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

A Promise My first video workshop is called Know Your Feet. I made it because so many people are troubled by foot problems, and because improving posture involves bringing awareness to the body’s base of support. At the beginning of that video I commented that feet are so complex that my presentation would have to be the first of a two-part series on feet. Years went by and that unfulfilled promise about a second workshop nagged at me. Editing Myself When online workshops became common in 2020, I finally made that second workshop. Entitled Mobile Foundations, it shares a more sophisticated und ..read more

New awareness has shown me that I’ve never used my diaphragm correctly. I can’t be the only person to realize I’ve only grazed the surface of something I thought I understood perfectly well.  Maybe you too have experienced something like this. Breathing in the Rearview Mirror I’ve always included breathing in my teaching and writing. But a revived interest in breathing has shown me how little I’ve actually understood about it, and how inefficiently my own body has been doing it, for decades.  I now see—and fully feel—that I’ve never used my diaphragm completely.  Yikes! Th ..read more

Sometimes the road goes uphill more than you anticipate. I was prepared for the summer’s predicted heat to be challenging for a couple of reasons:  1) elderly people are greatly affected by hot weather—at 80, I am officially “elderly”—and 2) heat is stressful and any kind of stress exacerbates symptoms of parkinsonism. I didn’t expect to be stopped in my tracks. I had plans—workshops I was going to teach, research I was going to do. Instead, I spent vast amounts of time reading detective novels and taking long afternoon naps. Dehydration Because it affects the autonomic nervous system, P ..read more

Relationship Between Support and Openness    Recall a time when you let yourself be vulnerable—when your heart opened—and ended up bruised. Someone took advantage of your generosity or in some way abused your tenderness. The sinking sensation you felt then may be poignant even now. A sinking sensation suggests that at that time you lacked foundation for your feelings. Later on, and with luck, you developed ways to support your openness. Although hardening your heart was an option, you chose instead to back it up with solid friendships, nourish it with creative endeavors, and str ..read more

One of my online coaching clients — I’ll call her Sally — is 85 years old and has fallen in the street several times. Watching her walk, it’s easy to see why she falls. Her legs rotate outward to about 45 degrees and her feet are set wide apart—beyond her torso.  For each tiny step forward, she tilts her whole body sideways. With stiff ankles, knees, and hips, her movement has a puppet-like quality.  The wide stance feels stable to Sally when she’s standing still, but any movement threatens to topple her forward or back, even when she uses her walking sticks. Sally hates catching gl ..read more