When there’s a problem in the knee, there are probably imbalances in the feet. My friend had no complaints about her feet, but when I watched her move I could see that, especially on the side of her knee surgery, she wasn’t using the full articulation of her foot.
Read MoreI love the feeling that each of my toes is independently awake. The shoes make my toe pads want to investigate the ground.
Read MoreWe can imagine this biblical hero raising his left leg first when he puts on his boots. The entire right side of his body is compressed, and this compression would have been reflected in his gait.
Read MoreAs a Rolfing® practitioner, I've observed that tension in the elbows affects the whole body. Habitual flexion there, however slight, pulls the upper arm forward in its socket, starting a chain reaction that pulls the shoulder blades forward, and the collarbones and chest down, and the neck forward. Elbow tension often corresponds with flexion in the spine just behind the diaphragm, and that interferes with fullness of breath. The postural end result feels, and certainly looks, nothing like the upper crust ladies of Downton…
Read MoreWhat follows is my response to a letter from someone who had difficulty kneeling on a yoga block as shown in the abdominal core lesson of my DVD. I know that when someone raises a question, others are likely wondering the same thing…
Read MoreWhen your toes don’t interact with the ground in a balanced way, the rest of your body compensates, compromising the elegance of your posture and the grace of your movement. Toes are not just decorative.
Bunions are a build-up of bony and soft tissue at the base of the big toe that is the body’s attempt to stabilize imbalance at the joint between the first metatarsal bone and the toe…
Read MoreThis morning I happened to read an excerpt of a poem that described someone has having eyes that were “stiffened” in horror. “Stiff eyes”—what a striking description. And it got me thinking about the connection between stiff eye muscles and stiff necks.
To feel what I’m talking about, try this experiment. Lightly place your finger pads along the back of your neck, just below your hairline. Then imagine a fly buzzing around in front of your face. Follow the fly with your eyes, but without moving your head around…
Read MoreThe waiting one does at airports is a good opportunity for blog writing. This time I’m people-watching at Bob Hope Airport (Burbank, CA). There is such a variety of ways to put one leg in front of another–the pregnant airport security guard, the woman with exaggerated movement in her hip joints, the men with none at all. I want to train other movement professionals to observe and intervene in clients’ walking patterns. How do I teach them to communicate effectively to someone who says, “You mean I have to learn how to walk all over again?”
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