Gokhale Method teachers

Gokhale Method instructor Eric Fernandez, based in Pennsylvania, hosts our new Online University program, Gokhale Fitness with Eric.

Our new Online University program for alumni, Gokhale Fitness with Eric, has been delighting participants three times a week since it began last month. When starting a new exercise class or fitness activity, it can be encouraging to learn more about the instructor’s background. To this end, I recently sat down with Eric to ask him a few questions about what he brings to the table for Gokhale Fitness with Eric.

AH: In addition to being a qualified Gokhale Method teacher, you have a background in martial arts. How does this influence your approach to fitness?

Eric Fernandez (EF): The martial art I practice and teach focuses on relaxation and breathing, and I try to apply this to everything I do. Even when I am doing something physically demanding, I am trying to have as little tension as possible. A relaxed body has improved circulation, lower blood pressure, heals faster, is less prone to injure, quickens your response time, improves flexibility, and just plain feels good.

AH: What other influences inform your understanding of the human body? 

EF: The Gokhale Method has been the biggest influence on my understanding of our physical nature since I discovered it. It has forever changed the way I approach any movement or exercise. Every injury I've ever had while training, I now know the reason they happened. Like I said when I was being interviewed to become a Gokhale Method teacher, "There is no going back for me."

AH: What kinds of topics do you focus on in Gokhale Fitness with Eric?

EF: Strengthening, endurance-building, breathing, mobility. And everything we do emphasizes our spinal health. We are just a few weeks into the program right now,  so I am excited to delve into topics such as massage, stretching, running, and even vision exercises.

Eric demonstrates impressive hamstring flexibility, as well as a nice J-spine.

AH: Is Gokhale Fitness with Eric accessible to everyone, or do you need to already be a fitness buff to join in?

EF: This program is for anyone who wants to participate, even if you've never done a workout in your entire life. There are alumni in all sorts of conditions and fitness levels. Every exercise can be modified to be made easier or more challenging, or replaced with something similar. Accessibility was a must when Esther and our team conceptualized Gokhale Fitness. Every class is self-contained, so you do not need to have come to the last or any other prior ones. You can start benefiting right now!

AH: So far, what has been your favorite part of leading Gokhale Fitness with Eric?

EF: The interaction with the participants. We have such an incredible community with our alumni. They are intelligent, passionate, caring, and focused. I love answering their questions and hearing about their improvements. I'm quite shocked at how they have received me and what I teach. It is an honor to be a part of this program.

AH: Finally, what do you hope to provide to the participants of Gokhale Fitness with Eric?

EF: A fitter body, a deeper sense of self-awareness, and a bit of fun.

Gokhale Fitness with Eric takes place Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays at 3pm Pacific / 6pm Eastern through Online University. Clocking in at 25 minutes per session, it’s long enough to get you going but doesn’t take up too much space in your day.

If you’d like to join in the fun, sign up for our Online University for alumni of our courses (Gokhale Method Foundations Courses, Pop-up Courses, or Gokhale Elements). If you’re not yet an alum but would like to become one, you’ll automatically become one after completing our one-on-one online course, Gokhale Elements. Your body and mind will thank you for the investment in your musculoskeletal health for years to come!

Learning and internalizing techniques doesn’t always happen immediately — or without assistance from a teacher.

I spent many years developing and perfecting the Gokhale Method Foundations Course. After years of crafting the language, honing the metaphors, and rearranging the order in which techniques are taught, I considered the course well-constructed and comprehensive. I was proud to empower students to be independent in taking their posture journey forward. I was proud to not be peddling products gratuitously, nor to insist students keep coming back for additional lessons. 

The results of this approach were not always stellar. Though some students functioned just fine after one go-round of a full 6-lesson Foundations Course, most students, not surprisingly, needed ongoing repetition to “get it” in their minds, their bodies, and their memory.

The example that brought this point home vividly involved a student who is a physician. She had undergone one back surgery and was scheduled for another. She had extreme sciatic pain that made her want to lie down as much as possible. Driving herself anywhere was impossible, so she hired someone to drive her to her private clinic, where she worked the few 2-3 hours her pain levels would allow, and then was driven home again.

Physicians are among the many groups whose work environments can predispose them to posture issues, especially when they tuck their pelvises or stoop over patients or computers. This doctor in Angola, likely because of healthy cultural modeling, demonstrates the lovely upright bearing that’s possible (and desirable) in this context. Image courtesy Francisco Venâncio on Unsplash.

After working on the basic techniques in a few private lessons, she was able to reduce her pain level to 0 and cancel her scheduled surgery. She followed up with some recommended maintenance lessons and then let the lessons come to a halt. 

A year later she made an appointment during which I was shocked to find her in approximately the same condition she first came in with. I probed gently to discover what had happened. It emerged that one of her patients, a fitness instructor, had invited her to a weekly fitness class. Over time, she had conformed to tucking her pelvis as instructed. In the process of relating the story to me, a realization dawned on her: “Oh yeah, that’s what caused my troubles last time…” Wow. In listening to her a parallel realization dawned on me. Here was a highly-trained medical professional who had gone from being in a dire situation to being completely pain-free, and still the teaching had not held.

Fitness instruction advocating a tucked pelvis ended up making things worse for my physician student who suffered from sciatica. Image courtesy Anupam Mahapatra on Unsplash.

That was when I realized we needed a maintenance program. It’s obvious in hindsight, of course. Adults especially can feel that new information doesn’t “stick” because it gets harder to learn as you get older. I suspect that we actually overlook just how much repetition we did to learn most things when we were younger! That’s why we took over a thousand lessons in school in Math and English! If you have learned to play golf or do certain dances, how many times have you practised that swing, or rehearsed those steps? Learning takes exposure and repetition. It works.

Like perfecting a golf swing or learning a new dance step, posture techniques need regular practice in order to “stick.” Image courtesy Andrew Lomas on Unsplash.

We see some students returning to our classes after gaps of many years, and, like the physician, in that time they have often been culturally “reprogrammed” to tuck the pelvis, to slump, or to sway. We also see clearly that the forgetting curve is very real, and how easy it is to backslide into old habits. When we teach these alumni alongside more recent graduates whom we advised better about the need for revision and follow-up classes, the difference is very obvious. Humans simply learn better with repetition, and the Gokhale Method is no exception to this rule.

A great benefit of the Gokhale Method is the sheer variety of mediums available to reinforce and diversify the learning process.

To meet this need, consider refreshing the material or switching up the format. For example, all of our qualified teachers offer private lessons to alumni. It's surprising how much can be learned in a single lesson once the basics have been covered. If you've taken a Pop-up Course, consider taking a 6-lesson Gokhale Method Foundations Course — or vice versa; if you've taken a group course, consider taking a private lesson. Retreat programs at locations like Esalen Institute, Omega Institute, Kripalu, and 1440 Multiversity are helpful for newcomers and alumni alike and offer the opportunity to learn in a restorative, memorable setting. And some of our teachers offer small-group continuing education classes. All of these are rewarding pathways for relearning and refining the basic techniques, and coming away with different takeaways.

Working with students and actively helping them learn is a great joy for me and our many other Gokhale Method teachers.

Regardless of which specific new tack you choose, we recommend taking your first refresher class within 1-2 months of graduating from the Gokhale Method Foundations Course or the Pop-up Course. The next refresher happens best within 3 months of the first one. From then on we recommend doing an in-person session —  private or group — at least every six months, and sooner if there are still significant challenges. Working in-person with a teacher is always best, but if that’s not possible, a session can be scheduled online, which is surprisingly helpful for troubleshooting and keeping your own known posture challenges on your radar. So if you are one of our Foundations Course or Pop-up Course alumni, schedule that session! Our experienced teachers are ready to help.

Hands-on learning with a Gokhale Method teacher helps students refine and refresh the techniques, whether they’re just beginning their posture journey or whether it’s been years since their first lesson.

We have also created an Online University which includes 2 Live Chats with me every month and unlimited access to our on-demand library of over 60 instructional videos. Each lesson focuses on a specific posture topic, such as Beyond Stacksitting, Cooking with Healthy Posture, Foot Health, Yoga with Healthy Posture, dance, exercise routines, and so on. You are then able to revise and extend your posture expertise at any time for an entire year.  Now wouldn’t that be a great idea for 2020?

If you are one of our Foundations Course or Pop-up Course alumni, you can sample a free session of Online University content here. And from now through December 20, 2019, all of our alumni can save $100 on a year-long Online University membership! You must call our support team at 1-888-557-6788 to receive this special rate.

We wish you a peaceful holiday season filled with good posture!

There are few things as disempowering as a broken back. By "broken back" I mean to include painfully herniated disks, significant stenosis, as well as severe muscle tension and other less sustained spinal phenomena that constitute "non-specifc back pain" - and nonetheless hurt like heck. I remember this state clearly and have some journal entries to fill gaps in my memory - "...maybe I'm paying too much attention to my back. Maybe it's in my head..." 28 years ago, I felt like a broken straw.

Over the years, both as a healer and a teacher, I've been very interested in where the place of power resides in the process of healing. One of my influencers is Susun Weed, author of Healing Wise. Susun speaks with an authentic voice, is way out there (in her book, she transcribes her conversation with dandelions), and has some keen insights. Like her, I see the place of power in modern medicine to be in the medical machinery, the lab, the test results.

The place of power in modern medicine often lies in the lab and machinery

In the Shamanic tradition, the practioner is vested with special powers: he/she has mystical powers that the patient needs to return for - and depends on. 

In Shamanic tradition, the place of power rests with the practitioner.
Yup'ik shaman exorcising evil spirits from a sick boy, Nushagak, Alaska, 1890s

In the Wise Person tradition, the place of power remains with the patient / student. The healer / teacher is a wise person whose role is similar to the role of a parent or advisor. 

Gokhale Method teachers facilitate their students’ self-empowerment

A Gokhale Method teacher is trained to be a wise person. His/her function is to educate, facilitate, unencumber, and support the student.  The student is seen as basically well-designed and, almost always, provided with a robust, functional frame. The problem is that modern culture hasn't nurtured healthy physicality. Poor furniture and clothing design, counterproductive guidelines like "sit up straight" and "chin up", and substantial drift in the recognized norms for spinal shape all contribute to a whopping 100 billion dollar a year problem (that's the number for the US alone) that is getting worse. Gokhale Method teachers step back from the band-aid approaches (even those of us who are trained to provide band-aid assistance when we wear other healing hats) and deftly approach the problem at its root. We teach our students how to restore their Primal Posture™- the shape they had when they were little children, and that their ancestors had. We help students peel away layers of misinformation and bad habit. We help students realize how powerful they really are. We guide them to Remember When It Didn't Hurt™. Not only can they get rid of pain and restore function, but they can experience high levels of energy, look and feel powerful, and strike that happy balance between being rooted in themselves and available to life. 

Mex, our upcoming teacher in Singapore, helps his student,
Yongrim, learn to glidewalk.

Training practitioners of various sorts to become strong Gokhale Method teachers involves many significant, as well as subtle, shifts. I recall one chiropractor in teacher training remark "This is so different from chiropractic! In chiropractic we know which way we want to shape the body; here I have to listen to the body to see where it wants to go." A subtle shift that gets repeated every teacher training is eliminating the "Now I'd like you to...." With Zen-like pruning, we learn to eliminate the "I" where it's not necessary. The process is about helping the person find their way home - the teacher is the guide who knows the terrain better than the student. That's all.

With love and hearty wishes,
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.