traditional societies

Welcome to the second blog post in which I am delighted to tell you more about our exciting recent TV project. If you missed it, you can read The Secrets of Pain-Free Sitting, Part 1: The Inspiration behind a New TV Show here.

Getting the Gokhale Method out there

People are sitting poorly and continue to blame sitting for their back pain. And so we created Secrets to Pain-Free Sitting, a pledge show that the Gokhale Institute made with producer Frank Zamacona for American Public Television (APT). The solution to back pain has never been so urgently needed—and now, with our new 45-minute show, so available. 

Here I am with the stars of the show! We are, from left to right, Susan Van Niekerk, Esther Gokhale,
Dennis Bennet, and Eric Fernandez. Go team! 

We have a high prevalence of back pain in our culture and a low level of effective solutions. The Gokhale Institute’s mission “to make back pain rare” through postural reeducation has been embraced by “early adopters” and those for whom our anthropological and historical approach to ending back pain resonates. 

The Gokhale Method teaches the posture principles you see in antique photographs and artworks, in children, and in traditional societies, where healthy posture has been handed down uninterrupted through generations. 

Our students are wonderful ambassadors, and are often keen to share their success stories with friends, family, and particularly generously, via our blog posts and testimonials. However, making our message super-accessible, and getting the word out far and wide, has been a challenge for a small company such as ours. 

My book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, which continues to be in demand in 12 languages, and also the DVD, Back Pain: The Primal Posture™ Solution, have certainly been key ways for many people to encounter and learn the Gokhale Method®. Yet to make it easier for people to discover our approach, and to see what it can do for them, we wanted to make our solution to back pain available in every American home. This goal became a reality when our pledge program was picked up by APT, who saw that its content was of increasing relevance to the public.

A place to make the show 

For some time the show felt a long way from happening, as we tried and failed on landing a suitable location for filming, this being made much more challenging by COVID. Eventually I made an appeal on a local social media platform. I was delighted when I was contacted by the owners of a beautiful and spacious home on Skyline Boulevard, nestled in the hills of Woodside, CA.

The stunning venue we were offered enabled the project to become a reality. It was an inspirational setting for everyone involved. 

Readying our venue for filming required a surprising amount of work, both inside and out. Control of the light levels inside was essential, and so some blackouts had to be erected over the windows of the room where we were filming.

Controlling the light levels by rigging blackouts was another physical task for the TV crew.

Our hosts were gracious and generous. Their home worked as a venue on so many levels, and not just for us, but for the family too. They homeschool their kids, some of whom watched the show take shape in real time, learning about film making and about posture simultaneously. It also turned out that one of their daughters had amazing posture (possibly the subject of an upcoming blog post!) 

Whatever job you do, posture can hurt or heal

Our very first feedback about the show came from the people engaged in producing and shooting it. The TV crew were pleased, indeed grateful, to have learned this information about sitting. They had various issues with their posture and were surprised and delighted to find this assignment so relevant to the professional demands on them. Dan Friedman, the cameraman, emailed Susan, my personal assistant, saying, “BTW, the lessons came in VERY handy with transcontinental flights and a TON of sitting around chatting with family. So simple, so therapeutic. Now to stacksit and stretchsit my way through the edit!

As you can see, some of the TV crew’s tasks are physically challenging, especially to sustain for longer periods. Here, Jermaine Battle holds a heavy boom pole.

The boom operator shown in the photo above models an excellent example of stacksitting adapted to a physically challenging situation. Jermaine sits with a wide stance, his feet and legs externally rotated, astride the ladder in a well balanced position. He holds the boom close to his body with his shoulders back so that its weight is held by the larger muscles of his arms and upper back, supported by his spine and inner corset—it does not pull him into a swayed backward or a rounded forward position. Meanwhile, his neck remains tall, adding to his poise. 

Even in this hi-tech age, I was struck by the physical bulk of the equipment needed in the making of this, production-wise, relatively modest undertaking—ladders, boxes, lights, tripods, and what seemed like miles of heavy electric cables. 

Here is a glimpse of just some of the equipment that had to be carried to, assembled, and moved around the set. 

Make-up artist Jenny Zielon arrived on set with heavy cases full of the tools of her trade. Her job involved a lot of lifting, carrying, and standing, as well as fine control and expertise with the make up.

Producer Frank Zamacona and I discuss the next segment that the filming schedule will jump to…
You can see my teleprompter beside Frank. 

New experiences along the way

One completely new experience for me was using a teleprompter. Previously when teaching and presenting, even for the DVD, I had always worked from memory. But my friend and Indian classical violinist, Kala Ramnath, had shared with me how much easier it had been to work with a teleprompter for the instructional videos on her website. (where you can also enjoy her wonderful playing!) Frank was agreeable to letting me use a teleprompter for this shoot and it was indeed painless by comparison with memorizing a show’s worth of content.  

How to stretchsit in a car

I would like to share with you a short but extremely practical tip from the show. It explains why sitting in a car can be especially bad for your back, and how to rectify it—in fact, how to change your seat into a therapeutic posture tool to help you become pain-free. 

In this excerpt from the show Gokhale Method teacher Eric Fernandez shows how to make car seats comfortable and healthy for your back.

How to watch Secrets to Pain-Free Sitting

Hopefully that clip has whet your appetite for more! The pledge program is aired seasonally—the first round was aired on 32 networks from June, with over 125 broadcasts. There are still some broadcasts to come this month, and we expect more in Aug/Sept and Nov/Dec. You can find dates already scheduled here. To request for Secrets to Pain-Free Sitting to be shown in your area, you can email your local PBS Station Programming Department. If you need help finding the contact details for local stations, you can find them here. We hope you will enjoy watching the show and recommend it to your friends and family. 

To complement the TV show, we are offering a special online workshop on July 24, where you will be coached in 5 Top Tips for Sitting Well. In this bespoke workshop a Gokhale Method teacher will be helping me to give you personal attention and answer your questions.

If you would like to get started on your posture journey right now, consider scheduling an Initial Consultation, online or in person, with a Gokhale Method teacher.

Our Free Online Workshop program continues as usual:

People are sitting poorly and continue to blame sitting for their back pain. We believe the solution to this problem is more urgently needed than ever… and that the solution is now more readily available than ever, given one of the Gokhale Institute’s recent projects. I am excited to tell you about The Secrets to Pain-Free Sitting, a pledge show we made with producer Frank Zamacona for American Public Television (APT). 

The Secrets to Pain-Free Sitting TV show teaches techniques to sit comfortably, including using your backrest to give gentle traction to the spine. Here I am helping Susan van Niekerk, a key member of our admin team, to stretchsit. 

Gokhale Method teacher Eric Fernandez enjoys a reclined version of the highly therapeutic stretchsitting technique. 

Sitting has become a problem

In recent years people have become confused about and even afraid of sitting. Sitting is considered problematic in our society, both because it is associated with an unhealthy level of inactivity, and because it is generally done with poor posture, leading to discomfort and pain. 

In recent decades a range of books and audiobooks have given the impression that sitting is the enemy of movement. In truth, both are important and both need to be done well. 

Inactivity has been baked into aspects of our culture for many decades, caused by various factors including long hours of desk work, the design of our environment, and car use. I have long advocated frequent exercise breaks from sedentary work, as well as active recreation. We recently started Gokhale Exercise as a contribution to positive change in this area, and it’s already helping our Alumni community to get fitter, stronger, and more flexible while they continue to improve their posture. By learning good form while exercising, they are also reducing their risk of injury and wear and tear.

The pain and discomfort that many people experience when seated for any period of time understandably gives sitting a bad reputation. Given that the mission of the Gokhale Institute is “to make back pain rare,” should we be discouraging people from sitting? I don’t believe so. 

I prefer to celebrate the fact that sitting is a natural, universal, and important human activity. I would go so far as to say human civilization requires it. There are many tasks that benefit from the rest, stillness, and mental focus afforded by sitting. Imagine nursing a baby, playing the piano, writing a book, creating pottery, watching a movie, eating a meal, or taking a flight, without being able to sit!

Sitting has enabled human civilization to develop all manner of skills, talents, and ideas. Unsplash(bottom image)

The Gokhale Method® approach to preventing and healing back pain is based on observing traditional societies around the world where people report very low levels of back pain and few other musculoskeletal problems. People in these traditional societies have maintained healthy posture and also sit as part of their daily lives, sometimes for long periods doing crafts or preparing food. And they sit on all kinds of seats, not only on the floor or squatting. The key is that they sit well.

People in different traditional societies all over the world share the ability to sit well. Here you see people in Africa, Thailand, and India.

Gokhale Method students learn these natural posture principles, plus the techniques they need to implement them. They discover healthy ways to go about their daily tasks, work, sports, hobbies, and even sleep positions. This process builds strength and resilience in the body, minimizing compression, tension, and degeneration. 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been reports of and also research into an increase in back pain¹. There are likely several reasons for this increase which are related to sitting poorly. Many people switched to working from home, hunching over laptops, rather than using their usual office workstations. There was also much more remote working in general as, where possible, activities that had been done in-person switched to online platforms. For example, the Gokhale Method, in addition to teaching in-person Foundations and Pop-up courses, developed our online Elements course. 

This graph shows an increased number of tweets in the US about back pain in November 2020, during the pandemic, as against the lower number of such tweets the year before.¹ www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Years of experience assure me that not only can sitting be pain free, but that it can be done in ways that are positively therapeutic for the back and spine. This knowledge is exactly what we want to take into the American home with our 45-minute show. Below is a trailer to whet your appetite!

Enjoy this short preview of what’s in store with our Secrets to Pain-Free Sitting TV show.

The network uptake for Secrets to Pain-Free Sitting has already exceeded expectations. The show began airing on June 2, 2022, and as I write this, 32 networks have already screened the show. You can find the air dates for Secrets to Pain-Free Sitting in your area here. Should you need to request for it to be shown in your area, you can email APT at [email protected]. We hope you will enjoy watching it and recommend it to your friends and family. 

To complement the TV show, we are offering a number of special online workshops where you will be coached in 5 Top Tips for Sitting Well. In these bespoke workshops Gokhale Method teachers will be helping me to give you personal attention and answer your questions. I look forward to seeing you there! 

References:

¹ Krzysztof Fiok et al. “A Study of the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Experience of Back Pain Reported on Twitter ® in the United States: A Natural Language Processing Approach.” Int J Environ Res Public Health. May 2021; 18(9): 4543. PubMed (Apr 25 2021) doi: 10.3390/ijerph18094543

Our Free Online Workshop program continues as usual: