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In keeping with Claudia’s wishes we are not going to use any photographs of her in this blog post. We are always happy to respect our contributors' wishes for privacy. We are very grateful for Claudia’s generosity in sharing her personal posture journey, and are sure that you, our readers, will appreciate it too.

—Esther Gokhale

How I came to the Gokhale Method

I decided to take the course with Esther in person for a few reasons—firstly, I have received emails periodically about her offerings for some years and actually live close to Palo Alto where she is based. Secondly, I have been having some physical challenges recently. Lastly, my 93-year-old mother passed away in December and I felt that, after settling her estate, taking the Foundations course would make good use of some of what I received. I felt, “this is my gift from my mother.” It would make my mother happy to know this is what I’ve done…

Towards the end of my Foundation course, our garden burst forth with abundant, fragrant plumeria flowers. I brought some to Esther for my lesson and she remembered them very fondly as Champa, or frangipani flowers, from growing up in India. Image by Claudia

Improvements despite hip arthritis and osteoporosis 

A few years back I was walking with a friend and my toe somehow got caught in a brick-paved area—I don’t even remember falling, but found myself on the ground. I broke my humerus and radius. I knew I had osteoporosis, and guessed it had gotten worse—my doctor wanted to put me on medication for it, but the more I read the less I wanted to take that route—so I looked into other possibilities. 

If you are prone to tripping, the Gokhale Method Toe Tap exercise will strengthen your tibialis anterior, the shin muscle whose tendon lifts the front of your foot clear of the ground. 

I fell again a couple of years later and didn’t break anything, but I did say to my doctor how stiff my hips were feeling, despite being so active. He advised me to get an X-ray, which confirmed that I had severe hip arthritis. This surprised me as I am very active and used to run marathons—my doctor told me right away that I should get hip replacements. I thought, “I am going to explore every alternative route.” 

I have also been working on my osteoporosis since my first fall, in 2020. Every week I do Osteostrong®, using weight machines that are geared for building your bones, and take a high-quality calcium and strontium supplement. I think these measures, combined with the healthy posture I learned with the Gokhale Method aligning my bones well to respond to gravity on a daily basis, are producing significant results. I recently got my DEXA scan for the last year and my spine bone density improved by 10% and my hip bone density 20.5%, to which my doctor said “Wow!”. 

Early success motivated me to discover glidewalking

My Foundations one-on-one course was six weeks of learning a couple of new posture techniques each week, and working to incorporate these into my daily life. I worked really hard all week between lessons, practicing and rereading the book—I felt very motivated to be prepared for the next week’s lesson as I was having some immediate success. I often found it helpful to look in the mirror to check my posture learning, just to be sure of what I was doing—for example, to see that I was keeping my shoulders rolled back.

Our shoulders are naturally positioned in a posterior position that gives space for the joint, muscles, tendons, blood vessels, and nerves that populate the shoulder girdle. Shoulder rolls can gradually return hunched shoulders to this healthier arrangement. You can learn to shoulder roll with this free video.

Other new things, such as glidewalking, felt like there was almost too much much to think about when I first learned the techniques, but slowly, steadily, my body just adapted. It was wonderful how all the pieces of the glidewalking instruction came together for me.

I work two days a week and I go for a long walk on my lunch break. With this regular practice, I was able to incrementally regain the flow in my walk… I could just keep going, and I no longer had any of the tension in my hip muscles that had crept in. It was like I just floated along. My body relaxed into it and there was a beautiful, primal familiarity: This is how good I used to feel.

Our natural gait pattern is optimal for our entire structure. For Alumni seeking to deepen their experience of glidewalking, the online Advanced Glidewalking course is designed to do just that. The next course starts October 7. 

How the Gokhale Method helps me at my job

For years I had my own lettering design studio, and then eleven years ago I started working for Trader Joe’s as a signwriter, doing the handwritten chalk boards and pricing signs. 

For those of you unfamiliar with Trader Joe’s signs, here is a taste of my artwork. Image by Claudia

My Gokhale Method course helped me a lot, as we often ended up hunched over our work at flat tables. Esther gave me some suggestions which I try to pass on to the many younger people in their twenties working there who are getting back pain. For example, we have brought in some drawing boards to slant back like easels and enable us to work in a more upright posture at the tables.

In bygone eras people would commonly use a slanted surface or easel for writing, drawing, and painting, rather than hunching over. This drawing is from an 1893 technical journal. Image from Wikimedia Commons

For my hips, the hardest thing is sitting for too long and not moving. Esther encouraged me to take movement breaks to stretch out my psoas and hip muscles, so I get up and find things that need doing around the store. I do have a Gokhale™Pain-Free Chair at home, and I wish I had one at work because I love it. The seat angle of this chair situates my hips perfectly and then I can put my behind behind and let the nubs in the back hold my spine just right. It makes my hips and spine very happy!

This video explains how and why the design of the Gokhale® Pain-Free Chair makes it uniquely comfortable—and therapeutic.

I also pay particular attention to my shoulders and my chin when at work. When I first started with Esther, she told me that I walked around with my chin way up, so I have learned to lengthen the back of my neck and keep my chin down now.

Building on my Foundations course

I finished my Foundations course at the end of June. But there were still some things around hip-hinging that needed gelling for me. So I went back August 1st, and am so glad I got the extra help I needed with my hips. Due to my severe hip arthritis Esther realized that I needed to start with a smaller range of motion and plenty of support, so she came up with ideas like me leaning on a table or wall to bend, and was constantly offering alternatives that enabled me to get a feel for where I was heading. 

One of the details Esther noticed was that I held my lower belly in all the time. All my life I had thought that was important; now I know to practice relaxing that area to allow for the alignment I need at the hips. 

Bending deeply happens most easily with the thighs out of the way (externally rotated and wide) and the lower belly relaxed.

Another thing that I needed to experience was the way that kidney bean shaping the feet enabled the rest of the leg to open up and externally rotate, which again changes things in the hip joint. We did that over and over so eventually I got to feel and manifest that difference. I now know so many aspects of  natural posture that will improve my joint health. 

Our foot’s natural kidney-bean shape and outward angle helps to support healthy hip joint architecture.

Healthy posture and what the future holds

I definitely feel I can go further in changing my posture. I have signed up for the Online University—I often do the daily program, and then there is so much more I can access in the video library. I sometimes find there’s something lands that I didn’t get the first time around. At the very least, I’m inspired by the daily reminder email. 

Each day your Gokhale Exercise email tells you what’s on, and gives you a visual reminder of the daily Posture Principle. 

I still regularly refer to Esther’s book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, which has so many layers of interesting information that I’m aware I haven’t yet fully absorbed. I am only at the tip of the iceberg with this beautiful Gokhale Method, but it has already been life-changing. This really is life-long inspiration and learning! 

Best next action steps 

If you would like to start or reboot your healthy posture journey, book a consultation, online or in person, with one of our teachers. 

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

If you are prone to tripping, the Gokhale Method Toe Tap exercise will strengthen your tibialis anterior, the shin muscle whose tendon lifts the front of your foot clear of the ground.

The phrase “it takes a village to raise a child” is thought to originate from an ancient African proverb. 

As I have grown into being a parent, uncle, and beyond, I have realized that this quote extends to any age. I have directly experienced this with my own posture journey—my own family “village” has helped me and others dear to me find a near pain-free life through the Gokhale Method®.

Annoying body pains were affecting my fun in life

In my late thirties, a stream of inflammatory pains permeated my body, including back pain, shoulder pain, knee pain, and—worst of all—plantar fasciitis in my foot. While these weren't absolutely crippling pains, they were painful enough to keep me from enjoying life as I gave up my favorite hobbies—tennis, golf, and playing the piano.

I visited numerous renowned doctors in California. They genuinely tried to help, but nothing resolved my pain. So I began searching for other solutions.

Finding Esther’s book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back

In 2012 I bought Esther’s book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, as it was highly recommended on Amazon. 

 
The book that helped me, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back.

In particular, what caught my attention was how traditional and tribal communities across the globe do not have the level of musculoskeletal pain that we are seeing in modern society. The book explained how their cultures have preserved our natural blueprint for healthy posture over the centuries, while industrialized societies have lost it. 

This made a lot of sense to me, because as an American with Indian heritage, I used to visit India a lot and noticed that many traditional communities there do not have body pains as modern cultures do. There were people in their sixties and seventies doing manual labor regularly without pain.   

As an Indian-American, I visited India often as a child, so I could relate immediately to the images like this one in Esther’s book that showed people with traditional posture performing physically challenging tasks with relative ease.

I then took the Gokhale Method Foundations Course. It took me a couple of months to meaningfully understand the core concepts. And then I felt significant pain relief for the first time in a long time and knew I was onto something. I began playing sports and music again! I was so happy. 

The Gokhale Method Foundations Course helped me stand, walk, sleep, and sit comfortably. Before the course (left)) I would sit with my pelvis tucked, back rounded, shoulders forward, and my neck compressed at the back. During the course I began to change this, learning to antevert my pelvis and stack my spine.

Helping each other out posture-wise

I shared my Gokhale Method story pretty regularly with family and friends. My family—perhaps knowing that I am a rather talkative person—would give me the “ol’ eye roll” when I talked too much about Gokhale posture!

That said, many of my family members nevertheless found the Gokhale principles intriguing. For example, my wife spent much of her childhood in India—and also learned the Bharata Natyam Indian dancing which Esther draws from—all of which gave her good posture and a relatively pain-free life. Equally importantly, it gave her a keen eye for good and bad posture. So she was able to provide excellent feedback to me as I kept trying to improve my posture with the Gokhale Method principles I was learning.

However, my sister Annissa grew up in America, and began experiencing hip and other arm pains as an adult, which was hard for her as she is a keen athlete. She realized that her posture might be the root cause. She learned the Gokhale Method with Esther’s younger daughter, Monisha, and started feeling meaningful relief. She is now a regular participant in Online Alumni Classes, which help her to keep healthy posture on her radar and continue refining it.

My sister Annissa (shown here with her PostureTracker) likes to use her Alumni membership most days—it makes checking in on and refining healthy posture comparatively effortless—and fun!

The next-gen

Interestingly, as my daughter Saya became a teenager, my wife noticed that her posture began to deteriorate. We were concerned that our daughter’s posture would worsen further when she went to college, leading sooner or later to inevitable pain and discomfort. Trying to offer advice and corrections to our daughter just caused a lot of frustration for both of them. 

When our daughter turned 16, we suggested that she learn the Gokhale Method before going to college. For her it was perfect to take the online Elements course. The fact that it was 18 compact 13-minute Zoom sessions worked perfectly for her busy high school life. Her posture markedly improved with Gokhale Method Teacher Kathleen O’Donohue.

We were so encouraged that we also asked our 15 year old niece Riya to take the course. She did the Elements course as well, and her posture improved too! 

Bringing different generations together with the Gokhale PostureTracker

In the last year, my daughter, sister, and I were really intrigued by the PostureTracker™ wearable, which gives real-time feedback on your posture by displaying the feedback from two highly accurate sensors on an app. My daughter and I did the first online Alumni PostureTracker class during the summer before my daughter headed to college. 

My daughter Saya is a young Gokhale Alumna, and has taken her PostureTracker with her to college. She has real-time feedback on her posture wherever she wants it.  

We then bought the PostureTracker (which comes with one-to-one tech assistance) for my sister Annissa’s birthday. She loves it and uses it most days, including in her Alumni Classes. When we all get together, we often have fun correcting each other’s posture and also talking about our PostureTracker experiences.

The village beyond my family

Beyond my family, my “village” extends to the Gokhale Alumni community too. I have truly enjoyed and benefited from the collective curiosity and wisdom of the 1-2-3 Move classes. The teaching and follow-up questions and answers have been so helpful and insightful. I will never forget Gokhale Alumna Mary Walsh’s saying, “Good things come to those who ‘bean-shape’ [their feet],” which really captivated me and continues to help me in my own posture journey.

Here we are on the 1-2-3 Move class sometime in the COVID winter of 2020–21. The online community we forged back then has continued to thrive and be a great resource for everyone on their healthy posture journey. There is a 7-day free trial open to the public. 

Best next action steps for newcomers

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

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

This is our fourth blog post in the series where we put popular home exercises under scrutiny to examine how they stack up—or not—against the principles of healthy posture. In this post we are looking at head rotations/circling, an exercise that is often suggested to ease stiffness and mobilize the neck.

Neck pain—causes and solutions

Although not often considered in physical fitness and exercise regimens, the neck frequently becomes a problematic area for people in our culture. At that point, we look to mobilizing, stretching, and strengthening exercises to alleviate pain and stiffness.   

In traditional cultures the neck remains upright and long. It is capable of carrying the weight of the head and additional loads without injury.

The Gokhale Method point of view is that most of our neck problems arise from poor posture. The head and neck tend to drift forward and downward, causing the muscles at the back of the neck to tighten. We then lift our chins up so we can look out ahead of us. The resulting compression becomes a pain in the neck—or a headache—that we can do without. So how can we best avoid or remedy this?

Shortened, tight muscles at the back of the neck (left) are a common cause of neck pain and tension headaches. Positioning the head and neck correctly eases this compression (right).

Remedies to avoid

Tight, short muscles may well have compressed your cervical (neck) vertebrae, and perhaps caused bone spurs or bulging discs. Be especially careful to avoid exercises which take your head into circling movements. These call for extreme flexion (forward), extension (backward) and lateral bends (side), any of which could pinch your nerves and discs. By circling through these movements in rapid succession, the risk is heightened. Performing head rotations (twists) is also commonly advocated, but if done with poor alignment, head twists can also compress tissues in the neck. 

The cervical spine has seven vertebrae which support the skull. Wikipedia

There are many delicate and vital structures within the neck, including nerves, discs, and arteries (front view). Wikipedia

The right approach

You want the principles of Primal Posture™ to guide your head back where it belongs. Appropriate support from the longus colli and other deep muscles of the neck will give the cervical spine the support it needs to align well. This will encourage your outer neck muscles to relax their grip and be gently stretched. Circulation in the area will also get a boost. 

The longus colli muscles attach to the front of the cervical spine. When they contract (shown in red), they cause the neck to straighten and, therefore, lengthen.

If your neck is inflamed, it will benefit from steady, well-aligned exercise that can help to calm things down. The video clip below shows you a healthy way to lengthen tight muscles on either side of your neck. These movements do not overload your cervical discs, crunch your vertebrae, or impinge your nerves. Note that the exercise includes working at various angles to address different fibers within the same muscle.

A healthy exercise for the neck

This healthy neck stretch is from a recent 1-2-3 Move class for our Alumni.

Your checklist for this exercise is:

• Perch on the front of your chair as shown.
• Elongate your neck. Learn how to do this here.
• Reach one arm across to your opposite ear and pull upward.
• Roll open the opposite shoulder and pull that downward, leaning over sideways as you hold the rim of the chair seat. Learn how to roll your shoulders open here.
• Don’t sway. Use your rib anchor. Learn how to use your rib anchor here.
• Listen to some good music! It takes 20–30 seconds for muscles to relax.
• Stretch different muscle fibers—slowly turn your head toward your armpit.

Healthy musculature allows the neck to stack in a tall, more vertical position with the head over the body, not forward.

Address the root cause of your neck pain

People usually think of their neck and any pain there as a separate issue from what is going on in their backs. From the point of view of a posture teacher, a distortion in any part of the spine will have an effect on all other parts of the spine. 

For example, people sitting or standing at a computer with their heads stuck forward may try to address neck pain locally. But the root of the problem is often in the pelvis. If the pelvis is tucked (i.e., with an imaginary tail between the legs), the spine will be curved over into a C shape. You can read more about spine shape here. In this situation, any local effort to draw the neck back is going to be hard to sustain, tense, and ultimately counterproductive. But by positioning the pelvis well, the neck will have the opportunity to stack well. At this point, local work on the neck is able to provide not only symptomatic relief but can also return your cervical spine closer to its primal, healthy structure.

A C-shaped back stresses the lumbar (lower back) discs and is also bad news for the neck.

Join me for a special new one-hour FREE Online Workshop, Posture Remedies for Text Neck,  November 12, 11 a.m. (Pacific Time), and learn helpful suggestions on how to improve the architecture and health of your neck. 

If you would like an expert one-on-one assessment of your posture, including  your neck alignment, you can arrange an Online Initial Consultation or take an in-person Initial Consultation if you have a Gokhale Method Teacher near you.