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.

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.

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.

Somatics 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

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 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.

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.

Dr. Blaylock – The Taste that Kills

Dr. Blaylock contends what we don’t can kill us or is a pointer to what may ail us in what we eat.

Whether or not Dr. Blaylock is correct, our body experienced from within is our own gauge, which if we listen to it, we can heed its feelings of wellness and signals for help, though it can be tricked and seduced. Where’s my chocolate!

The book is a fascinating read and may have you checking the food labels a little more closely.

Here’s a video on what Dr. Blaylock has to say:

Our kids aren’t a big fan of Dr. Blaylock

I know our three children are tired of seeing us put back items on the shelves. Our motto is, if we can’t reasonably explain it to them, we’ll investigate further before we eat it. They’re not a big fan of Dr. Blaylock but we were doing that long before we heard about him.

Of course, they’re tired of the story I repeat, that in the pre-historic 60′s when we were thrilled with a transistor radio that sort of worked. We all knew the one fat kid and we all the knew the kid who was hyped up.

Have you walked around the school halls today? There isn’t just the one kid anymore, is there?

It amazes me that our youngest gets rewarded in primary school with candy of all things. With candy machines and the prevalence of too much sugar readily available by teachers and all the other children who have it on hand, we’ve learned we’re the meanest parents on earth.

We don’t get a chance nor stand the chance to provide a sweet to enjoy because we know the sugar overload is evident besides, we don’t know what’s in natural flavors.

But hey, eat that food stuff, just don’t check those labels.

Has your health deteriorated because it is supposed according to the commercials on tv? Do I really need a pill for what ails me? Or is Dr. Blaylock and others onto something? Is it in the food supply?

Cancer survivor on Dr. Blaylock

Jerrold Sessor who survived cancer talks about Dr. Blaylock and the book Excitotoxins:

Thomas Hanna who coined the term, Somatics, defined it as the body experienced from within. The more we pay attention to our experience, we can do as Hippocrates may or may not have said, we can let our food be our medicine. Is Dr. Blaylock close to the truth or pseudo-science as some are saying?

Are you walking with pain when all you want to is go on a leisurely walk and be comfortable?

Being able to walk comfortably can be ours again when we remind our muscles of their connections to each other simply through the natural act of a pandiculation. Fortunately the “p” word has been systematized as somatics exercises

Walking with pain can seem like we’re dragging a heavy weight around. Lose that heavy albatross and we can be free again.

I remember what it was like to walk a mere 50 feet and my shoulder would sear in pain. It was no fun to go on a walk.

The hips on the other hand, had felt off track and had been clunking around since the age of 14 when I first noticed it. Pain seemed to come out of nowhere on the side of the hips, that stitch in the side, or the back of the legs when I experienced that hot poker of sciatica – ouch, ouch, ouch.

When we get off track, we can get back on by losing what un-tracks us. Sounds complicated. It really isn’t.

Walking in pain is miserable. Who wants to walk when we know if we do, bad things can happen. So why bother.

By not doing one of our more natural acts, we’re doing a great disservice to our self. It’s a tough situation to be in, you want to walk and then you end up walking with pain.

Walking has been considered one of the best exercises we can do for any number of health reasons but doesn’t that sound kind of lame. We’re the two legged animal, this is what we’re here to do. Walking in pain isn’t the option we’d like.

Walking with pain and compensations

A couple of considerations to amble easily is to have things arranged with less compensations or habits of movement which no longer serve us.

If we live with a rotated hip and it clunks or doesn’t move well, this can have negative effects on the knee, ankle or our back. We’ll do a walking rather than ambulate with ease and grace.

Tight, stiff, overly tensed leg muscles which restrict or inhibit movement may result from compensatory habits, injuries or even lack of water. Diet plays a role since the muscles need fuel. Re-programming our movement patterns, on the other hand, has been lost on many people.

If we’re not self-correcting, we’re missing opportunities to lengthen muscles back into shape. Those lazy dogs which sleep all day usually don’t miss a beat and pandiculate themselves after periods of being sedentary.

If we’re sitting for hours on end for instance, this type of day in day out programming doesn’t help us walk any better. The muscles atrophy towards dis-use which furthers our inflexible hobbling ways.

The good news is, we can reprogram the muscles so walking in pain no longer afflicts us. We can improve the connections of our muscles by moving our parts lazily around in a conscious manner where the brain resets tension levels.

Reducing tension allows us to self-correct, change our compensations and gives us new ways to move so walking with pain no longer is an issue.

Walking with pain online class

To end our uncomfortable ways, you can learn some simple, easy movements which resets our muscles back to comfortable resting levels. When our muscles are programmed to be more relaxed, they remember how to get there more quickly.

Please join me for an online class of somatics exercises where you’ll learn how to lessen walking with pain. All you have to do is lie down, listen, and follow along to free things up.

Recapturing our youthful ways of movement is a memory not long forgotten, we just haven’t accessed the part of our brain which can restore and refresh our muscles so walking with pain is a thing of the past we can forget.

A difficult somatics move

In the book Somatics, by Thomas Hanna, there is a very interesting movement to release the hips, legs, knees, ankles, back and as far up as the neck.

The pattern is one of inversion and eversion of the ankles and how that relates to the knees, hips and back.

I know some of my fellow Hanna Somatic Educators don’t like the particular pattern but these are the kinds of somatics, not semantic, arguments we get into.

Like all things such as fine wine, time and practice to mastering movement is necessary although one can imagine movements too and still reap tremendous benefits.

When I first learned this particular somatics exercise, I was in agonizing knee pain. This remarkable pattern caused great consternation on my part. It felt as if my leg was going to break.

Treating this movement as exercise was a sure fire way for me not to break through learning how to simply move instead of trying and pushing with all my efforts in vain and pain.

Why did I make a somatics move so hard?

Coming from the exercise world of pushing, straining, going to exhaustion and breaking myself down, built in a pattern of doing things from the types of physical activities and the cueing received.

To change the habit of movement required I had to tone it down, way down. My muscles were locked-up although I could compensate around that. When the knee gave, this was the beginning of a new chapter, one where I had to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again by rewiring the nervous system since I had reached an end.

When we brace, it doesn’t take much to fire off a painful signal. Learning how to de-tune what seems like an amplified response gets our attention so we can begin to refresh things rather than push against the wall of pain we come against.

In time as I explored this movement, I came to love it once my brain un-locked the pathways so I could move easily and understand the many ways we can hurt our self.

It’s how we unconsciously or habitually move or try to accomplish things with our wise body which feeds back its signal of pleasure or pain… and the richness and variety for which we have no verbal descriptions for.

Somatics Blow Off Class

This week I am teaching an online class where you can get join me live or get the replay of the somatics movement many people blow off.

Why do I know this? My very own clients tell me that they’ve shirked it or found it hard to do by looking in the book… so this is why I recorded a version of it and you can learn by listening and following along.

When we apply the simple somatics system with a helpful guide and we’re interested in learning, success happens and the knees, hips, back and neck simply ache less.

Since it is brain awareness week, somatics exercises can be considered one of the most useful brain exercises around.

Unlike traditional exercise, somatics exercises target the brain’s motor cortex to change tension levels in the muscles. When our brain functions better, we can move with more comfort.

Slow movements help brain functions

When we do a brain exercise like somatics, the movements are done slowly, gently and with as much awareness as possible. To watch someone do it, is similar to watching grass grow.

Here are some benefits of a somatics exercise practice.

1- Pain Relief Using the Brain

Since the brain thrives on novelty, somatics exercises engage the brain and body in unique ways by challenging the mind to be focused. Although the movements appear to be lazy and simple, the mind is highly engaged. One of the brain functions of the motor cortex is that it can reset the resting levels of the muscles. The muscles are left more relaxed.

2 – Improved Memory

Movement is memory. Our cerebellum remembers set points and does our quick, fast movements. We can change those set points using the brain’s motor cortex. By improving the quality of how well we can move at any age, the brain functions and gets to remember that youthful movement we once had.

3- Gain Strength

This brain rather then brawn approach lets us lose excessive tension and stress. Our body becomes more balanced. We remain strong like animals in the wild who reset their muscles naturally.

4- Posture Changes

We can change our shape by losing compensations such as a curved spine which has our belly hanging over. Our new appearance results from letting go of the tension which held us in place by the brain. When the brain remembers to reset to neutral, the brain functions much better and now we appear more easily upright and relaxed.

5 – Natural Stress Alleviation

In the wild, how do animals shake out the stress? When they feel tight, they contract in motion and then they release. Somatics exercises use the animal process of pandiculation which we’ve known since 1680 brings muscles to rest. Targeting the brain functions lets us create natural chemicals of relaxation.

6 – Regain Natural Flexibility

Regaining flexibility is not about getting longer or going for range of motion. When we let go of the binds of stress, tension and long held-injuries and compensations, the body knows where to reset to neutral. We move more freely and naturally by reprogramming of the brain.

7 – Improve the Immune System

When we’re constantly triggering flight or fight, we’re not giving our self the chance to calm things down. Resetting our self so we can ramp it up and then back it down allows us to live more easily with a system which can reset itself and not get hung up to take us down.

8 – Sleep Better

Tuning down tension levels using the brain relaxes our body wide network of muscles. The body and brain functions much better. Resting easy happens when we feel calmer and can let go of the body and the mind.

9 – Greater Sense of Peace and Tranquility

Somatics exercises use the brain to reset the entire body system of movement. When we move with greater ease, our earlier sense of freedom returns. To change our painful, aching, stressed out signals off with confidence, returns us again and again to levels of comfort where we fully understand the mind and body connection.

Better brain functions

The more intelligently you practice, the better the brain functions, the easier we move around.

Healthy vertebrate animals naturally reset themselves with a conscious awareness towards improving the quality of moving at all ages. This type of brain awareness has always been with us, if we only dare to remember to use those brain functions, we’ll move well.

Waking up 60x/minute – Help Me Get To Sleep

I remember taking an overnight sleep study at the sleep center where I didn’t even get to finish it. They told me to go home in the morning after informing me I was waking up 60x per minute. No wonder it felt like a mack truck hitting me every morning when I groggily awoke.

I needed some help with sleep since I was living with lots of stress in my muscles on account of being diagnosed with fibromyalgia. The chronic pains I used to live with were enough to keep me awake at night even though I slept with a tens unit to quiet some of the muscles down, a heating pad to soothe the back and an ice pack wrapped around my neck to ease those aches… all this after a long soak in an epsom salt bath.

Little did I know Fido had the answer to help me get to sleep.

Help me get to sleep sooner rather than later

Healthy vertebrate animals like Fido sure know how to sleep. Ah to live the happy life of a dog, yet he does something to get the tension out of his muscles so he can sleep easy.

Those cute little maneuvers he does is not a stretch, it’s called a pandiculation. He’s contracting a series of muscles and letting them release. This procedure gets the brain to send chemicals of relaxation to the targeted areas. Fortunately, we’ve systematized this as somatics exercises where you “remember” how to access this natural process.

Yepperdoodle, as our 5th grader would say. When we were children, we would do that morning stretch which we had begun to do in our mother’s womb. We were programming our muscles for both function and a relaxation response.

We got older and forgot about it. We’ve been told to stretch to keep limber. Well stretching as we know it is dead wrong according to the research. Don’t freak out, I happen to be a divorce counselor on the side.

We can go about it another way which is to use our brain to get our muscles relaxed so we can sleep better.

This might sound a bit counter-intuitive but you won’t be thinking help me get to sleep when you doze off by doing some simple somatics exercises that anyone can do.

Like Fido, when we do somatics exercises we are doing that “p” word, getting the brain to make relaxation chemicals. As we do some simple movements, we’ll begin to do things like yawn and get sleepy… all without a lot of effort either.

Help Me Get to Sleep – Online Class

Join me in a Help Me Get to Sleep Online Class, which you can download so you won’t have to lie there thinking, “help me get to sleep”.

You’ll learn how to safely and easily let go tense or tight muscles and quiet them and the mind – just in case that gets in the way too.

With simple easy movements known as somatics exercises, you’ll get to relax muscles in the chest, arms, waist, and belly so the hips, shoulders and neck will be freer to rest the spine and your entire self.

Since 1680, we’ve known that muscles can come to rest with the “p” word. Who knows you might be able to say “help me get to sleep no more” by knowing how the brain and body can un-lock the code to help with sleep.

Exercise Programs

The word exercise often connotes sweat and hard work. Movement on the other hand is about changing a position.

So many people in the gym are exercising and are still in pain rather than being able to move freely and comfortably. Are their exercise programs serving them?

When it comes to exercise vs movement to get us out pain, I’m going to have to side with movement at this point in my 50 year old life.

The other side of exercise programs

Somatics exercises which are often the reverse of most exercise programs out there, changes pain and discomfort levels using the brain rather than the brawn of exercise. This can be a challenge when we’ve accustomed our self to pushing, straining and over efforting.

Without sufficient awareness, the simple somatics movements can become exertion and exercise and not bring about the change we want away from pain.

So in both types of exercise programs, problems can occur not because of exercise itself but how we move our self in this ever present field of gravity. After all, you don’t need a weight to cramp yourself.

A learning process to move more comfortably is highly involved, though anyone can do it when we are mindful and not rushed. This lazy approach appears on the surface to be too simple, yet is complex in terms of feeling our way through the various connections and sensations we can perceive.

These sense perceptions lead us to move more comfortably so that it’s possible you’ll never have to go through arduous exercise programs again.

After all, I can go play soccer, ski, ride a bike, and walk comfortably along a trail without the uncomfortable strain, stress and high tension levels I used to live with while living with fibromyalgia.

Of course there is a debate whether the condition even exists yet there are many millions of people with inexplicable pain. But some of us no longer have the pains which racked our nervous system to pieces where a good nights sleep is so sought after.

The treasure of sleeping well comes to us more easily when we are relaxed enough, namely the tension levels which can lower themselves either by the thought of a breath or the ability to let go – which for many, many, many folks no longer is the case.

So naturally we attempt to use exercise programs to exercise stress away. I’m not opposed to exercise yet as I said, when I play a 90 minute game of soccer, it’s all about the movement, the dance on the field, being able to avoid getting crunched and being able to take a hit and recovery quickly… but these are the games I play. What’s yours?

Exercise Programs – An Alternative Choice

Each week I offer online somatics exercise – using simple movement which can be thought of like as the reverse of an ab crunch or inner thigh lift for strengthening.

To come through the looking glass of exercise vs. movement is a novel way to experience what a difference a change of position can foster rather than forcing or pushing our self.

You can use this learning, then do your exercise in a reverse manner and discover for yourself if alternative exercise programs like somatics may be one of the missing links.

The Art of Movement Loosens Stiffness

Aging seems to come with a price of more stiffness, less mobility and flexibility which is a long forgotten memory. So why does Fido continue to move well as he ages?

Simply put, he pandiculates. He sets himself up for successful movement when he practices what appears as those morning stretches. Instead of stretching, he is contracting himself along a series of muscles in order to gain both relaxation and function.

This art of movement practice virtually goes unnoticed by us yet is key to moving well.

Free Muscle Cramps with the Art of Movement

When is the last time you saw Fido run and get a muscle cramp? All we have to do is rollover in bed… and out go the lights. Ouch!

To free a muscle cramp or muscular spasm is no big deal when you come to understand the art of movement which will easily and surely release what seems to be a mystery for many.

A tight, tensed up muscle releases itself not by pulling away in the opposite direction. This forceful method continues to be the way most people go at it.

On the flipside is to use an internal switch by learning how to tune down the built-up or holding tension. This is done by subtle movements in the direction of the offending signal.

Obviously there is an art of movement required here, yet anyone can learn how to successfully release a cramp.

The Art of Movement At Home

Good news is you don’t have to travel far to regain or master the art of movement.

Please join me for an online somatics exercise class where you’ll gain access to the art of movement using the power of subtlety to erase stiffness, regain mobility and restore the lost sense of flexibility.

Youthful movement isn’t just for the young. The art of movement can be practiced at any age.

Oh those aching hips which cause us to not to be able to sit comfortably in car rides or while we walk, if only there was some natural hip pain relief method we could use to be comfortable.

Our hip may have a slight glitch so our giddyup feels impaired and not the way it used to.

Sometimes our hips gets out of whack when they are cranked too far forwards or backwards making it hard to walk up or down the stairs.

Maybe one of our hips is tilted up higher than the other or rotated so when we walk we’re either dragging one of our legs around or throwing our hips about trying to catch up.

All this effort and strain can be minimized when we re-learn how to reset muscular tension levels which will allow us to strut and swivel our hips with ease.

Hip Pain Relief May Not Just Be in the Hips

Even though we may feel soreness and pain in the hips, it may be that some of our other muscles have forgotten what to do or are too tight or restrictive to prevent us from our natural birthright of moving easily like we did as children.

Try this hip movement.

Did you make the connection? When we start to pay closer attention to how we move not just as a part but as a whole moving living unit, we can unwind that which has led us to our binds so hip pain relief happens naturally… just like some of think it oughta be.

Hip Pain Relief Online Class

Tight, tense hip muscles are no way to live, so why bear it any longer?

Join me for an online class in hip pain relief. We’ll explore a variety of simple, easy moves you so can discover which ones can release your hips to more freedom and ease.

All you have to do is login, listen and follow along. You’ll be able to let those hips be smooth so they can glide, slide and get hip again.

Are you ready to enjoy a walk rather than push or hobble your way through it? Ready to sit more comfortably and not be wiped out?

Do your hips a favor and join me for a Mo’Better Hips – Pain Relief Class.

Yes, you can do this – even if it’s your first time.

Simple, easy moves will provide the hip pain relief you thought is possible.

When we ache, are stiff, or feel a pain in shoulder, exercises for shoulder pain oughta get us of out it.

If those exercises we know aren’t doing the trick, then maybe it’s time for another approach where we use the brain to reset muscular tension levels and approach the problem more globally.

Somatics exercises for shoulder pain

Somatics exercises are different since the focus is on learning how to let go of excess tension which binds us. You can target a part of the brain, which’ll reset tension levels, so the shoulders and more will move more comfortably.

The move below is one of many somatics exercises for shoulder pain.

Was that an easy move or did you have a little sma – sensory/motor amnesia? Simple, easy movements like this may seem too simple, yet when we use a specific intention to move and notice our adjustments out of a pattern, our muscles learn to become more relaxed.

Exercises for shoulder pain online class

Learning to reset muscles with the brain is a fun, easy way to spend some worthwhile time.

Not only do we get the brain to wake-up the nervous system, our muscles become more functional as our minds cops to the idea we can more freely, even as an old duffer.

Please join me for an online exercises for shoulder pain class.

While I’m a big fan of a gluten free diet, we’ll be talking about living pain free, getting rid of our aches, and losing stress & stiffness as we successfully age using an approach noted as far back as 1680.

Blog Talk Radio – Women 4 Women Network

As the guy who lived with the so-called women’s disease (fibromyalgia), I’m grateful to be asked to be appear on the Women 4 Women Network. They are empowering women both in business and life.

3 Steps to Getting Out of Pain on Blog Talk Radio

I’ll share the 3 simple steps it takes to change those painful signals to ones of pleasure so you can get back to doing what you want again with your body.

You’ll learn some moves you can do. All you have to do is listen and follow along and feel yourself in the 3 step process of what is known as somatics exercises.

Blog Talk Radio and the Divorce Counselor for Stretching

When I was told to stretch to keep myself limber, little did I know I was actually taking myself backwards – even though I spent as much as 2 hours per day doing it, thinking this would help limber me up.

Whew, I had to come through the looking glass with regards to stretching and helping people find their way to aging gracefully. See you on Susan Rich’s blog talk radio show.

Are you still doing the things you were doing with your neck 10 – 15 years ago? Or are you guarding or immobilizing yourself in order to protect yourself?

Relief for neck pain won’t be achieved through immobilization yet we can use discomfort as our guide to actually have a chance to relax tight, stiff neck muscles which might feel like a brace or vise we’re trapped in.

As we get older, does age prevent us from doing what we want physically in our body or is our accumulation of stress throughout our life taking its toll?

Do we have the capacity to discover a natural way of relief for neck pain by applying a novel approach which has been reported to relax muscles for over 300 years?

Hands-on approach to relief for neck pain

Pandiculations, which the founder of clinical medicine reported in 1680, relaxes our muscles has been systematically used by Hanna Somatic Educators where we teach people how to use the un-exercises of pandiculations systematized as somatics exercises.

Relief for neck pain comes when we un-do tightness, stiffness and regain lost mobility and return to natural flexibility which is comfortable without strain. As we move with greater ease, we can appreciate a greater sense of internal muscular connections.

In the video below, you can find out for yourself if the hip bone is connected to the neck bone. Afterwards you can try the hands-on approach as a means for relief for neck pain.

Simple movement can facilitate our understanding of how we are connected throughout our body. When we lose these connections, we lose a certain sense of ourself. Our internal guide to reset naturally avails itself so that relief for neck pain is felt as natural – as if we knew this all along.

In the many years of exercises I attempted, I had to come through a looking glass to both feel and understand how our brain can rewire the nervous system as we did as children. The conscious act of a pandiculation we did in our mother’s womb has the potential as relief for neck pain when we become reacquainted with a former ability.

Relief for neck pain and more

Please join me in this week’s online un-exercises (or get the replay) on a delightful class for the muscles of the neck and spine – which will include the back and belly as well as a movement for the ribs and hips which will tie everything together.

You’ll also learn to release some muscles in the chest and shoulders too which will help free up the arms.

And you’ll also learn a few more specific hands on techniques like you did in the video above.

Relief for neck pain can be accessed from within without any special equipment, just a little applied know how that you already possess within your nervous system.

Head movements don’t have to be difficult

In fact, our neck, shoulders and head oughta move freely and easily.

If your head has been stuck by either tight neck muscles or tensed up shoulders, there is a natural way to release the built up muscular tension.

You can try the head movements below just for fun.

Fun head movements to try

See, that wasn’t so hard. Or was it difficult to keep your head facing forwards or not tweaking yourself.

When we’ve endured enough head and neck pain, that movement among others can prove to be difficult. I remember when my neck pain felt like a hard sore block that wouldn’t budge or let me move freely. Turning my neck seemed like it was one of the hardest things to do.

Yet when we consciously remind our body of the available movements that we can do, our brain can release neurochemicals of relaxation while we are regaining function so we can enjoy the mobility we richly deserve.

Not moving in a variety of directions begins to limit our body and perhaps our thinking too.

The head movements connection to the rest of our body is evident when we have to feel or sense our self not only at the movement of the head sliding along the surface… but how it relates with the rest of our body.

We are one piece, last I checked and the more we check-in, the far easier it is to self-correct naturally.

A somatics exercise class on head movements

When we move somatically, we can experience the freeing up of pain, stiffness and aches when we tune further and deeper into ourselves. This most natural act is what we did as babies, as a child and if we’re lucky… remember to do for a comfortable life.

Re-learning to move easily and effortlessly requires a quiet internal observance done in a specific slow manner. If you’re game to be more comfortable, you can learn some head movements to free up the neck, shoulders and more.

Please join me for an online class on head movements where all you’ll have to do is… listen, easily follow along… and notice whatever happens… usually the muscles, aches and pains let go. Isn’t it about time to live with easy head movements?

Some people keep on stretching and are wedded to the concept.

Look at this poor guy stretching

By attempting to stretch his hip flexor, he’s actually tightening his hamstrings, the muscles behind the leg.

He might be even contracting his back muscles to be able to get that foot to the buttocks.

Maybe he can still sit on his heels, but the point is… a stretch such as this is still done at professional levels and worse, high schools and even middle schools kids are being led down this lazy and counter-productive route.

Lazy on account of research moving on. Athletes do not need this to warm-up.

Divorce Counselor for Stretching

As a divorce counselor for stretching… you can rest easy, there are other ways to lengthen muscles and warm them up.



For instance, healthy vertebrate animals aren’t stretching either. It’s not what you think.

They consciously contract and then release themselves.

By refocusing your attention on what muscles are designed to do, that is to contract, we can reset them and ready them at the same time.

Stretching is Over

Leave it to the folks who’ll continue to argue about it saying it makes them feel good rather than understanding it’s a waste of time and we can use our intelligence to reset things rather than pulling us apart.

Even for us 50 year olds, stretching is over.

Letting go of tight, restricted, stiff, tense muscles is easier said than done.

While the advice to just let go sounds like a good idea, our muscles may have
forgotten how to relieve the tension and remain tight as a drum.

It’s possible our muscles have forgotten the art of letting go.

Letting go of muscular tension

When we were young we could easily bound down a hill. Today, as an adult so many of us brace our way down the hill or stairs instead of easily letting go.

When we begin an activity from a place of already being contracted, we accumulate more contractions and move further away from letting go of the muscular tension we’ve added.

When we are in pain, we are often wary. If we happen to stretch a contracted area, then the brain will send a message to re-contract afterwards. Things tighten up once again and letting go doesn’t happen.

Even in a traction device, our muscles will re-contract afterwards so hanging upside down to lengthen muscles may feel temporarily good, yet the brain will do what it does to reset the muscular tension levels back to its set points.

Instead, if we consider our self as a self-adjusting organism, we don’t need any contraptions or devices, just our self and gravity since this is the field we happened to have things go awry in.

In the practice of somatics, we aren’t necessarily focusing on the muscles, we are working with the lines of communication from the brain to the muscles. The pathways or information from brain to muscle is where we play and change both the brain and body.

When we experience a painful signal – this can be our greatest teacher since we can locate a movement above, below, to the right or left or forwards/back of it – which we can release by being careful.

Regaining the ability of letting go

If you believe you can improve yourself, we know today from neural plasticity, the brain and thus the body can change itself.

With a little know-how we can relearn the lost art of letting go.

By easing our way into greater range of motion rather than force, we’ll end up being stronger simply by letting go. If we push it, our brain will naturally re-contract the muscles.

To go easy is like untying a knot gently. If you tug too tightly, the knot will tighten.

Please join me in an online class which offers you the simple art of letting go with easy, fun, simple moves done in a different way of focusing on movement and using the brain to reset our self naturally.