inner corset

In May I spent two weeks in Mumbai, on the west coast of India. To a newcomer it can be overwhelming, being a megacity of over 12 million people; I hold a deeply personal connection and affection for this place where I grew up. I was in Mumbai on holiday, but I didn’t break my habit of over three decades of taking some candid photos and videos of what I observed around me. Nothing newsworthy or touristic—just snatches of daily life here and there. Whereas seeing healthy posture has become rare in the US, it is still an everyday encounter in India, and that has inspired me to record it and share.

I came upon the Gokhale Method® very much by chance. Years ago I worked with a pianist named Sheila Page who was trained in a technique which was founded by the American music teacher Dorothy Taubman. Taubman observed people with high levels of playing ability, found out what they did so well, codified it into a method and taught it. At a Taubman workshop I heard of Peter Egoscue, who had devised a therapeutic exercise program; I worked from his book when I hurt in places, and had some improvement with that. Doing further research for pain relief, I then encountered Esther Gokhale’s name. Not too long after, my son and I drove together to attend a one-day Immersion course Esther was teaching in Boulder, Colorado.

Over the decades that our students have gotten out of pain by learning the Gokhale Method®, it has become clear that healthy glutes are essential in this. Well-functioning glutes hold the key to unlocking many poor postural habits, and contribute to better biomechanics and movement. Good glute function will often solve pain and enable healing in apparently unconnected areas of the body. Let’s take a look at some of the common, and sometimes surprising, aches and pains that respond to our glute training…

In our culture a loss of up to 50% of the height of the discs as we age from our twenties to our fifties is considered normal. It follows that the herniations, nerve pain, and arthritic change that accompanies this chronic degeneration of our discs is also not seen as unusual. Pain and reduced ability to function is normalized.

For many people, their first encounter with back pain is when they become parents. That was certainly true in my case, although, to be factually correct, I was a mom-to-be in the ninth month of my first pregnancy when a herniated disc brought me, literally, to my knees.

Some years ago I had a student who had difficulty engaging his glutes and leaving his back heel down while walking. I had guided him through my usual toolbox of techniques and principles, but this piece still stubbornly failed to land. All of a sudden something dawned on him, and he exclaimed, “Oh, it’s a jaunty walk!” and proceeded to do exactly what I had been trying to teach him with an additional spring in his step.

Vacation time is in full swing in the northern hemisphere. For many of us, being beachside or poolside gets us yearning for a dip, a splash, and a swim. And I’m guessing that many of us have been mesmerized and inspired by watching the Olympic pool athletes in action.

It is not uncommon for students to show up at our courses aware they have lost several inches of height since their youth. In our culture it is a widely held expectation that you grow up, and then, at some point in later life, start getting shorter again. We all see friends, neighbors, or family members who are on the downward run of this trajectory, and it is virtually common lore that you will “shrink” or stoop in later years.

Choose your remedies carefully There are many approaches to stretching tight back muscles that involve rounding the back. Though these exercises give temporary relief, we recommend against them because they threaten the spinal discs, nerves, and ligaments. They can also result in the back muscles contracting even more tightly to stabilize the area. 

Podcasts are one of my favorite media. It’s hard to reimagine a time when you couldn’t take your pick and enjoy their entertaining and compelling content. Over the years I have been invited to be interviewed for many podcasts about the Gokhale Method®, and for this blog post I would like to introduce you to three of my favorites, which I hope you will now enjoy if you haven’t done so already.