to let us know what is working well for them…

…and what can still be improved. We have listened to user suggestions and recently applied a few innovations that we hope will make you like our wedge even more.

New features of the Gokhale Wedge 2.0

The original wedge (left) and its updated version (right) perform the same functions, assisting your pelvis and spine to be optimally positioned in sitting. The new Gokhale® Wedge has some innovations that we think you will like even better.

Sitting on the flat side: Our wedge has both a flat and a convex, rounded side. Using it flat side up, as shown below, it behaves like a teeter totter and gives varied options for the angle of its slope. This enables lighter people, and people with less L5-S1 angle, to tilt the wedge forward only as much as they want, and to sit on it higher or lower down, to find just the right amount of angle for them. It can give a gentle introduction to pelvic anteversion for those with sciatic pain, sacroiliac joint issues, or stiffness at the L5-S1 junction. As I already have a good bit of built in wedge in my third decade of stacksitting, glidewalking, etc.), this way around also suits me just fine. 

Sitting on the flat side of your wedge gives you a wide choice of height and angle.

To make sitting on the flat side smoother and even more comfortable, we have moved the zip of the washable cover from the center of the flat side to the edge of the new wedge.

Sitting on the convex side: We have introduced a new non-slip PU leather on the flat side, giving users a non-slip base on slippery surfaces such as some wooden chairs and benches. As before, one of its rounded edges is slightly lower and less steep than the other, giving you nuanced choices of angle whichever way around you choose to use your wedge.

This wedge is positioned ready for stacksitting, rounded side up. This way around can give the most anteversion by encouraging the pelvis to drop forward. The front edge as it is positioned here is slightly lower and has a gentler curve than the back edge. 

A change of fabric: The wedge is now in the same, slightly darker burgundy fabric that we use for our Gokhale® Head Cushion. It’s not only a nice aesthetic match, but its slightly coarser weave fabric also gives a better grip.

A well-designed wedge helps you to rediscover sitting comfort. It helps create healthy J-spine muscle memory for standing and walking too.

If you want to find out more about using our wedge, you can read our introductory blog post The Gokhale® Wedge for Relaxed, Upright Sitting, and view a video of me using it:

Here I am demonstrating how to sit on the Gokhale Wedge. Several postural principles combine to make stacksitting especially beneficial for our structure.

Your Gokhale® Wedge is backed up with know-how

No matter how well-designed, a wedge for sitting is best supported by training. This is true of all  our products, but perhaps especially so for our wedge, because stacksitting is a big departure from most people’s sitting form. You can learn about stacksitting in our in-person Foundations course, one-day Pop-up course, our online Elements course, plus our Gokhale Exercise program. These offerings, along with our DVD Secrets to Pain-Free Sitting, all teach the skills that enable you to enjoy your wedge optimally in daily life. 

Our students also appreciate being able to integrate using the wedge with our wearable PostureTracker™, which has settings that can track the degree of your L5-S1 angle, and the stack of your spine. Consider the Gokhale® Wedge a part of your toolkit as you improve your posture, and musculoskeletal health. 

Best next action steps for newcomers

If you would like insight on your sitting posture, consider scheduling an Initial Consultation, online, or in person.

You can sign up below to join any one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops…

Many of the questions I hear from students are about concerns they have due to left/right asymmetry in their bodies. People will often see a clearly visible asymmetry as the root cause of any dysfunction and pain. This strikes me as a natural and understandable assumption—but my experience as a posture educator leads me to think there is more to consider here than meets the eye. 

Anna Wintour of Vogue magazine sporting a symmetrical bob haircut. Wikimedia

Searching for symmetry

Visual symmetry is highly prized by our species; we have adapted, over millennia, to find symmetry attractive. Research¹ shows, for example, that we look for symmetry in our mates, and that is because symmetry in the body correlates with a lack of genetic defects, high function, youth, and good health. Human attraction is multilayered of course, and our species seeks out many other qualities such as intelligence, kindness, and even a sense of humor, but symmetry is known to be given a high value. 

As a consequence of this adaptation, the human eye and brain are highly sensitized to picking up asymmetry. We use this ability in everyday tasks such as decorating cakes, or pruning in the garden—and in professions like art, hairstyling, and product design.

A formal garden imposes symmetry on Nature to great effect. Pixabay

When it comes to assessing the body, physical therapists and doctors often rely on being able to compare one side of the body with the other to determine what is healthy and normal for any individual patient. Asymmetry may be an early indication of injury, swelling, or even stroke—it can signal a condition that needs urgent medical attention. 

Some asymmetry is usual, and a part of how we function

Throughout our history and prehistory, our species has used our body asymmetrically. By examining a stone tool, we can tell if the knapper was right-handed or left-handed. Similarly, spear-throwers in indigenous societies use one arm or the other, not both. And many modern athletic endeavors are strongly asymmetric in nature. 

As the result of many hours of practice with a racket, bat, or club, many of today’s elite sportspeople become prodigiously one-sided. And yet it seems most don’t suffer any more from this asymmetry than the average person. Their preference for one side over the other will likely extend into a preferred rotational direction, weight-bearing arrangements, and an “anchor versus action” relationship between the left and right sides of the body. It seems we have the wherewithal to be asymmetric in both our structure and movements and still be highly functional. 

Serena Williams in action. Many human activities demand very different 
actions and specialization on each side of the body. Wikimedia

Asymmetry is not a diagnosis

In contemporary bodywork and ergonomic circles, we have gone too far with an insistence on symmetry. It's common for people to be told they have "muscle imbalances" and to believe this much touted diagnosis to be the root cause of their aches and pains. In fact, for most minor asymmetries, our bodies have very adequate compensations, structurally and positionally, and there is no urgent need to symmetrize. Clumsy or overly aggressive interventions to symmetrize an intricate system that has evolved over a lifetime can even do harm rather than good.

In particular, it is helpful to have an informed perspective about scoliosis, that is, lateral curvature of the spine. To be told you “have a scoliosis” can sound like a serious medical condition. Like many medical terms that sound like a diagnosis, it is essentially a description, using the ancient Greek skolios, or “bent.” We nearly all have some degree of lateral bend or rotation in our spines, most of which does not produce any symptoms as our bodies find organic adaptations and compensations.

This man’s torso shows muscle imbalances and a mild scoliosis. Imgur

When asymmetry is problematic

However, sometimes asymmetry is the problem. If your asymmetry is pronounced, or has an obvious correlation with symptoms, it may be at the root of your problem, or at least be a significant contributory factor. In this scenario it makes sense to work with a healthcare professional of your choice, such as a physical therapist, chiropractor or osteopath, orthopedic consultant, or other musculoskeletal specialist. For babies, children, and adolescents, who are still growing rapidly, interventions can, in general, be more conservative and highly effective. 

For older children and adults, treatments for musculoskeletal issues will be much more likely to hold and bring long-term improvement when they are accompanied by postural reeducation. Several of our teachers have experience of working with their own imbalances, and actually became Gokhale Method teachers when they discovered that changing their posture was the “missing piece” in resolving their symptoms—you can read teacher Cynthia Rose’s story here.

Techniques that help the body to symmetrize 

Lengthening shortened muscles is integral to most Gokhale Method techniques—using the rib anchor, growing the neck tall, stretchsitting, stretchlying on the back and on the side—all have a lengthening component that helps to ease out tight curves in the muscles and soft tissues. As the tightness releases to a more normal tone, “slack” underused parts of the body’s structure are called upon to engage and do their duty, restoring symmetry to both form and function. 

Students often notice a newfound symmetry when they learn tallstanding. They discover a much more stable and athletic stance. Restacking the bones in a way that respects their skeletal architecture improves the relationship with gravity and has a symmetrizing effect. Progressing to hip-hinging, students combine a well-arranged lower body (kidney-bean shaped feet and externally rotated legs), with a well-integrated upper body (shoulders rolled back, neck tall, and engaged inner corset), leaving their pelvis free to rotate and nestle deeply between the thigh bones. This transforms bending from a high-risk activity into a highly functional one that no longer leaves SI joints and lower backs at the mercy of asymmetrical stresses. Many are amazed to find touching their toes not only possible, but pleasurable!

Julia shows how a restricted and uncomfortable left hip and SIJ area used to prevent healthy turnout on that side.

Daily participation in the Gokhale 1-2-3 Move has brought significantly greater symmetry, and freedom from pain.

One student’s experience

Julia Guenther joined the Gokhale 1-2-3 Move program last year and has been so delighted with her symmetrizing experience that she would like to share it with Positive Stance readers. 

My asymmetry comes from the left SIJ (sacroiliac joint) and hip area. The left hip cannot turn out as much or as comfortably as the right hip. I noticed this when stretching, exercising, putting on shoes, etc. When I relaxed in a reclined position, my feet were not symmetrical from the vertical centerline. The left foot was more straight up and down and the right about 30 degrees from the centerline. My left side would get uncomfortable even in a reclined position.   

I started the daily Gokhale 1-2-3 Move class in October. In January I had to go to the dentist for a chipped tooth and noticed that my elevated feet in the dentist’s chair looked symmetrical when I looked at them, and I was not uncomfortable like I used to be in the dentist’s chair. I have been stretching, doing yoga, and massaging the area for years, and after three months of Gokhale daily classes and reminders I have achieved relaxed symmetry. Although I could live the rest of my life happily with this amount of improvement, I now believe my left side hip and SIJ will someday become as mobile as my right hip and SIJ.

As happened for Julia, when people improve their postural form, some self-regulation occurs, and their bodies undergo degrees of symmetrization. Whether asymmetries are minor or major, this process can start immediately when Gokhale Method principles are applied: for example, a shoulder roll can enable a hiked-up shoulder to relax and reposition itself, or kidney-bean shaping a flat foot will straighten and support an inwardly rotated knee. Over time, the soft tissues and bony structures remodel to these new arrangements, bringing a more permanent symmetry to the body.

Esther teaches a student to kidney-bean shape a foot.

Calming the perfect storm

For the most part, our culture is caught up in a perfect storm: on the one hand we have a hyperawareness of musculoskeletal pain, and on the other, a “hyper-ignorance” of posture. They unite in a vortex of back pain, around 85% of which is diagnosed as “nonspecific,” i.e., cause unknown. The Gokhale Method hypothesis is that our culture’s ignorance as to the postural cause of most back pain connects to many misdiagnoses that asymmetry is the cause of our back problems.

It seems likely to me that a degree of asymmetry which could cause issues for the average modern person with problematic posture is less likely to do so in someone who enjoys healthy posture. So for most people I would say, consider relaxing around your small asymmetries, and instead invest in improving your posture in general. Consider joining us on the Gokhale 1-2-3 Move program, or immersing yourself in the Gokhale Method Foundations Course or Gokhale Elements. Regaining your healthy baseline posture, which is your birthright, can allow your structure to heal and harmonize. Pain-Free. 

We would love to hear how these reflections on symmetry resonate for you…

¹Wade, T. Joel. “The Relationships between Symmetry and Attractiveness and Mating Relevant Decisions and Behavior: A Review,” Symmetry 2, no.2 (June 2010): 1081–1098. doi:10.3390/sym2021081