Finding his feet gives him a crucial moment of being 100% present in space and time. That’s the magic of perceptual tensegrity: feet feeling the ground; hands sensing the ball, vectors dancing together for a perfect shot.
Read MoreI 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 MoreGoing outside felt like walking into an oven or like being punctured by thousands of hot little needles, one in every skin pore.
Read MoreA great many well-meaning teachers, psychotherapists, gurus, and friends have suggested to me or to others that when we’re under stress we need to take a deep breath.
I don’t agree.
Read MoreIf you read between the lines, you probably sense that under the banner of “The New Rules of Posture,” I’m actually sharing a somatic practice–a physical path to self-knowledge. Here’s what I wrote in The New Rules: to improve your posture you need to 1) “create new sense memories for what feels balanced and stable…” and 2) view “your posture as an ongoing perceptual process by which you orient yourself to gravity and to your relationship with the people, objects and events in your world.” Not something you do once and forget about. It’s a practice…
Read MorePosted below is Pack Matthews’ TEDx talk. He talks about the health offascia, the “sitting is the new smoking” research, and the research linking longevity to one’s ability to sit and rise from the floor without using hands or knees–and gives a great demo of this! Pack is the inventor of the Soul Seat™, a great option for people whose work requires that they sit all day. The design invites you to squirm and stretch while you sit. I’m putting one on my next letter to Santa!
Read MoreTo “heal your posture” I always invite you to practice perceptions rather than positions. I don’t advise you about the set of your shoulders or the placement of your head, but rather try to help you discover an internal sense of balance, and presence with a capital P…
Read MoreHere's the podcast conversation I had with Dr. Perry Nickelson of stopchasingpain.com. What a congenial host and interviewer! I really enjoyed speaking with him and felt free to go off on tangents, which seems to be my way of attempting to paint the whole picture…
Read MoreThe video below accompanies the last several blog entries in which I wrote about how the “corocoid corner” affects the stability of our shoulders and arms, and about the relationship between our arms and our hearts. The tissues that clasp the corocoid process need to be pliable in order for the upper arms to seat properly in the gleno-humeral fossa (the shoulder socket). When pectoralis minor and biceps brachii are chronically shortened and glued down around the corocoid, the humeral heads (tops of the upper arms) slip forward in the sockets. While this capacity of the shoulder joint lets us reach out for things, the position should be part of a temporary gesture. For stability of arm and shoulder, the humeral heads should rest back into the socket as deeply as possible. The video shows one way to open up the corocoid area…
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Envision your body as a chemistry set enveloped in a casing (skin and fascia), supported by an internal scaffold (bones), and enlivened by a motor system (nerves and muscles). Everything is interrelated through tubes and labyrinths of cobweb-like fascia. Bone, sinew and digestive juices all work together to make your day. Or not. To further this idea, I’ll share an example from my own embarrassing recent history…
Read MoreIt is in the 70’s here this morning. It’s the best time of year in Los Angeles because the sun makes a southerly arc that creates contrast and shadow and a sense of dimension to the world. In summer, when the sun’s arc is overhead, places and things—buildings, trees, cars, even people–appear flatter. But today, walking my familiar streets, I had a strong hit of the substance and texture of tree trunks, of the space between the lemons on a tree, and of my own physical presence passing through the leafy corridor of my favorite street. It was easy to stay present in my body, in my movement, easy to be friendly to strangers…
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