Time Off to Slow Down
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It was as if I’d stepped off of a year-long roller coaster ride and even though my feet were now on solid ground my insides continued to churn.
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Support for Heart Opening
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Your own experience tells you that opening can be sustained only in the presence of support. Balancing your alignment with gravity with awareness of normal joint function affords strength without effort, openness without defense, support without closure. Within your mountain is a beating, breathing heart.
Read MoreSOMATIC DOLDRUMS
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No two people with Parkinson’s Disease experience the same array of symptoms, but I think I can safely generalize that it’s no longer possible for any of us to take movement for granted.
Read MoreYoga, Alignment and Movement
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Diminished spatial perception creates compression in the body. That diminution of interior body space is a major cause of poor postural organization and limited range of motion. Changing how you stand or move is not the answer. Changing how you perceive and interact with the world is.
Read MoreStrength: A Wake-up Call
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I have never been very robust in my fitness program. Having a flexible body, I’ve always been drawn to movement disciplines where that is at the forefront: yoga, improvisational dancing, Tai Chi. Strength training and competitive sports were not my thing.
Read MoreSpatial Orientation as a Source of Support
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This exploration is one I share with nearly every one of my private clients. Awareness of the space around our bodies is uplifting. It emancipates joints, making movement freer, as I hope you’ll be able to feel for yourself..
Read MorePosture in Motion
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I practice yoga to keep my fascia silky enough and my joints adaptable enough that my coordination can stay smooth even as the aging process diminishes my stamina. Yet, here I was, post yoga class, walking in this awkward way. I teach movement, for heaven’s sake. How had I slid into this familial pattern?
Read MorePerceptual Tensegrity
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Tensegral body attitude, by expanding the space within the torso, grants more living room to your organs, beneficially affecting all visceral functions, including circulation, respiration, and digestion. And, because expansive visceral space contributes to high vagal tone, it can positively affect both health and social connectedness.
Read MoreActing My Age
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Sometimes I think about Diane Feinstein running for Congress for the umteenth time. Or Dame Judi Dench making film after film. We are not all given the same energies and capacities and I have to respect that—respect myself in that.
Read MoreTalk at Google: How to Sit, Stand and Move in the Modern World
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Jumping off from the subtitle of The New Rules of Posture, I spoke about fascia, pandiculation, tensegrity, ergonomic chairs, spatial orientation, and manspreading. If you enjoy it, please share!
Read MorePandiculate for Fascia Health
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Unlike cats and dogs, humans tend to stifle this natural urge. In polite company such movement expression is considered rude.
Read MoreWake Up Your Feet!
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If you’re thinking that feet are my favorite subject, you could be right. I definitely think that adaptable, responsive feet are a vital component in healthy posture. By adaptable, I mean feet that are able to move--not just to take steps, but also to spread and clasp, to wriggle and writhe and bounce. They can sense the ground and respond to it…
Read MoreOn Breathing Patterns
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Thanks to a reader of The New Rules, for inciting me to write again about breathing. It’s a HUGE topic, so this post is a distillation. Here’s my reader’s query: Here in Germany, singers, yogis, and tai chi practitioners are hotly debating the possibility of two types of people with different body organization. The focus lies on differences in breathing: exhalers and inhalers. In my understanding, their spatial organization corresponds to what you call earth-orienting and space-orienting, respectively. In everyday breathing…
Read MoreBodies and Wholeness
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In my teaching, writing and manual therapy, I try to help people experience how bodily wholeness contributes to the health of mind and spirit as well as body. Two recent encounters have reminded me that “wholeness” is relative, and that no matter how integrated, coordinated, aligned and aware our bodies become, the health of the human spirit is vaster and more mysterious than mere physical perfection. My friend George has been in the online dating game for a long time…
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