Gokhale Method teacher

Gokhale Method teacher Kathleen O’Donohue worked for many years as a Physician Assistant and headed an organization helping seniors age in place.

Who knew that learning to walk well could change the course of one’s life — even in one’s 60s? I was inspired to teach the Gokhale Method after experiencing welcome relief from chronic hip pain by learning how to glidewalk. 

"The Gokhale Method: No More Aches and Pains" was the title of the flyer that I grabbed as I exited my mother’s appointment with a Neurologist M.D. “Why have I never heard of this?” I asked as I explored the website later that day. After a deep review of online material, I purchased Esther Gokhale’s book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, and a Stretchsit® Cushion. I did not have back pain at that point, but I had a lifelong habit of learning about health and well-being.

What led me to learn the Gokhale Method for myself
My hip had bothered me since a miles-long walk in my late 20s, after a car break-down, though it wasn’t severe until later on. While in my early 30s, I had experienced severe back pain after doing new workouts on machines at the gym. I had horrid back spasms requiring bed rest, with spasms and back pain for at least 6 weeks. Standing was the best posture to avoid this pain, or sitting upright on the edge of a chair (at the time, I didn't know why this worked or that it approximated stacksitting).

Fast forward to the day I picked up that fateful Gokhale Method flyer in my mom’s doctor’s office, when I was in my 60s. My new chief complaint was an increase in frequency and level of pain in my left upper leg/hip/groin area during and after walking. Walking daily was my practice, and the discomfort impeded this. A couple of times each year, my left knee would start “clicking” while I walked. And then there were the times that my back would “go out”…

I guessed that Esther’s book would educate me as well as the folks I worked with, but I had no idea that the Gokhale Method would change my life.

Trained as a primary care Physician Assistant (PA), I have studied and practiced health and wellness for decades. Much of my healing arts practice focused on women’s healthcare, elder care, LGBTQ matters, and community health education. I’m a longtime practitioner and teacher of Tai Chi and Qigong and a certified instructor of the Tai Chi For Health Institute, with multiple specialty accreditations.

Kathleen teaches Tai Chi to 4th graders in rural Grundy County, Tennessee.

Starting down the path of pain-free living
The Stretchsit Cushion went directly into my car and made a big difference on my 17- to 70-mile commutes. A light round of cedar wood was my first head weight in my attempt at head alignment and neck strengthening the Gokhale way. This was followed by a light bag of beans, before I bought the Gokhale™ Head Cushion. I appreciated hearing Esther say that she created her products to fill a need, and she always offered home-made substitutes…hence my bag of beans.

Glidewalking is the focus of Chapter 8 of 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, and I jumped right in. The pain in my left upper leg/hip/groin area lessened, but I did not really understand why. I wanted to know what I was doing and why it was successful. In the past when my hip was “acting up” and the chain reaction seemed to include my left knee getting “wonky”, I’d go to a practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method® and have positive results. But neither they nor I knew what was causing my problems. I was discouraged and dreading that this repeated misalignment would lead to hip surgery.

I signed up for every Free Online Workshop that Esther offered, and became a “frequent flyer” as I absorbed her teachings like a sponge. Esther is extremely generous with her teaching and the many and multiple modes of educational resources that are available. This impressed me, and I appreciated the cultural richness and factual basis of her material.

Teaching the Gokhale Method as a way to give back
Six months later, I completed the Gokhale Method Foundations Course and told Esther that I knew I wanted to become a teacher. I wanted to empower people in the way that I’d become empowered. At this time, my job was as the founding Executive Director of Folks at Home, a local nonprofit that coordinated services in the village-model of aging in community. I gave two (2) years’ notice and started preparing to transfer my knowledge to my successors. At the same time, I was on the teacher path, enthusiastically studying and practicing the Gokhale Method.

In October 2019, Esther invited me to join her for a year of teaching in Palo Alto / Stanford. We traveled around the Bay Area and the southwestern states, teaching Pop-up Courses, a 1-day immersion with two qualified Gokhale Method teachers in a group setting, using the newly-developed SpineTracker™ wearable technology. In addition, I taught individual and group Foundation Courses, Alumni Continuing Education, Free Workshops, and online follow-up lessons.

When the COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders were initiated in March 2020, the Gokhale Method Team went into super high productivity mode to create a new online curriculum, online alumni offerings, and online workshops. I transitioned to being a completely online teacher of the Gokhale Elements Course, Online Consultations, and online Follow-ups from the Premium Online Workshops, which are deep-dives into specific topics.

Teaching the Gokhale Method is extremely satisfying. Students usually get some level of immediate relief from their pain, discomfort, and/or tension, as well as valuable insights into and realizations about their habitual postures. They notice the changes, feel better, and gain hope that their chronic problem will have a resolution. Crowd-sourced data supports this.

I appreciate the clarity and effectiveness of the Gokhale Method, which blends intellectual, visual, kinesthetic, and hands-on learning methods. Each student is empowered to integrate and apply this training into all aspects of daily life. The worldwide team of Gokhale Method teachers and workers are smart, passionate, and collaborative. The new-in-2020 live daily programs of Gokhale Exercise allow for the worldwide community of spirited students and teachers to have fun, to connect, and to learn, strengthen, lengthen, reshape and move together in new ways.

A great journey begins with a single (glidewalked) step.

Aarani silk from Tamil Nadu, Southern India. Aarani, a small town, weaves only silk sarees in 3-plied or 2-plied yarns, making it a lighter silk to wear. The first national flag of independent India hoisted at the Red Fort is rumored to have been woven in Aarani. Stacksitting helps showcase the saree in its full glory.

People who know me well have come to associate me with my posture work, my love for sarees — the traditional Indian unstitched garment — and my frequent travel owing to my management consulting work. This is an accurate perception: I love all these things.
 

Bhujodi cotton from Gujarat, Western India. Made in a small town near Bhuj, this Khadi fabric is fully made of organic cotton grown in the region. Originally a weaving technique for shawls, it has been adapted to sarees in recent decades. Once you know to tallstand, you can shift the position of your legs.

Chanderi Silkcotton from Madhya Pradesh, Central India. Woven in the town of Chanderi, these sarees were patronized by the royalty of the region. They are known for their sheer, gossamer texture. Shoulder rolls always help show off the neck.

I am proud of the work I do in posture. It is not an exaggeration when I say that learning the Gokhale Method from Esther in 2012, after suffering from back-related issues for over 16 years, has changed my life. Along with helping me regain my lost posture, it helped deepen my understanding of my body and gain better control over it, and enhanced my sense of confidence. Becoming a Gokhale Method teacher has helped me practice the method diligently in my own life and help others who want to learn it for themselves. A striking aspect of the Gokhale Method, and one which has impacted my outlook on many fronts, is the fact that one can marry tradition with modernity.

Many things in the modern world affect our posture. Poorly-designed furniture, changing movement habits, and sedentary work are often blamed for most musculoskeletal ailments. However, this is our reality, and one cannot give up everything and go back to what our ancestors did for their livelihoods. The Gokhale Method helps us adapt natural and traditional body wisdom to modern ways of life. My students are surprised when I tell them that they don’t have to give up anything at all, but rather can learn to reach into their ancestral past and bring some habits into the current. We help people transition from a paradigm of “don’t do this” to a world of “you could do it this way,” based on the learnings from our ancestors and people in cultures where this wisdom has been retained. “You could do it this way” is an empowering view.

Dholabedi from Odisha, Eastern India. Odisha can easily be the Burgundy of sarees, as every sub region has its own specialty. This one is known for the “dola,” the house like structures that are woven as an extra weft, representing the altar of Lord Jagannath of Puri. Pivot the neck and look tall.

Pochampally Ikat from Telengana, Southern India. Ikat is a technique that spans from Central America to Japan. The specialty is the patterns, which are decided while preparing the yarn and dyed accordingly with mathematical precision. The weaver then weaves the patterns on the loom with meticulous planning which always boggles my mind! A well-placed shoulder ensures the hands fall to the side.

My love for sarees comes from this same paradigm of marrying the traditional with the modern. This garment, which most women of my mother’s and previous generations wore all the time, was lost for many of my generation. Like many others, I adopted outfits from other cultures, as doing so was considered “modern.” Traditional wear was relegated to special events. My connection with my heritage was locked in a wardrobe — until I learned to look at the meaning behind these beautiful handwoven fabrics I had. As my interest grew, I discovered the uniqueness of each of these weaves and the stories they spun. One estimate says that there are over 450 varieties of hand-woven textiles in India, each telling a unique tale about the region, the terrain, and the way of living from which they arose. I know only a fraction of the tales these textiles have to tell.
 

Natural indigo linen with motifs in jamdani from West Bengal, Western India. Growing indigo changed the history of Bengal forever. It still remains a sought-after pigment for its depth and unique color. The 3x3x3 of tallstanding always helps.
 

Handpainted Kalamkari from Andhra, Southern India. Can you imagine painstakingly hand-painting every inch of 6 meters of cloth in natural colours? Mostly done by women craftsman, this is an exquisite art form. Don’t miss the stacksitting!
 

Kanjeevaram silk from Tamil Nadu, Southern India. The “Queen of silks” woven in the town of Kanjeevaram, this weave represents true commerce with mulberry silk yarn from Mysore and gold thread from Surat in Gujarat. The body and the border are woven separately and integrated with the special technique of “korvai,” requiring two people to work together simultaneously. Once you learn to stacksit, you can sit on any surface with ease.

Wearing these sarees has helped me understand my own heritage a little better. And they helped me realize I do not have to give up tradition in order to exist in the modern world. Instead, I can adapt tradition to flow in ways that feel contemporary. That means, for example, I drape the saree differently depending on context. I experiment with mixing-and-matching, bringing elements from my Western wardrobe into play with elements from my Indian wardrobe. I wear the saree short or long, depending on what the fabric feels like. I adapt different regional draping styles that suit the occasion — there are over 200 documented regional styles in India alone! I wear it at home, out at work, and overseas when I travel. It is a beautiful experience that helps me come home to myself.

Karvati Kinar from Maharashtra, Western India. From the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, known for its arid terrain. This saree is mostly woven in a rough silk and has unique “mountain” motifs in the border. An anteverted pelvis helps us stand restfully.

Pochampally silk from Telengana, Southern India. Just look at the modernity in the ikat motifs! Who would imagine that the weavers have never left their villages, yet can create such marvelous designs and such a sophisticated color palette? Once you learn tallstanding, you don’t need high heels!

Sometimes it seems that moving with the times means giving up things from the past. But if we look carefully, the present is actually interwoven with the essence of the past. They are not necessarily at odds. Uncovering the meaning of the past and blending it with the needs of the present creates gracefulness. Beauty lies in this harmony. The saree and the Gokhale Method: both are traditional, elegant tools to achieve harmonious results, blending past and present.
 

Sungudi from Tamil Nadu, Southern India. A tie-and-dye technique from Madurai, this has an interesting history of internal migration. Settlers from Gujarat in the west of India who came to this region brought this art form along with them in the 16th century. Have we said enough about tallstanding?
 

Ajrakh handblock-printed saree from Gujarat, Western India. This saree demonstrates a unique block-printing technique that involves 14 different steps and has a history spanning centuries. Even today, many motifs exhibit Persian influence. Does this have a Greco-Roman feel in the draping and the posture?
 

Jainsem from Meghalaya, North-East India. A two-piece textile that is worn as a layered outfit by the Khasi tribe in this region’s pristine, hilly terrain. Traditional clothing was and is designed for practical, everyday movements with ease.
 

Boro from Assam, North-East India. A beautiful cotton with motifs made from extra weft, and which has a unique feature: the border is woven separately and then stitched on top. Creativity has so many different expressions!
 

Sangeeta Sundaram is a qualified Gokhale Method Teacher based in Mumbai, India.

Esther Gokhale, 1996

A Deep Pool of Knowledge

We have an amazing pool of teachers, and I’m extremely proud of every one of them. They have diverse backgrounds and bring all kinds of knowledge, experience, and sensitivity to the Gokhale Method, which benefits teachers and students alike. We are constantly tweaking and improving our offerings. Every month we get together via regularly scheduled continuing-education teleseminars, where I or another expert in a specific area makes a presentation, followed by a lively discussion. In addition, we stay in regular communication via what we have dubbed the “Teacher Water Cooler.” This is a private collaboration, a place where one teacher might write, “I just reviewed the intake form for ‘Student Y,’ who has this unusual syndrome, plus this and this and this. Any ideas how I might adjust my approach?” Another teacher might offer, “I ran into a cool educational tool the other day,” or, “Check out this interesting video on YouTube, and tell me what you think about its point of view.” So we teachers benefit from an ongoing and very dynamic interaction and, once a year, we gather together for a weekend of hands-on work.

A Gokhale Method teacher who played a very helpful role in the early days of our organization, when we most needed help, is Roberta Cooks, MD. She helped create a support group for teachers, as well as a teacher peer-review form that established standards to measure and improve teacher skills. She also tackled various writing and editorial projects, contributing to the ever-evolving teacher training manual, which is now huge, because it covers all aspects of the training in great detail.

A physician who trained as a psychiatrist, Roberta spent much of her medical career in the museum industry, creating health-related exhibitions. Currently she is one of our most active teachers, regularly offering Gokhale Method Foundations courses and one-on-one sessions in and around Philadelphia, where she lives, as well as in New York City; Boulder, Colorado; and in Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale, South Florida.

Recently, I checked in with Roberta. Here’s some of what she had to share….

Roberta Cooks and Gokhale Method–the early days

Roberta Cooks, Gokhale Method teacher

"Esther was teaching and fine-tuning the Gokhale Method on her own for a long time. Somewhere around 2008, she knew it was important to have more people learning and teaching the Method, and she began to bring on teachers, a few of us at a time. I was one of the first, one of a group of seven or eight. Some of us stayed at Esther’s house, where we worked late into the night, doing our homework and brainstorming ways to boost our own training. Another teacher, Kathleen Marie, and I were especially interested in pursuing this, and—under Esther’s tutelage—we took next steps. Esther had begun to develop a teacher training manual and we built on this with the goal of standardizing excellence. Esther was chock full of ideas and we were happy to be able to execute some of them.

Illustrations of the human
spine from anatomy books
published in I) 1990 and II) 1911

As a physician, what particularly struck me when I first read Esther’s 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back was the side-by-side comparison of the spine—the anatomical drawing from a 1911 anatomy book contrasted with a 1990 illustration.

Seeing these images, both from American anatomy books, prompted the thought: ‘This is the ‘black hole.’ No one knows what to do about the huge problem of back pain, so why aren’t we looking back into our own medical textbooks and reflecting on the early photographic record? Why aren’t we acknowledging this pertinent information? And I felt I needed to convince other physicians of the common-sense truth of this core element of the Gokhale Method, which of course is only one piece of the evidence that supports Esther’s work.

The healthy stacksitting posture modeled
by this Maryland Governor and
Congressman is typical of our
19th-century forebears

Museumgoers have been known
to try to console sculptor Duane
Hanson’s 1977 ‘Man on A
Bench,’ his slouching vinyl and
polychromed body is so hyper-real

 The dance connection

Tango is a “glidewalking” dance

I dance Tango. In fact, it’s through dance that I first found Esther. My Tango teacher was handing out copies of Esther’s 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back to anyone in the class who had back pain. Pain wasn’t an issue for me, but at the time my sister was experiencing problems with her shoulders, her hip, and her feet. Nothing she was doing was working, so I read Esther’s book and was sufficiently intrigued to seek Esther out. I  took a Gokhale Method Foundations course with Esther and was very impressed by her work and teaching style. I saw how her Method helped students with a variety of health issues and backgrounds. At the end of the course I spoke with Esther and we really hit it off. So I decided to become a Gokhale teacher by going through the teacher training course.

Argentine Tango is a walking dance that has a lot in common with the glidewalking we do in the Gokhale Method. Just as practitioners of the glidewalking technique engage the gluteus medius muscles by sending the back heel into the floor to propel themselves forward, so dancers of the Argentine Tango take the same basic actions. Perhaps you can see in the video just below that in propelling myself forward with the heel of my back foot and my back leg and my engaged gluteus medius muscles, I’m communicating a strong message to my partner to move backwards. My shoulders are rolled back, my rib anchor is engaged, and my partner, who is following, receives most of my ‘information’ from my chest.

Argentine Tango, San Telmo Plaza Dorrego, Buenos Aires

 My writing, medical, and museum background

In addition to Tango, I’ve always been interested in self-education and preventive medicine. And I’m a writer; I’ve written a children’s book. These interests, together with my psychiatric medical training and my background designing health-related museum exhibits, are relevant to teaching the Gokhale Method. What’s wonderful about the posture work is not only what we teach, but how we teach it! The Method is so clear and practical. And it’s multisensory, which is essential because we want what we teach to become part of peoples’ bodies. The multifaceted approach is very similar to what I do when designing medical exhibits, where the challenge is to take difficult-to-understand information and make it visual, aural, and very hands-on. People learn in different ways. That’s why the rich, multimedia training we offer is so effective. Not only is it common-sense practical and intellectually clear, it’s visual and tactile.

One of the projects I directed and developed was the Maryland Science Center’s
permanent and traveling exhibit ‘Cells: The Universe Inside Us’

I’ve been designing museum exhibits for a number of years—for example, the first big traveling exhibit on HIV/AIDS, as well as an exhibit on the brain, the heart, and—as shown in these photos–’the universe inside us’—the cells. What I’ve observed about health education in museums is that people come to theses places, which are much more neutral settings than a medical office or a hospital, absolutely hungry for information. This seemed particularly true with the brain and AIDS exhibits, and I think this is because many people feel frightened or intimidated by medical settings, which makes it difficult for them to process what they’re being told.

Hands-on, highly visual, and interactive
exhibits like the one shown here offer
a multisensory learning experience–this
is what the Gokhale Method
offers too

Healthy posture can positively
impact the universe inside us 

The mind-body connection–wellbeing and healthy posture

I have seen some very positive psychological changes in people I’ve taught, and the improvement in the outlook of many of my posture students is one of the reasons that I find teaching the Gokhale Method to be so satisfying and joyful. Research has shown that there are biochemical advantages to being physically open, with shoulders rolled back and chest open–as opposed to standing with arms crossed and shoulders hunched–and my own experience confirms that posture can be a complementary wellness approach to psychological conditions. And what surprised me initially–and what I still find delightful, today–is how quickly these positive effects so often happen!

It’s not unusual when I’m teaching the Foundations course for one student to say to another as early as the second day, ‘You look like a completely different person.’ In a class I just taught in Florida, a massage-therapist student who had participated in the free class and returned to the Foundations course, told me: ‘After I learned the shoulder roll and then worked with my clients, I felt so much more open to the world.’

Might stretchlying, with shoulders rolled back and chest open,
alter this fellow’s sense of wellbeing?

Again, even though I’m not working directly on the psychological state of my posture students, I see positive results that are in the psychological realm. People with healthy posture tend to have a more positive body image. Practicing healthy posture, which requires us to be present in the moment, can also be an effective way of quieting the mind.

Yet another thing I know from my teaching of the Gokhale Method, as well as from my own experience as an individual with rheumatoid arthritis, is that by having a better understanding of my body and by knowing how to protect my muscles, joints, and skeletal system to prevent pain–all these things give me actual greater control over my health. This is such a rich topic, because I also know, both professionally and personally, that feelings of helplessness–a loss of control over one’s life–represent one of life’s biggest stressors!

Small groups

My sister was my first student! Here, while we were
pre-teens, it looks like I was already encouraging her to
roll back her shoulders.

Another strength of the Gokhale Method is that classes are taught in small groups, which to my way of thinking is a wonderful way to teach people, many of whom are not comfortable with their bodies, or are feeling frightened or are in pain. Not only does the small-group approach enable teachers to do hands-on work with each individual, it encourages students to learn from one another, and to form a kind of community. The Method is a practical, step-by-step educational model, not a medical model, and in a small group this becomes a very powerful way to learn.

The rewards of teaching the Gokhale Method

When, as a prospective teacher, I signed on for Gokhale Method teacher training, I first needed to take the Foundations course, and then I needed to find someone willing to work with me.  I chose my cooperative sister!  At the time, she was having difficulties with hip, shoulder and foot pain. She had been going to health professionals for several years with no relief. ‘I was at my wit’s end,' she said, when we just lately reminisced about this. ‘It was so amazing to me that, after years of getting no relief through the usual channels, learning this method from you–my sister–could make such a positive difference.’ With most of her hip, shoulder, and foot problems resolved over the course of my teacher training, she was able to go back to biweekly Jazzercise classes that she still enjoys today. After working with my sister, I taught two people at once, then four people, then six–until I graduated my way up to teaching eight-person classes.

A teacher-centric organization

While the fundamentals of teaching the Gokhale Method have remained essentially the same, Esther has ensured that teachers’ skills, energy, and time are leveraged by technology, and that the company stays cutting-edge. For example, teachers now use an iPhone app that makes it possible for us to take before-and-after pictures of each student and upload them in real-time to the private, secure portion of the Gokhale Method website dedicated to that student. Uploading these images with a click (during class) triggers an email to the student, so that as they leave class, an email alert is waiting in their inbox.

Instant access to these before-and-after photos is a powerful tool for students, in part because so many enter the classes wondering, ‘How am I ever going to change in such short period of time?’ With the before-and-after photos, they can see what a difference the training has made, even if they’ve taken an intensive course over a single weekend. The before-and-after photos also remain a valuable tool for students long after they have completed the coursework.

Here, I help a Gokhale Method
student anchor his ribs

Also hugely helpful is the student intake form. When students sign up online or call the Palo Alto office, they complete a form that provides teachers with need-to-know information. This creates a link between individual students and teachers prior to their meeting. Gokhale Method teachers have access to only their students’ intake form, although, via the Teachers’ Water Cooler, we can reach out to our colleagues for additional expert input on unusual or particular cases while leaving the student anonymous.

An advantage to both students and teachers is the ease with which student histories are privately, securely, and  instantly shared via the Method’s electronic educational records. This allows for uniformity across Gokhale Method training and continuity for students. Just now, for example, I taught a student in Florida who had been taught by my fellow-teacher Kathleen, which meant that prior to my meeting with her I could access private information about her case and be prepared.

In these ways–and more–technology makes us stronger. We have the support of the entire teacher community, including Esther. And of course there are advantages to teaching–and learning–in a franchise where there is uniformity of high standards.

To sum up, I love being a teacher of the Gokhale Method, because it gives me back so much. To help people get to the root of their pain and posture problems, without imposing risks—to make such a difference in peoples’ lives by putting the practical power to heal into their own hands and teaching them to problem-solve significant challenges in their lives—well, it’s just incredibly rewarding.

If you are interested in learning more about what’s involved in teacher training, please check in with us at [email protected]. The Gokhale Method Institute is not able to satisfy student demand in a number of places in the US, Canada, and abroad and would love to have more qualified teachers join us." 

Teaching the Gokhale Method is incredibly rewarding–it gives so much back.

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.