Remember how delicious it felt to discover your toes when you were a baby? That sense memory may elude you, but if you've spent time with an infant recently your mirror neurons will have picked up on the baby’s delight as you touched each little “piggy.”  This likely put a smile on your face, a twinkle in your eyes, and opened up space in your heart. You may even have felt happy sensations in your own feet. Every Little Piggy Counts The simple act of sensing your toes can appreciably affect the way you use your feet and your whole body. Recently a friend gave me some toe socks.  She ..read more

Essential Proprioception That's the title I chose for my online workshop on June 23. Later I realized that not everyone is familiar with the word proprioception..., so I made this clip to explain. Class is about ways to target your sensory awareness for stronger, more balanced, more fluid and longer lasting (into your 80's!) movement. We’ll work with six (or more) key places in your body where heightening your perception makes a profound difference in your balance, fluidity and comfort. It's going to be fun! You can register here. Lovingly, Mary ..read more

21st Century Vitalism explores what it takes to be fully alive during this strange and potent time. Twenty-First Century Vitalism Podcast I love having conversations with Brett Kane—such a thoughtful and generous interviewer! Besides this podcast with me, check out some of his other guests. Among my faves are Ayla Nereo and Android Jones. Thanks for watching/listening. And for sharing with friends ..read more

they felt as though They could take up more space. If you’re reading this, it’s likely you’re curious about your body and interested in the subtle sensations that arise within you when you pay attention. You may have discovered that when you attend to your sensations in a kindly way, those which seem limiting can begin to change for the better. Perhaps this happened during a Pilates class or a Feldenkrais lesson, or even in one of my online workshops—you felt a new body sense that made it easier to find your balance, to move more freely and comfortably. In that moment you may have felt bigg ..read more

Centrifugal feet on the ground, insides still churning. As 2023 wound down, I found myself tightly wound up. I’d be standing at the sink, hurrying to get the kitchen cleaned up so I could get ready for for bed, so I could get a good sleep, so I could wake up bright-eyed and ready for…, what? I had no deadlines; no blog posts, no classes to plan, no interviews to prepare. I had even made my Christmas list and checked it twice, yet I continued to experience a sense of interior urgency. It was as if I’d stepped off of a year-long roller coaster ride and even though my feet were now on solid grou ..read more

I snort myself awake at 2 AM.   I’ve dreamt my face into a snout, A long face. Had I been snuffling along a forest floor? Rooting to find a forgotten breast?   Tapir, pig, jilted child,                     My plastic face strains forward, Towing its vault of angst and opinion.              Tongue unmoored, Gingiva aching; Eyes, parched, blink in the dark.   I swallow: Lick lips, summon saliva and swallow. Epiglottis clicks int ..read more

The sisters had found my coaching service by Googling “good posture“. Prior to our first meeting, Linda sent some videos so I could observe her walking gait. The woman lurched from side to side on splayed-out feet. Narrow shoulders strained to heave her torso over the shaky foundation. Arms and legs askew, knees locking, elbows stiff—no body part seemed connected to any other. Jutting out in front, her head was the only part of her that was clearly directed forward. Her sister worried that Linda’s gait made her easy prey for purse snatchers or worse. I despaired of being able to help her withi ..read more

Midline and Posture In a recent post, I suggested that the uvula and the perineal node are two points within the body that can facilitate an internal sense of the body’s midline. Micromovement of those two points in opposite directions lengthens the midline and facilitates upright and balanced orientation to ground and space—otherwise known as “good posture”. For me, the interoceptive sense of midline adds depth to the more common posture instruction to ground the feet and let the top of the head (bregma) rise.  Vectors A vector describes a movement that has a specific direction and lengt ..read more

21CV explores what it takes to be fully alive in this strange and potent time. It was such a pleasure speaking with Brett Kane. He and his guests explore topics that have to do with how to maintain a sense of energy, inspiration, and wakefulness while dealing with the unique stressors of this current time. He invited me to join him after reading my books about embodied presence. After a short chat about my background and interests, I had the chance to share an exploration of how spatial perception contributes to physical balance and mental relaxation. And to demonstrate how contemporary humans ..read more

The second edition of my book, now entitled Body Mandala: Posture-Perception-Presence, will be released this fall by Healing Arts Press. I spent the first months of 2023 reviewing it with its new editor. Reading it now, five years after writing it, I was struck by two things. First was that I was impressed with myself—some sentences were so clear and elegant that it was hard to believe I’d written them. ?  But the second thing presented me with a conundrum.  An important theme in the book involves embodiment of a personal sense of midline.  My teacher, Ida Rolf, had represented ..read more