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For Boomer women who want to walk their walk with confidence, ease and safety.  Saturday, March 20, 2019 – Optimal Movement Basics 11am to 1pm Learn more

I worked for many years as a free-lance chef, and it was, in many ways, a crucible for learning about “enough-ness”:

It was easy to fall into the habit of overdoing when there was work.  ‘Make hay while the sun shines”!  But I often felt overwhelmed… “just one more thing” would put me over the edge.  In fact, I actually fell and broke bones.  When I couldn’t do any more, that’s when I stopped.

When times were slow, could I rest, remembering that business ebbs and flows in cycles?  No.  After the initial rest and recovery, worry quickly replaced relief.   How would I know if I had enough?  Seemed like I should feel good.  Safe.  Secure.  Maybe if I worried enough, I’d figure it out.  Right.

I really loved cooking for people and having the freedom of self-employment…but this problem with enough-ness was seriously raining on my parade, and ruining my health.

Do enough, have enough, be enough.  How does one measure “enough”?   My own gauge was pain and limitation.  And I’m not the only one…our cultural maxim seems to be “no pain-no gain”.  Why are we afraid to stop?  And why do we always feel somehow, unsatisfied?

Life does not have to be so hard.

Pain and injuries were what lead me to Mind Body Studies. I learned that the more balanced and secure I felt in my body, the more safe and confident I felt in my mind.  It was an actual physical sensation which felt blissful and at the same time, energized.  As if I might actually be capable of handling what came next.

I learned that by backing off of the outer limit, I had better balance, stability… and leverage.  (Dancers and martial artists know this).  Being able to leverage power in the moment felt… the opposite of helpless.

Optimal Movement classes are a fun, empowering and relaxing way to escape the strain/pain cycle, into ease and enough-ness.

Two new Optimal Movement class series start this week: one on Thursday and one on Saturday.  Both are in Shoreline and  require pre-registration.  I’d love to see you on the floor at either or both classes!

Cherries… I have some sweet red ones, plump and round, just washed, water drops beading up on their dark shininess heaped up in the colander.

Imagine grabbing one in your mouth, pulling the stem with a pop, feeling the snap of the taught skin between your teeth. Sweet, meaty flesh on the tongue and juice filling the mouth. As you chew to release the pit, perhaps the slight flavor…(or is it a scent?) of bitter almond…

If you’ve ever eaten a cherry, maybe your mouth is watering now–and if so, it’s because you’ve had a previous direct experience of what those words describe.

But suppose you’d never eaten a cherry–do you think your reaction would be the same? Can a botanical definition of “cherries” convey actual “cherry-ness”? And (without looking at the label), what can one say about a cherry-flavored popsicle?

That’s why it’s so important to experience learning through your body, the way we do in Mind Body Studies–learning through the senses bridges the gap between experience and “thoughts about.”

Direct perception = pure awareness = essence.

In Optimal Movement classes we experience new ways to move with more ease and less effort. Sinking into the body and the senses this way (like a moving meditation, some students say), can be as delicious as tasting cherries.

Sound intriguing… even empowering? Remember–the experience is even better than the words that describe it!  Come try it with us!

A new class series starts this Thursday, August 3rd in Shoreline.  (If cherries are still in season, maybe we’ll have some!)

Current and Up-coming Group Classes

Thursdays:  11am – Noon
Optimal Movement, Feldenkrais-style
Dale Turner YMCA, Shoreline
Learn More
Saturday, September 16th 1:30-4pm
Live More Now
an afternoon workshop in Seattle
Stay tuned…more about this soon!

Saturdays, beginning September 23rd 
10:30 – 11:30 AM, in Shoreline
Optimal Movement for Balance, Ease and Stability
Registration opens August 22nd 
learn more

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Sometimes big words just make me smile. Take proprioception. Loosely translated, it means, knowing where you are in space.

In the late 90s, I tore a ligament in my right knee, the ACL. It happened in a self defense class; we were practicing being grabbed from behind by giant masked men in full body-armor, muttering disgusting things. Play-acting, but still pretty scary. When my turn came, the top 75% of me twisted, but my shoes were stuck in the gym mat, and …there went my knee. I told them I’d settle for bashing prospective attackers with my crutches.

In post-surgical physical therapy, my PT kept telling me not to limp. “I didn’t realize I was limping”, I whined. “With trauma we tend to lose proprioception”, she explained, and gave me some exercises to do.

Proprioception, from Webster’s: “Meaning “one’s own”, “individual”, and capio, capere, to take or grasp, is the sense of the relative position of neighboring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement.”

I did do the exercises, but simply repeating by them by rote didn’t seem to help me “grasp the relative position of neighboring parts”.  My brain/body map still seemed to have few dead-ends.  The limp was just part of how I moved. Over the next 10 years, this chronic uneven movement lead to increasing pain in my right hip and SI joint. I suffered a few more falls and injuries too. Figured I’d need hip replacement soon.

“When you know what you’re doing, you can do what you want.”
Moshe Feldenkrais

When I began doing Mind Body lessons I began to connect the dots, not only within my own nervous system, but in general: what was going on between movement, awareness, and learning: It was, and is, Inspiring. Easier, more comfortable movement is possible.

A new series of Optimal Movement for Balance Ease and Stability classes starts next Saturday, April 1st in Shoreline. No foolin’!  Find out more