technology

It’s early January. New Year’s resolutions have swung into action, and many of them involve improving our health. With the impetus of a fresh start, we throw ourselves into ditching poor habits and cultivating better ones. It’s no surprise that January sees the highest gym sign-ups and enrollments for dietary regimens! Other resolutions include getting more sleep, meditating, or learning a new skill—self-care for the mind as well as the body. 

 
Most of us will have made a New Year’s resolution in at least one of these areas. 

Posture—a missing pillar of health

One little-recognized yet equally important pillar of health is posture. At age 27, I had thought I was active, fit, and robust, yet found myself in excruciating back pain with a newborn baby to care for. Long story short, by changing my posture—the way I sat, stood, bent, walked, and even slept—I lost the pronounced sway in my back, recovered my natural J-spine, and have been pain free, active, and thriving ever since. There is more about what I learned from my teachers and developed into the Gokhale Method® in this recent blog. 

An MRI scan revealed the cause of my sciatica and severe back pain—a large herniation at L5-S1.

Picture an active, pain-free future 

Imagine a future with virtually no back pain, no need for joint replacement, an absence of repetitive strain injuries, and comfortable feet, neck, and shoulders. This was a reality for our ancestors. . .and there is nothing they had that we can’t regain! Our bodies are malleable, and we can learn to move naturally—in fact, healthy posture is written into our DNA. Sometimes the required changes feel strange, but there’s a sweet spot sensation to them, and they often feel strangely familiar. Gokhale Method teachers have a lot of experience in guiding students to make these changes efficiently and effectively. We’ve already guided tens of thousands of people out of back pain and musculoskeletal problems. No doubt some of them started that journey with a New Year’s resolution! 

Gokhale Elements alumna Anne Murtagh from Ireland joined our two Alumni Days in Germany this fall. Here I am helping Anne to refine her glidewalking.

The key to manifesting good intentions 

Life is busy, and self-care resolutions can be hard to keep. A posture resolution is different in an important regard. Yes, it does take some investment of time to learn, but following that it will save you time—you will be walking faster, sleeping more effectively, and saving time spent seeking care for aches and pains. Rather than being an additional undertaking or needing hours of sessions per week, changing your posture is more a matter of living daily life differently. And you are rewarded with all sorts of benefits, like improved appearance, a more positive outlook, and improved digestion, breathing, sexual function, and elimination. Out with the old posture that caused you tension, compression, and pain, and in with a new, more relaxed, efficient and effective way of being in your body. 

Our students trust the Gokhale Method for valuable information and insights taught in logical steps. They also appreciate quality backup from whatever props, coaching, technology, alumni programs, and online community they need to succeed. Here is a what Gokhale alumnus Sachin Deshpande has to say:

It is not an overstatement that the Gokhale Method changed my life and reduced 99% of my body pains—back, foot, knee, elbow, and more. It takes a month or two to grok the concepts, and then real benefits begin. I would suggest both reading the book and taking the classes (which are quite affordable).

Sachin (pictured above) found the Gokhale Method through my self-help book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back. This doubled as a textbook when he took the Foundations course. You can read Sachin's story here. 

The past, the present, and looking to the future

Students sometimes remark on the historical data that is an essential ingredient of the Gokhale Method. We draw extensively on ancient and ancestral roots, referring to both science and cultural artifacts to learn posture wisdom from the past. We are also very much in the present, offering in-person courses around the world and embracing today’s online and wearable technology to deliver remote learning. As we travel forward into 2024, we very much hope you will be with us for a healthy, pain-free future.

 
The Roman god Janus gave his name to the month of January. He was the god of beginnings, transitions, time, doorways, gates, passages, and endings. He was often depicted facing both ways, to the past and to the future. Note his healthy head and neck posture! Image from Wikimedia

Best next action steps

If you are new to the Gokhale Method, get started by booking a consultation, online, or in person with one of our teachers. Or you can sign up here
for our special New Year Free Online Workshop Start 2024 Pain-Free with the Gokhale Method, Tuesday, January 9, 12 a.m.–1 p.m. (PST), to find out how the Gokhale Method can help you.

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

Our new and exciting SpineTracker wearable is available for use! Our participating teachers use this technology to help you:

1. Store baselines of the shape of your spine in sitting, standing, and bending

2. Understand the connection between your movements and changes in the shape of your spine

3. Establish a target shape for you to aim for in training your posture

4. Discover techniques, exercises, and activities to help you improve your target shape

5. Track your changes over time, using graphics and quantitative measurements of the curves in your lower back
    

Our test students love SpineTracker and have gotten great benefit from it—we’re now ready to share these benefits with all our students!

What drove you to create this device?

Kinesthetic learning is difficult for most of our students. We learn more easily with our heads than with our bodies. Students often express this by saying things like, “Can I take you home with me?” after we’ve placed them in new and strange configurations. Though the logic of the posture shifts is compelling, and the new positions look perfectly acceptable (and even elegant) in a mirror, they feel very foreign at first (a slight bend at the hips can feel Neanderthal or ape-like!) and are therefore difficult to accept and return to. SpineTracker lets people practice the new postures repeatedly with visual confirmation of their position, until it no longer feels strange. Being able to see with their own eyes that their spine is upright although it feels leaning helps students accept the ideals.

What were some of the difficulties in creating this device?

I would not have undertaken such an adventure without the expert support of an inventor.  I met Mark Leavitt at a Quantified Self conference where he expressed interest in creating a technological aid for Gokhale Method students. We explored many directions, such as a Smart Chair, and eventually settled on a device that would give a real-time read of the shape of a student's spine. We tried very hard to create a single flexible strip of sensors, but discovered that human skin, because it is so elastic, is extremely challenging to stick a long strip of electronics to. Also, the inaccuracies and climate sensitivities in the flex sensor readings undermined our efforts to create a precision instrument. We had much better results after switching to separated pods that stuck to the spine—each sensor has its own BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) module, battery, PCB board, and antenna, so the device is really a five-sensor device. What we gained from this is an incredibly accurate rendering of the shape of the wearer’s midline groove over the spine. Since there isn’t much muscle or fat on that part of the body (even on muscular or obese people), this approximates the shape of the vertebral column very well. It’s almost like having a mobile MRI unit!
 

How has SpienTracker been useful so far?

• Seeing one’s baseline shape. Students see the shape of their back, often realizing for the first time the contours that are with them daily. This is extremely useful information for someone who wants to improve his or her shape. Our teachers help capture baseline shapes on the student’s Gokhale Method account so future efforts can be compared against this baseline.

• Understanding tricky posture concepts. Some of what the Gokhale Method teaches is difficult to grasp, and even counterintuitive. For example, most people have been taught to stick out their chests via commands like “sit up straight” and “stand up straight,” so when we teach tucking the ribcage to eliminate a sway in the low back, this feels like the opposite of good posture. The SpineTracker app, especially the spine view, makes a compelling case for why this technique is crucial for good posture.

• Ideals set by the teacher allow the student to practice good posture over and over. It’s hard for students to know where they are in space once they’ve departed from their habitual posture. With the visual provided by the app, students can practice returning to exactly the right position, and continue to “recalibrate” their own sense of what is right. It can help overcome frequent comments and questions such as “Is this right,” “Am I doing the same thing you showed me,” and “I have no idea how I'll get back to this position if I move.”

• Quantifying subjective data. Gokhale Method teachers frequently talk about sways and tucks, but SpineTracker records hard data on the angle between every pair of sensors on your spine. This is useful for knowing how you stack up (pun intended). In fact, we hope our data will find its way into medical literature over time.

• Tracking progress over time. Since all ideals as well as snapshots along the way are stored in a student’s account, it allows students to track their progress over time. It is very difficult, if not impossible, for a student and their teacher to remember how exactly the student's back was months or years ago. SpineTracker keeps a tab on this in the student's account. This feature has already created lots of aha moments for our many test students.

• Comparisons across positions. The spine changes shape as we go from sitting to standing to bending. Some of the changes are normal and healthy; others indicated tight muscles, rigid joints, or other unhealthy situations. Within every student’s account it is easy to select several spine snaps for comparison, and identify patterns or problem areas that are more challenging for teachers to spot, such as swaying only during the act of standing up or sitting down.
   

How does SpienTracker differ from other posture training electronics for consumers?

• Healthy versus unhealthy targets / ideals. The ideals used in other posture training devices are set by the user. Since conventional wisdom about posture is misguided, the result is people training themselves to “sit up straight” and “stand up straight” with tense, counterproductive posture. With SpineTracker, the targets / ideals are set by a qualified Gokhale Method teacher—they help students grow beyond their mistaken or incomplete view of what constitutes healthy posture.

• A package that includes education and training. SpineTracker comes with education and training. It is currently only available for students working with a Gokhale Method teacher, and is specifically designed to complement our teachings.

• Positive versus negative feedback. SpineTracker use comes with a supportive, encouraging teacher, delighted by every bit of progress you make. The consumer devices on the market beep and buzz at you, often in frustrating, unproductive ways.

• Accuracy. Other products on the market cannot differentiate between you stooping and you leaning forward in a healthy position, such as resting on your elbows. With SpineTracker, what you see is what you have. There are no false positives and you never get inaccurate feedback.

• No hassle. All the hassles associated with charging units, applying sticky tape, removing sticky tape, positioning accurately, losing parts, returns, and more are managed by your friendly, hard-working teacher. You simply benefit from the technology and allow your teacher and our company to take care of the technology.

How can students have a chance to use SpineTracker?

Private lessons with participating teachers, all lessons with founder Esther Gokhale, and corporate offerings are the primary ways to be able to use SpineTracker yourself. Visit our SpineTracker page for complete information on our wearable, including a full list of participating teachers.