body mechanics

If you have had back pain, odds are that you have visited either a physical therapist or a chiropractor. They are the most frequented medical practitioners for all types of structural pain, and our teacher community has been enriched by both these (and many other types of) practitioners. For this post, I have invited Vera Baziuk, a chiropractor and Gokhale Method® teacher based in Edmonton, Canada, to join me for a Q&A. We would like to share with you how she sees the interface between chiropractic and our method. 

Gokhale Method teacher and chiropractor Vera Baziuk.

E: How did you first discover the Gokhale Method?

V: I was researching the best home exercises and stretches for certain patients for back pain relief. I felt that this was a missing component in chiropractic for fully resolving back pain. I stumbled upon an interview with you and Dr. Mercola. What you said in the beginning about the J-spine grabbed my attention. I immediately went to the Gokhale Method website and downloaded your book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back

This was one of those career aha moments, when I know on an inner, deeper level, that something is right and what I need to be doing. I began looking into teacher training in November 2019, however, teacher training was not going to be possible with a three-month-old, and I still needed to take the Foundations course. Then COVID hit.

I took the online Elements course in the spring/summer of 2020, right in the middle of COVID, and waited for the announcement of teacher training. In fall of 2021, I gained in-person experience in a Pop-up class in Palo Alto. That weekend was amazing! I had never felt quite the stretch before as when Esther adjusted my stretchsitting. I shall never forget that initial amazing feeling of lengthening in my erector spinae muscles and ultimately the spine. I wanted everyone I knew to feel how good that felt. If I wasn’t hooked before, I was after that class! 

Gokhale Method teacher Sabina Blumauer guides a student in stretchsitting.

E: Were you initially skeptical about the Gokhale Method?

V: No, I wasn’t. The interview I heard between you and Dr. Mercola made complete sense. The book and Elements made a well-presented argument for the natural J-shape of the spine, supported by analysis of body mechanics, muscle contraction, and relaxation. Hundreds of photos showed how the spine looks when posture is done well in daily activities—and how things look when it is not. It became evident that poor posture was the real culprit to back pain. And that the posture pot of gold is still attainable at any age. 

E: Do you see any divergence between chiropractic and the Gokhale Method? 

V: The main thing I encounter, from fellow health professionals and patients, is confusion about healthy spine shape and pelvic position. 

For example, in conventional trainings, having an anterior pelvic tilt is equated with having an excessive lumbar lordosis. The Gokhale Method makes the important distinction between upper lumbar lordosis (undesirable) and L5-S1 angle (desirable). The Gokhale Method also uses more descriptive and “sticky” language when it comes to spinal shape—instead of talking about lordosis and kyphosis, we refer to J-spines, C-spines, and S-spines; this helps students understand what they need to embody more accurately and easily. This is explained and illustrated in detail in your book, and also addressed in a blog post on spine shape and another on pelvic angle.

E: Has the Gokhale Method complimented your practice as a chiropractor?

V: Incorporating the Gokhale Method into my practice is a natural fit because, ideally, there is an active and passive component to most healing. 

Passive care is when the chiropractor (or therapist) does something to you, like an adjustment, mobilization, TENS, ultrasound, laser, soft tissue therapy, or acupuncture. While these modalities can be effective in providing relief from pain, they often do not solve the root cause of the problem. Unfortunately, perhaps due to persuasive marketing, people often expect entirely passive solutions for their back pain. They begin to believe that a magic bullet for back pain relief exists.

Here I am giving a patient a chiropractic adjustment. This is an example of passive care, using diagnostic skills and clinical knowledge, plus hands on techniques, to effect change.

Active care consists of therapists providing tools to their patients/clients that they can use in their day-to-day lives to help them in recovery. These may be cryotherapy or heat, exercises to strengthen muscles and stretches to lengthen muscles, nutritional advice to improve healing, stress management tips, and general physical fitness recommendations. This active care component is critical in creating lasting, functional changes.

The Gokhale Method provides high quality active care. It is an educational intervention that teaches and empowers people to make gentle changes to their body 24/7, often with both immediate and cumulative benefits. I don’t know of any other intervention that does this so comprehensively and also includes the J-spine paradigm. 

E: So you see the Gokhale Method and chiropractic as working together? 

V: Yes, absolutely. The Gokhale Method helps chiropractic adjustments hold more effectively and chiropractic adjustments give people a welcome jumpstart on feeling better. 

Most people who come for chiropractic treatment have sustained a lot of damage over the years in their muscles, tendons, ligaments, discs, and joints, so experiencing a break from their cycle of pain is very welcome. But partial or repeated short-term relief from pain is ultimately unsatisfying, both for the patient and practitioner. The Gokhale Method offers ways of transforming the postural habits that caused the problem in the first place. I find that, given most people’s starting point, a combination approach restores function, gives long term relief, and improves comfort along the way. 

My Gokhale Method students find learning how to rest and sleep in comfortable, therapeutic positions makes an invaluable contribution to their recovery. Here I am teaching stretchlying.

E: What impact has the Gokhale Method had on your thinking about chiropractic? 

V: I feel like my eyes have finally opened. For example, revisiting my textbooks, I noticed that references to posture are minimal and often an afterthought. Dr. David Magee is a well-respected physiotherapist who has written numerous classic orthopedic and physical examination books that both chiropractors and physiotherapists still learn from today. I began to wonder why, in one of his books, Posture Assessment is Chapter 15 of 17? It should be Chapter 1! Nearly all musculoskeletal conditions are a direct result of poor posture. 

E: Do you discuss the subject of posture with your patients?

V: I now see my patients’ complaints through the Gokhale lens, with posture as the starting point. Looking at someone in the past, I could see their posture was not ideal, but I still dealt with their presenting complaint in parts, not as a whole. For the past year, I have switched my filter and now consider all musculoskeletal pain in relation to posture. 

When speaking to patients for the first time, I begin to paint the picture of what healthy posture looks like and how their current posture compares. We then explore options to solve the problem with some immediate pain relief solutions and a longer-term relief and prevention strategy—the Gokhale Method. 

Teaching my Gokhale Method students healthy bending not only enables them to avoid future back pain flare-ups and protect against damage, it also brings many other biomechanical benefits—such as natural length in the hamstrings and improved hip joint mobility.

For existing patients, I periodically offer observations on how their current posture is very likely contributing to a flare up or increase of pain from their last appointment. Many wholeheartedly welcome hearing more about the Gokhale Method.

E: Can you share a specific case where the Gokhale Method has enhanced the outcome for a patient?

V: In September of 2023, I met Kay Chui Lee, who is happy to share his journey. He was referred by a massage therapist, and presented wearing a cervical collar for an acquired torticollis (neck twist to one side). His posture was a significant C-shaped spine, with a very tucked pelvis and his hips parked forward. His erector spinae were perhaps the tightest I have ever felt. In addition, he had tight sternocleidomastoid, scalene, levator scapulae, and trapezius muscles. His gluteal muscular tone was weak. 

Kay Lee started as a chiropractic patient, and, to best serve his needs, I also encouraged him to enroll in the Gokhale Foundations course. He stopped wearing his cervical collar about halfway through the course. After the course, his neck and head rotation to the right had improved and there were times when Kay was able to look straight ahead. 

A combination of the Gokhale Method and chiropractic treatment is enabling Kay Lee to gradually become more upright. His head and neck are returning to a more natural, comfortable, and symmetric alignment. 

He walks daily, practicing what he learnt in glidewalking, and reports doing so without the fatigue he used to feel after a walk. He sleeps better and can manage his day with greater comfort. The texture in his erector spinae muscles is softening and he reports less pain with muscle work. To date, Kay continues with chiropractic treatment and there are ongoing improvements. I am hopeful that with alumni classes, online or in-person, he will continue to improve.

E: Thanks, Vera, for sharing how you are using chiropractic alongside the Gokhale Method. I am sure your insights will help both our students, and chiropractors and their patients, to embrace this complementary pairing with a new level of confidence.

Best next action steps 

If you would like to improve your posture, get started by booking a consultation, online or in person, with one of our teachers. 

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This Thanksgiving I would like to honor two people who profoundly influenced the development of the Gokhale Method®.

Thanksgiving is a time to acknowledge those who lit your way. Image: Unsplash

Noëlle Perez-Christiaens (1925–2019) was my most important influence on this path, and my gateway to inputs from the eminent yoga teacher B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014), the French anatomist André Dalmas (1910–1999), and their numerous discoveries. Noëlle was a beautician by background, who developed an avid interest in yoga. This passion took her to India and B.K.S. Iyengar, where she had the good fortune to be one of Iyengar’s early students at a time when he had as few as four pupils gathered together in his living room for lessons. Later, Noëlle also had access to Iyengar’s medical yoga clinic. 

Noëlle studying with Iyengar in his home.

Noëlle was a witness to Iyengar’s process and absorbed numerous lessons from him that got passed down to her students. Many of these have found their way into the Gokhale Method:

   1. Copying the body mechanics of functional people 

With great insight, Iyengar told his students to “Walk behind the women in the Indian marketplace, and when your shadow looks like theirs you will have learned something.” The idea of mimicking the movement patterns of people in nonindustrial cultures fueled many of Noëlle’s discoveries and was a key part of my training. This kind of anthropological-visual mimicry makes its way into just about every class, article, and offering of the Gokhale Method. Based on our scientific understanding of the human visual cortex being very large and developed (this is reflected in the folk wisdom of “a picture is worth a 1,000 words”), our offerings rarely miss an opportunity to use photographs, video clips, or artwork to amplify the movement principles being taught. 

A young woman walks through a marketplace, casting her distinctive shadow. Odisha, India.

2. Using props and innovating 

Iyengar was the first yogi I know of to improvise using simple household props to better aid his students to achieve the shapes and poses he taught. He did this reluctantly because Indian culture values following tradition far more than improvisation (this has changed in recent years). But when his foreign students could not do what he wanted them to do, no matter how much he cajoled, exhorted, and ridiculed them (it’s a well-known joke that BKS stands for “bite, kick, shout”), he resorted to using blocks, ropes, towels, chairs, and whatnot to help the right things happen. In the West, we would regard his inventiveness as part of his genius, but he did these things almost apologetically. 

Iyengar Yoga can use extensive props, as in this version of Vasisthasana, or side plank pose. (Senior Iyengar Yogi, Eyal Shifroni). Image: Wikimedia

Noëlle was similarly inventive and improvisational. I remember being very impressed when, during a private session in Portugal where I was her translator, she gathered up some fallen blossoms and clumped them together to form makeshift metatarsal arch supports. Using props and tools to help students learn better/quicker/deeper plays a big role in the Gokhale Method. Thanks to modern tech, our learning aids include wearables ( SpineTracker™ and PostureTracker™), but we have also developed simpler props like rollers, cushions, wedges, and chairs.

Gokhale Method teacher Clare Chapman helps a student to find healthy vertical alignment with a tall neck by using the Gokhale® Head Cushion. 

3. The need for traction in the spine 

Iyengar’s studio ended up having ropes and swings all over the place. My father, who suffered from sciatic pain, and who was introduced to Iyengar’s studio by my mother, was invariably sent to hang upside down from one of the yoga swings at the start of his lessons. Iyengar also used edges, surfaces, ropes, or plain old hands and feet to get students’ spines to relinquish some of their unhealthy compression. Noëlle’s genius was to incorporate these techniques into everyday life activities, for example, sleeping. 

In the Gokhale Method, almost every student’s journey begins with traction. The two low-hanging juicy fruit techniques of stretchsitting and stretchlying are perfect starting points on any student’s journey. To facilitate stretchsitting, I invented the Stretchsit® Cushion and the Gokhale® Pain-Free Chair. Stretchlying doesn’t require props other than household pillows. By beginning with these two techniques, students often get relief from compression-related pain as early as Day 1, are better prepared to learn other techniques, and avoid flare-ups along the way. 

Gokhale Method teacher Sabina Blumauer guides a student preparing to stretchsit against a backrest with a Stretchsit® Cushion.

Though Iyengar and Noëlle were both opposed to systematizing and formalizing any of their teachings, I have discovered that for beginner students with back pain, it’s critical to precede any reshaping of the spine with gentle, sustained traction; otherwise one risks herniating a disc, pinching a spinal nerve, or triggering back spasms. 

4. Modern Westerners need support to sit

An Indian in a traditional household eats all their meals sitting cross-legged unaided on the floor. It works if you grew up with it. It doesn’t work for people who grew up sitting at dining tables and using raised toilets. I’ve discussed the anatomic and developmental reasons for this elsewhere but Iyengar approached the problem empirically. When he saw his Western students struggling to sit upright, he came up with blocks on the floor and blanket-wedges on chairs. These simple solutions worked. 

Geeta Iyengar, Iyengar’s eldest daughter, sitting on an improvised wedge of folded blankets. Image: thepracticeroom.in

I tried to come up with a more elegant and universal solution for years. It was, ironically, easier to build a wedge into the chair I designed than to come up with a free-standing wedge. The chair was designed a decade ago; the wedge only came into being this year. 

The Gokhale® Wedge offers a portable and elegant way to enable relaxed, upright sitting.

5. Using the breath to lengthen the torso

Pranayama is a branch of yoga that teaches numerous breathing techniques to address a variety of physical and mental states. Iyengar considered it an advanced practice and beginners were not introduced to pranayama techniques until they were well-advanced in their hatha yoga (asana/yoga pose) practice.

Pranayama, as taught by Iyengar, and here by his eldest daughter, Geeta, is a complex and deep practice. Dr Geeta Iyengar - How to Sit in Pranayama

Noelle brought the key technique of using the breath to lengthen the back into the basics of her Aplomb® teachings, using it both as a way of relaxing muscles and testing alignment. I have found this technique invaluable in myself and for teaching. 

When the pelvis has healthy anteversion, the spine can stack well and be upright without tension. The relaxation of the erector spinae muscles allows the spine to lengthen with each breath. This breathing motion is highly therapeutic, improving circulation, mobility, and healing throughout the torso. 

Many of our teachers have backgrounds in yoga and other traditions that include instruction in breathing. Our teacher community is in active discussion about how to bring additional insights about breathing into our offerings, using our signature filters of simplicity, science, history, and anthropology.

6. Never give up on a student 

Iyengar was dogged in helping students make changes. He and Noëlle were extremely skilled in making seemingly magical things happen for pupils. They both used a carrot and stick approach; I prefer only carrots, but carry a similar, deep-seated conviction that a whole lot is possible with the right approach, techniques, language, and inspiration.

I'm immensely grateful for the teachings of Noëlle Perez and B.K.S. Iyengar at the beginning of my journey—they helped me leave my crippling back pain behind, and they inspired and shaped the Gokhale Method. There’s still a long journey ahead towards wider accessibility, more evidence-based research, and mainstream acceptance, but thanks to the head start provided by Noëlle’s and Iyengar’s contributions, I believe we are within reach of a solution for a problem that plagues far too many of us in the modern world. 

Best next action steps for newcomers

If you would like to know which posture changes will help you be pain-free and functional, schedule an Initial Consultation, online, or in person.

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