Sami

I came home from my visit with the Sami with a treasured possession, my new Sami knife and sheath. I had commissioned my student and friend, Fredrik Prost, a Sami handicraftsman, to make a knife for me and he had it ready for me on my arrival in Sweden. 

My traditional Sami knife and sheath created by Fredrik Prost

Fredrik encouraged me to put it into use right away when we cut birch branches to make our “mattresses" in the lavoo (traditional tepee). I would have balked at using a thing so fine and beautiful for an activity so rough and pedestrian, but he insisted - the knife was made to be a working knife. Since my return to California, the knife has harvested okra and zucchini from my garden, trimmed apples from our tree, and cut thin slices of the dried reindeer meat Fredrik sent me home with. 

In addition to being useful, the knife uplifts me in other ways. It is easy to be present in the moment when I work with it because its beauty is so compelling. I experience the specialness of cutting a vegetable, of caring for its blade, of putting it back in its sheath. 

Cutting homegrown tomatoes and mushrooms with my Sami knife

I’ve always believed in celebrating the sacredness of everyday life, but using a beautiful object makes this easy. The knife also helps me feel connected to its maker, to the culture that created it, and to hunter gatherers, past and present. Because it is exquisite, because it has such great design (down to a little hole in the sheath for liquids to escape from), and because it represents the cultures I have learnt posture from, it inspires me to up my posture game when I handle it.

Hiphinging to cut okra with shoulders back and neck elongated

It reminds me to roll my shoulders back, to anchor my rib cage, to lengthen my neck and back, to put just a little extra muscle into my movements. It has become my teacher.  

Posture and beauty are deeply intertwined. Maintaining healthy posture is one of the surest ways to retain the natural dignity, elegance, and beauty that is our heritage. I teach my students to think of their bodies as their most important art project - this “art project” is shared every day with those around us.

Young Woman Before a Mirror, William Merritt Chase, circa 1900

Not only do people around us see us constantly, but also - whether they know it or not, whether they want it or not - they are mimicking us on a second to second basis in small, almost imperceptible ways. Sometimes I quip with my students that vanity is underrated.

Baby showing no hesitation in checking himself out in the mirror

Celebrate your beauty - beam it out! And if beautiful objects lift you, then include them in your life. Do you have a beautiful object that gives you a boost? Please tell us about it...

Warmly,
Esther

Join us in an upcoming Free Workshop (online or in person).  

Find a Foundations Course in your area to get the full training on the Gokhale Method!  

We also offer in person or online Initial Consultations with any of our qualified Gokhale Method teachers.

This month I traveled to Northern Sweden and joined my friend Fredrik Prost's community for the annual marking of their reindeer calves. It was an amazing experience I will never forget.

Annual marking of reindeer calves in Samiland, July 2015

Though the Sami have given up many of their traditional ways, many persist and in the coming months, I will share aspects I found inspiring or educational.

Fredrik finishing working on his new knife. More of his work here.
Notice the inclusion of our Stretchsit cushion alongside some other basics from the modern world!

Traditional Sami housing is a tepee or lavoo, with long birch poles forming the main structure (these used to be transported from place to place by domesticated reindeer), and stitched reindeer skin providing the cover. The top of the lavoo is open to let smoke from a fire escape.

A Sami family in Norway around 1900

Today most Sami live in regular houses or cabins with varying degrees of modern facilities. Fredrik owns a summer cabin in a village inhabited by his paternal relatives; we visited a village inhabited by his maternal relatives where he does not own a cabin. We stayed in a traditional lavoo though we still had many modern conveniences with us.

Soon after arriving at the village (after a five-hour trek that was a good reminder for me to up my game in fitness and strength!), we cut young birch branches to create a floor. I used my newly acquired knife that I had commissioned Fredrik to make for me.

Fredrik (and I, not visible) cutting small birch branches to create a traditional mattress.
Notice the great hip-hinging (that pre-dates my teaching him good posture)

The birch branches help elevate you off the cold ground (this is the Arctic, where the ground remains cold all year round) and away from the gap at the lower border of the tepee. They are also supposed to soften the surface you are sleeping on but I can’t say I noticed that effect very much! 

The birch branches arranged in the traditional fashion on either side
of the central area which includes the kitchen, fireplace, and entryway (not visible)

We had carried in thin foam pads that went on top of the birch branches which were then topped off with reindeer hides from one of Fredrik’s cousins. His cousin Monica also lent me a rakas (this means “love” referring to the privacy it affords you in a communal tepee).

The rakas, suspended from the tepee poles, provides protection from mosquitoes and 24-hour daylight.
It also offers privacy in a communal tepee.

This is so much better than the miserable mosquito net I had brought along from REI - it blocks out mosquitoes very effectively (thank goodness!) and light (foreigners who stay in the Arctic longterm report having much more trouble with 24 hours of daylight than 24 hours of dark in the winter). My cocoon's space under my rakas served as refuge and a place where I could read Alexander Hamilton (highly recommended and a wonderful balance for my otherworldly experience).

The view from inside my cocoon under the rakas.
It was good to discover that mosquitoes are not good at navigating gaps
at the bottom of the cover though they'll find any hole higher up. 

It can be challenging to sleep on the ground, especially when some parts of you stick out (like my hips or some mens’ shoulders), or when your joints have been recently challenged (as mine were from carrying a heavier backpack than I ever have and trekking through swampland with heavy knee-high rubber boots). There’s not much give in reindeer hide and birch branches, and your spine and other joints are forced into some degree of distortion. This need not cause problems if your baseline spinal length is long and your joints are calm, but this July I was much happier to sleep the way much of the world sleeps - with a three quarter turn in my torso, one knee bent and the other straight, one forearm providing for a second pillow and the other helping keep my shoulder from collapsing forward. Ahhh - I had some comfortable long sleeps in Samiland...

Turning the torso as one unit, as shown above,
allows for comfortable sleep on hard surfaces

I’ve known theoretically that it’s important to periodically check out from one’s usual scene, but it’s only when I actually do it that I fully realize just how important it is. For the first week of July, I had nothing much firing between my ears - no thoughts of things to do, no urgent insights, no place I needed to go or people I needed to see. I just experienced life similarly to how the Sami do.

Fredrik's cousin Ulf, a full time reindeer herder, checking the weather
and resting between stints of reindeer herding

I visited neighboring cabins, went to the sauna and the ice cold lake after, joined the community in the reindeer marking (more about that later), made fires and cooked food, lay around a lot, went for a walk...

Warmly,
Esther

Join us in an upcoming Free Workshop (online or in person).  

Find a Foundations Course in your area to get the full training on the Gokhale Method!  

We also offer in person or online Initial Consultations with any of our qualified Gokhale Method teachers.

Fredrik Prost’s journey in posture is a poignant one. Restoring one’s natural architecture is a return home for anyone - a return to one’s personal past, ancestral past, and genetic past. For Fredrik, it’s additionally a return to his living Sami relatives and those alive in his memory.

Fredrik's late father, Sigurd, on Lake Vettasjarvi in the very north of Sweden.

The Sami are an indigenous group of reindeer herders living in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.

The Sami use sleds, dogs, and snowmobiles to herd their reindeer

Fredrik is a traditional Sami handicraftsman working with reindeer antler, metal, and wood.

Fredrik Prost, traditional Sami handicraftsman

Engraved knife + sheath made from antler, metal

Being of a younger generation and between a traditional lifestyle and a modern one, his working posture included hunching over his work. As a result he had developed upper back pain for which conservative treatment failed to give him relief. He discovered my book, and the pictures and philosophy resonated for him - I was describing things he had seen with his own eyes. So he traveled from his home and workshop in Kiruna, Northern Sweden to attend my June 2014 Gokhale Method Foundations course in Bonn, Germany. 

Fredrik was an unusual student - he hip-hinges naturally, his pelvis anteverts, and he has a quiet dignity about him.  

During the breaks between classes he shared an anthropology book with me that showed photographs of his grandparents and grand uncles, tallstanding with open chests, hip-hinging with flat backs, and emanating the self-possession and poise that is so characteristic of indigenous people.

Fredrik's great grandmother Inga-Marja Seva with his grandmother

The baby on the right is Fredrik's mother, Ingrid

I was fascinated and we kept in touch through regular Skype meetings. I asked questions about his family, community and the Sami people, getting more intrigued in every conversation. I learned about the kind of tepee his mother was born and raised in (in temperatures that dropped below -55 degrees F), what part of a reindeer’s fur is warmest, how he forges steel for his carved knives, how the Sami dogs know that to attack a human would be their last mistake,... Sensing my interest, Fredrik asked if I would like to visit their community for the marking of the reindeer calves in July (joining a moose hunt in the Fall or counting the calves in the winter might be a tough entry into the culture, he reckoned). And so it has come to be… this summer I will travel to Sapmiland in Northern Sweden for this adventure. 

Fredrik's great grandparents Itsa and Susanna Prost

I have several goals for this visit. Of course, I will learn about traditional body ways and movement. I also hope to taste what it means to be rooted in nature, to yoik (traditional singing/chanting) the wind and be the wind,

Note added July 29,2015: Fredrik informed me that videos of this type, created by the Finnish government to promote the tourist industry, is not authentic and is, understandably, problematic for the Sami. 

and to live communally without ownership of the land. I want to see and experience what it means when logging companies and mining interests threaten one’s livelihood.

And I would like to figure out how best I can give back to this and other communities from whom I have gotten so much. These people hold alive a treasure for those of us in more modern settings - I know this to be true for musculoskeletal health; I suspect it is also true for other aspects of life. 

I will keep you posted as this unfolds. 

In a couple of weeks Fredrik departs for Jokkmokk, the Sami winter market held annually since 1605. He will be displaying his art. 

Here is a link to his website for those of you who are interested.

Box (birch and reindeer antler)

Best,

Esther

Join us in an upcoming Free Workshop (online or in person).  

Find a Foundations Course in your area to get the full training on the Gokhale Method!  

We also offer in person or online Initial Consultations with any of our qualified Gokhale Method teachers.