Archive for Health and Fitness
Body and Balance
Posted by: | CommentsYour body and balance may seem elusive at times. Living with any number of compensations such as shoulders rolled inwards, discomforts in our chest or upper back, high stress levels, etc. can either throw us off track or continue to prevent us from reaching states of comfortable balance.
How can we restore our body and balance?
Listen to how our pain and discomforts can be our greatest teacher and what to do to overcome what gets in our way.
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Did you catch the somatics tips which will let us regain comfort in our body and balance?
Somatics tips for the body and balance
Here are some everyday useful tips when you engage in easy movements such as somatics exercises.
• Move with the least effort
This often goes against many people’s idea of how to exercise, yet when we live in discomfort this naturally makes more sense. Even if we are active, we can pay attention to our movements by noticing our sense of effort rather than pushing with our efforts. This slight difference makes a big difference.
• Breathe with your movement to restore your body and balance
Often times we’ll hold our breath unaware of how this is impacting our sense of effort or the actual effort taking place. By playing games with our breath we can feel the differences something so simple may make.
• We move as a system not as a muscle
The big muscle, the brain… sends messages to the muscles and receives back information in our sensory-motor feeback loop. When we become aware of how intimately involved our sense and level of effort is involved, we can improve our overall body and balance.
• Thoughts can affect our movement and impact our body and balance
As you do any exercise, think a thought while feeling what muscles contract in your body. Or play with an emotion and feel that as you move. Again, what are you muscles doing? To what degree can you sense muscles turning on or off?
• Comfort is king
Any small adjustment such as using a pad or pillow can alleviate any struggle we might find ourself when it comes to positioning ourself for a movement done on the ground. Even the slight adjustment of an angle may be the necessary thing to do so our body can be as comfortable at that moment we experience ourself in movement.
• An exercise can’t hurt us
If we do get in a pickle and we try to force our body, it will naturally react and pull itself back – and that might hurt. To learn how to navigate our internal terrain successfully is what is key so that “if” we bump into discomfort during any exercise or exertion, we can use that information to bring our body and balance back as quickly as possible. More often than not, our compensations and habits of movement get us to bump that pain switch on – even to the point of it becoming chronic. Ouch! In difficult times, use your ability to imagine the movement and it’s highly likely you won’t hurt yourself.
• Pain is our greatest teacher and gives us back our body and balance
In the practice of somatics exercises, we learn how to wield pain and discomfort to our advantage. Pain is merely a signal so that with a little practice, we begin to notch down the negative experience towards more comfort and pleasure.
Somatics Body and Balance Class
Would you like to feel how you can release the upper body and play with some lower body balancing?
You can join me online as we get ready for the Olympics in our Upper Body and Balance online class. You can join us live or get the replay.
You can do this as all you have to do is listen, follow along and feel how your body and balance will return comfortably with easy somatics exercises. The simple movement patterns we’ll play with may boggle the mind, but not the body.
We can restore our body and balance when we use the brain’s motor cortex and sensory-motor feedback loop in delightful, novel ways so please join us live or sign up to get the replay now.
Stop with all the Trauma
Posted by: | CommentsWhen we fall, our muscles go into certain protective trauma postures. We’ll go back inside of ourselves and stay there for some time until the trauma usually resolves itself. Sometimes it takes a little longer.
Can you release physical trauma?
What if we could use what nature has given us to release the protective holding of a physical trauma more quickly and confidently.
Releasing held trauma is something I know about since I realized I had been holding onto an incident which occurred while I was a young boy. Some 30 years of holding a pattern unconsciously kept me at bay – and I didn’t even know it. Until one day, I did a very specific maneuver and I was reminded of the event that I had long since forgotten yet recalled more from a conceptual level.
So here I was reliving it and at the same time “finally” letting go of it. The trauma which was held, let go. Sometimes we hold onto things more than necessary. Yikes.
Compensations such as legs which are internally rotated can be a bear to live with, though in time we can get used to moving ourself around even if we’re hung up a bit, too stiff or get used to living with too much tension.
Heck we might have even created such a held trauma pattern by having read mystery or suspense books for too long with our knees knocking. Maybe those scary mystery books led us into another type of mystery such as scoliosis, which we can’t resolve.
Scoliosis and Trauma
Many people who have been diagnosed with scoliosis or suspect they have, often compensate with a fairly typical trauma response. While each of us displays this uniquely with certain vertebrate being pulled in one direction, another or in multiple distortions away from a neutral posture.
We can safely release held trauma tension patterns. After all, it has been happening to us on an ongoing basis. Our bones are not fixed as some would have you believe. If that were true, how come your still walking? Well maybe you’re still expertly limping around.
Held trauma patterns can cause us to limp too long so we favor another body part and compensate that around the trauma. We can get very good at navigating around, get used to it… until the pains of a lifetime keep knocking on the door again and again.
Trauma Release Class
Each week I teach people how the brain can let go of tension patterns, even if we’ve lived unconsciously with them like many of us have.
This week I’m offering an online class on a trauma release for the legs & hips which are more internally rotated. You can see that by looking at knees which roll inwards or a hip which is higher than the other one… or when we feel short waisted these types of compensations can let go when our brain’s motor cortex releases chemicals of relaxation so we regain both function and are more relaxed to move comfortably about.
You can get the class live or purchase a replay and enjoy it many times over. All you have to do is listen and follow along. No worries, you’ll be able to talk with me either live or in the replay portal where I’ll help you out.
Please don’t hold onto that physical trauma anymore, we can simply let it go and your brain is just sitting there waiting to make it happen now.
Simple Differentiation
Posted by: | CommentsWhen our back is a little out of whack, one of the keys to restoring comfortable movement lies in the simple differentiation of a very simple movement pattern.
Listen and follow along to this simple movement.
Somatics exercises are generally done in such a lazy, easy manner and surprisingly the rewards are better mobility, a return to natural flexibility and we feel renewed and more comfortable.
Simple differentiation to wake up both the brain and body
An easy movement such as the one in the audio recording is enough of a simple differentiation to wake-up the brain’s cerebrospinal fluid as we arise in the morning.
Healthy vertebrate animals wake-up their body and brain with simple movements which serves as their warm-up. Before we begin to exercise, we can do an easy simple differentiation or number of them varying the same theme, then we’re good to go like Fido.
If you’re in the unfortunate position of having to sit all day long for instance in the car, working and then sitting down to eat (unless of course you dare to stand up and eat for a change). No matter if you exercise, that may not be enough to change the known ill counter effects of sitting for too long.
Standing up is a simple differentiation which can help
You may have to plan on standing up every 20 minutes or so. You see, when you sit for too long, those muscles below the belt go to sleep and begin to be trained to be useless. No wonder we don’t walk as well or as much as we need since we’re basically training ourself to have muscles which no longer respond in a healthy manner.
Good news… just get up and stand, stand on one leg or walk around for a minute or so. Then you can sit back down. Even as I type a blog post such as this, I too am mindful of how sitting undermines us. This is why I often stand or kneel or sit in a different position, then change it and vary it afterwards.
If you’re gonna keep sitting, then at least fidget around or be mindful of how you can shift your spine around. All that tension we keep taking on, can be remedied with simple mindful movements to disperse, renew and refresh us.
By refreshing the spine, we can continually renew our muscles throughout the day, especially when they get amped up with too much tension. At the same time, we improve the function of the brain by taking a mind-body break or giving ourself a full-brainer of movement done with awareness.
A class on simple differentiation
After all life is movement and movement becomes easier when we can do a simple differentiation with the central part of ourself, our spine.
Renewing a simple way to move our spine, refreshes our movement system from the inside out. Practicing this periodically throughout the course of the day will let us rest easier at night so we can get a good night’s sleep and not wake up stiff or aching.
Please join me this week for a simple differentiation class which can make all the difference to having a comfortable spine for life. Refresh that spine so it can be renewed and you’ll feel regenerated. All it takes is a simple differentiation.
Foot Work
Posted by: | CommentsDid you know that a little mindful foot work could help our troubled feet and knees? I’m not talking about fancy foot work either. More like what preceded our baby steps as we developed.
Do you have sensitive feet, the ones which don’t like to walk over stones or rocks. Ouch! I remember those days as a kid. Now past the half-century mark, I relish how supple good foot work feels.
Foot Work for All Ages
As children we did some very interesting foot work. We loved to pull on our toes. Little did we know we were in a very receptive state of learning and coordinating the little piggies so we could get to a market with our own feet.
These days many of us simply drive to the market and keep our poor painful feet wedged in shoes all day long. Can’t imagine how life would be if we were all to wear glove liners and mittens all day. What would happen to the function of our hands if we did the same?
What are we doing to our feet? That fleet foot work we used to have is a long distance memory as we have aged and bottled up those poor lowly feet.
Now we’re left with mangled toes, foot pain, orthotics, and the search for the right kind of shoe. While shoes have certainly advanced, did our foot work remain in the dust.
Do we really need an orthotic? Maybe we could do some foot work and remember to move well once again.
Foot Work, Handiwork is it the same?
Most likely you can still fold your hands. So try this. Lie on your back, and take your hands behind your head and interlace your fingers. Then once you’ve settled in, switch the position of your fingers and hold your hands the other way.
For some of you, that’ll be no problem and then for some us that could feel strange, awkward as if someone else is holding our hands.
Our habits which we groove in over time are necessary. We may forget small differences help us use our self a little bit differently so we don’t wear our self out as fast. Slight adjustments and little differences lets the brain thrive. It thrives on subtle differences to renew us.
As we readjust to a newness, we change both our body and brain. Now try doing the same with your toes. Yes, try and fold those toes together. Whadya mean you can’t reach down there anymore?
Maybe this is where some of you are now at. Others of you really had to work it to even get the toes to wedge together.
Awhile back I made a video on some foot work. Try this move if you haven’t given it a try. For those of you who did, did you keep working it so this type of foot work is now improved and easy.
That type of footwork can come in handy to change the function of the feet and even the knees so you can walk more comfortably.
Another Foot Work Class
Many times I’ve taught foot work movements to soccer players which had them laughing about how what appears simple isn’t as easy as thought. Though with a little practice, our movement system remembers to move and improve.
We can rekindle the feelings of childlike movement which felt good and free since we have a sensory-motor feedback loop which allows us to reset and readjust tension levels.
We can get back in this loop so our balance improves, our feet feel lighter and our knees can lose their aches simply through subtle readjustments to move us to higher levels of coordination and integration so we manage those formerly painful stones and rocks.
You can join me for an hour’s worth of foot work online, by phone, or even get the replay this Friday where you’ll learn to free up the feet, lower legs and knees so you can dance and move easily again.
In the meantime, just go ahead and pull those toes so your foot work doesn’t get left behind.
Exercises for Rotator Cuff
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Pains in the shoulder, stiffness, weakness and even pain while sleeping on the side can be lessened with a simple set of exercises for rotator cuff. Over time, the situation can become chronic or if you’ve had surgery, it may be necessary to keep the shoulder functional.
The rotator cuff area allows us to both internally and externally rotate our shoulders while also letting us move the shoulder away, out and up to the side.
A Different Set of Exercises for Rotator Cuff
Normally both stretching and strengthening exercises are recommended by doctors, and orthopedists. Physical therapists will have you follow this protocol.
They may want you stretch after doing a reach up the wall or have you strengthen in between the shoulders. While the idea is good, we can go about it in a more intelligent fashion and manner so that the muscles lose their restriction and regain their function.
Instead of the heresy of stretching, we can pandiculate the tight, restrictive areas so those areas regain both both function and remain limber.
Somatics exercises for rotator cuff, on the other hand, use the process of pandiculation to regain mobility and give us back our function so that we can comfortably move the shoulder area back and forth and up and out to the side in this case.
A Diversity of Exercises for Rotator Cuff
With a number of stretches and strengthening exercises for rotator cuff, you learn to hold things for a period of time or do numbers of repetitions.
With somatics, we target the brain’s motor cortex. It can reset the muscles so they “remember” their function. This higher level of intelligence doesn’t require the physical strain that most people endure, instead we use our awareness of the quality of the movement. We can sense the connections we use when we move our shoulders about. This gives us a better range.
Exercises target muscles where intelligent movement takes care of the movement system which includes more muscles since we are of one piece. One integrated movement system, rather than the parts, which allows for greater cohesion and more effortless movement in general.
This gentler yet highly intelligent approach, gives us the ability to create more options to move despite the very ones we’ve guarded against or haven’t done on account of the binds holding things together.
Exercises for Rotator Cuff Class
A diversity of movement lets the brain thrive too. By going cortical, the brain creates more cells, it releases chemicals of relaxation, and we restore and recover naturally rather than forcing, straining or pushing our way through it.
“Being” with our movement system is another tack or way to move more comfortably about. To be free and regain our strength is simple.
You can join us in this week’s somatics class: Diversify Your Movement Portfolio – Exercises for Rotator Cuff. You may join us either online, by phone or get the replay.
In the little over an hour class, you’ll learn a number of different ways and movement patterns to experience how simple somatics is and yet how much power you can have.
The diversity found in the exercises for rotator cuff class will give you plenty of intelligent ammo to keep the shoulders and more, happy for life.
Wall of Fame
Posted by: | CommentsI didn’t exactly make the Hall of Fame, yet I managed somehow to survive the nearly 20 years of fibromyalgia (chronic pain) and make the Wall of Fame at the University of Texas.
The Wall of Fame houses the pictures of students who won various intramural sports competitions.
Little did we know we were headed for the Wall of Fame
Back in ’79, amidst the days of unrest of the Iran hostage crisis, the last 11 guys who didn’t make the soccer team formed an intramural team.
We beat our fellow University of Texas club soccer team in the semis and played against a raucous crowd of Middle Eastern students in the finals. We had to go to a penalty shoot-out to win the coveted burnt orange t-shirt.
University of Texas Wall of Fame T-shirt
The celebration lead to my dorm room where there happened to be a very large bottle of spirits that we managed to finish off early in the morning. Somehow I made it through the 3 final exams the next day. Ah, to be young again.
My playing days got interrupted with what at the time seemed to be mysterious chronic pains. Eventually, the diagnosis of fibromyalgia gave me something to wrap my mind around during that nearly 2 decade struggle.
Fortunately I came out of it and learned very valuable lessons to pass onto others.
The University recently sent a Wall of Fame t-shirt commemorating our efforts. In a box, I discovered I had the original t-shirt we won in ’79.
Wall of Fame Moves
In those days, I was taught to stretch. It was something I never liked to do even though I would go for nearly 2 hours per day during my bouts of chronic stiffness and pain. Fibromyalgia was a 24/7 event.
Years later, I became a Hanna Somatic Educator and gave up my stretching ways and learned about the marvelous ways we can reset our muscles through the natural process of a pandiculation.
This simple reset brings our muscles to rest, lets us lose our stiffness, decreases tension and by magic, releases our physical pain.
There is really no magic about it. All it takes is 3 simple steps. Done with a gentle, easy conscious awareness. Our brain will reset muscles back to rest for comfortable movement.
Please join me either by phone or online this week as I offer some Wall of Fame moves where you’ll learn to release the inner leg muscles (groin), chest, diaphragm, and waist.
As we get older, we can move with greater ease. Life doesn’t have to be a struggle, at least this Wall of Fame individual knows it to be true and so can you.
Cool Somatics Move
Posted by: | CommentsSomatics is the reverse way to lengthen muscles. Instead of stretching, you can use the brain’s motor cortex to reset the muscles back to comfort.
Here’s how somatics works
You target the area you want to lengthen. You contract those those tissues by being mindful of what it is you are doing.
With somatics you pay attention to how you release yourself. In some instances you can immediately notice if there is any physical change.
As an example, many people will bend over to lengthen their back.
This could lead the back to bump the switch of the stretch reflex and get the muscles to reflexively pull back, even into a back spasm.
Try the somatics movement below. This particular somatic movement can relieve the back and hamstrings of its excess tension.
In less than 2 minutes feel what happens. You might want to listen through the first time and then replay it again.
Otherwise, all you have to do is listen and follow along:
Check out this somatics move
Did you gain any length?
Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t yet isn’t this a far different approach than stretching.
When we voluntarily use our muscles, our brain’s cortex can reset the length of the areas we target. It’ll actually create chemicals of relaxation so we relax our self back to comfort.
Somatics movement classes
Each week we offer 45 minute to one hour online somatic movement classes where you use your brain to release the muscles.
All you have to do is listen, follow along and let your muscles go along for a somatics journey which can give you the reverse way to feeling free once again.
Anti Aging
Posted by: | CommentsDon’t let the young punks think there aren’t any things we can’t do in terms of anti aging.
Anti aging at 86
While trying to find a means to anti aging may be filled with ideas on what to eat, what exercises to do and what good company to be in contact with.
Watch this 86 year old women. You think she’s got a bead on anti-aging?
Moving well as we age is one of our anti aging antidotes. It looks like Johanna Quess has got it down.
How can we continue to move well as we age or move well in the first place if we’re already struggling?
Simple. Learn to move well by refreshing the muscles the way nature intended.
Our brain can be used to reinvigorate the muscles. The brain thrives on learning. By paying attention to the quality or lack of quality of our movement patterns, we can re-establish comfortable and successful movement at any age.
Anti aging is a misnomer
Instead of trying to defy aging, it may be high time to get with the program of using the brain and the nervous system to work for you instead of against you.
Muscles will atrophy with disuse. The muscular system will slide ever so slowly downhill as we age yet we can remind our nervous system how to remember to reset itself.
Aging gracefully comes with practice. Who says you’re too old to learn?
Best anti aging products
You can spend your time looking for anti aging creams, anti-aging supplements, anti aging lotion, etc.
No worries though. A number of 15 and 16 year olds can no longer touch their toes. They are well on their way to being programmed to buy anti-aging products long before their time.
Understanding the very organ we can learn to harness to remain supple does require a few moments to use it.
The best anti aging product is the very process you were born to use. By employing the brain, anti aging happens naturally so we can move well at any age.
Core workout
Posted by: | CommentsWe often hear about a core workout. So how do we go about knowing what to do and what will help us?
The middle of our self is what many call the core. How we move the core and translate our coordination out to our extremities is important. We can then move easily, agilely and powerfully when we need to.
We used to believe our muscles were attached to the bone. Now we’ve come to understand our muscles are attached to other muscles. We generate movement with our brain’s intention. We let it coordinate our actions and we know whether or not there is room for some improvement.
A Complete Core Workout
The core is generally considered to use the muscles of the spine. In the front, muscles such as the abs, and in the back, those muscles which run from the neck to the lower back. On our sides, we can use our waist muscles.
A core workout wouldn’t be considered complete if we left out the hips or pelvis muscles. A typical core workout could be doing a variety of ab crunches so we can help stabilize the spine and protect the back.
Can a core workout be too much of a good thing? Certainly some people specifically focus on the abs. If you want a core workout such as this, just hold your breath. That way you can develop your six-pack abs and stabilize all you want.
Too much of core workout centered on the abs can eventually pull the chest wall down and leave you with a tight stomach, a sunken chest or less mobility. The other way to achieve this is to sit too much and let gravity take care of it.
On the other hand, the one big muscle, the brain, controls the resting levels of our muscles. Mel Siff, the author of Facts and Fallacies of Fitness, noted that reprogramming the brain was more important than strength training or aerobics.
Instead of stabilizing our spine for a base of support we can use our dynamic movement system for easy, comfortable movement. When we need more power, we can use our ability to generate it with a seamless transfer throughout our entire coordinated being.
A core workout for good posture
To be able to sit comfortably with a good posture takes the requisite amount of balance of tension. Too much on one side and we could be pulled too far forwards, shifted to one side, rotated or slumped back.
Maintaining our mobility so we can move comfortably lets us use our natural flexibility to be strong. Lose the flexibility, diminish the mobility and now the posture will struggle to keep upright or even walk comfortably.
When we shift towards a brain based way of reprogramming tension levels, then sitting and walking becomes more effortless. A good posture is maintained by the signals we can self-corrects through our sensitivity of this fine balance in tension levels.
A simple easy core workout can be the reminder it takes. Minor or micro-adjustments can be the shift we need or have forgotten to remember to use to be able sit comfortably upright without a back support. The best back is the one you have and can maintain with ease.
Rock around the clock core workout
Simple, easy movement using an intention to move uses our brain’s intelligence to rewire the nervous system so our muscle to muscle system is enhanced. This enhancement is how healthy vertebrate animals naturally reset themselves and remain agile and powerful.
You can join me in this week’s online core workout where you’ll learn how to rock around the clock and free up the front, back, sides, and length of the spine. We’ll also get those hips and pelvis involved.
All you have to do is lie down, listen and follow along. It’s “oh too simple”.
A core workout doesn’t have to be arduous, we can simply move and coordinate our own powerful actions to leave us both relaxed and ready.
