Aligned in Motion

The Jewel of the Pelvic Floor

Recently I had the good fortune to attend a Pelvic Anatomy lecture given by Lissa Michalek of SomaticAnatomy.com. Rather like a stand-up comedian and dressed in a full-body muscle-imprinted unitard, Lissa went over the bones, ligaments, muscles and fascia of the pelvic floor and torso. Amid bouts of laughter, I had several “ah-ha” moments, which gave me several ideas to experiment with in my teaching.

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When Breathing Becomes a Pain in the Neck

Suffering from a chronically tight feeling neck, sore and painful shoulders, or experiencing strange tingling in your arm or hand? You may have blamed poor posture, poor alignment while reaching overhead, or stress as the culprit, but perhaps your breathing habits are playing a significant role in your upper body stiffness, decreased range of motion, and pain.

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Movement and Vitality: Born to Move!

The topic of movement and vitality carries a subtle imperative in it, which surprised me, and maybe it will you, too. While “vitality” can be viewed as a range or spectrum of one’s verve/energy/life force, Merriam Webster also provided a more stark and binary view of the word, vitality, defining it as: “the peculiarity distinguishing the living from the nonliving.”

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What About Stability?

Last time we explored the differences between flexibility, mobility, and hypermobility (or it's proper term, joint laxity). We ended with the importance of "owning" your range of motion, or being able to muscularly control moving in and out of a pose or shape. In this blog we'll discover how to assess your control over your range of motion and how to increase your stability.

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Flexibility vs. Mobility

The terms flexibility, mobility and stability are being thrown around a lot these days. If you’ve been keeping up with the blogosphere you’ve probably seen headlines along the lines of “stretching is out, mobility is in,” or “flexibility is bad, it’s all about stability now!” But as with most things, it’s a little more nuanced than that.

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Obviously . . . breathe

Oxygen is one of the most important ingredients in our lives -- without it we cannot live. Because it is so vital, we have many choices as to the manner in which we breathe. In addition there are many breathing techniques taught to help restore natural breathing patterns and calm the nervous system. But what are the most advantageous ways for us to breathe?

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Ocean Motion

Now, much of this fluid movement is about the spine and there are technical things to talk about regarding the proper function of the spine that I also teach, but that isn’t the focus of my class or this blog. My focus is to introduce some imagery to connect to help develop the fluid movement capabilities of the spine and body.

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Truly Mobile Shoulders

Ideally, the scapulae should be able to move independently of the arms, with the ability to elevate (lift), depress (lower), retract (pull together), and protract (move apart). However, they should also move without our conscious control when our arms move, particularly in large ranges of motion.

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Your Butt Belongs on the Back of Your Body

Seems obvious, right? Poorly and inefficiently utilized butt muscles (gluteus maximus, often referred to as "glutes") are a leading cause of low back pain. Why? Because we have a tendency to both sit and stand with our tail between our legs. We sit on the back of our pelvis, with our weight behind our ischial tuberosities, squashing our lower glutes.

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Hiking in Boots

Not too long ago I headed up north to chaperone a trip with my daughter's school. Because it was going to snow and then possibly rain, I chose to take my hiking boots. Usually I spend most of my day barefoot and wear only flats or minimal shoes as needed. This was the first time in a while that I would be wearing these ankle-high hiking boots.

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