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With snow forecast for New York this week, you might think of it as your big opportunity to walk the way your body was meant to-over your center. All that slipping and sliding really forces us to be over the center of gravity, something that most shoes with heels discourage us from doing. Wearing shoes with heels, even most sneakers, tilt us forward as if we’re standing on a hill. To keep from falling forward and tumbling down the hill inside our shoe, our natural tendency is for the hips to go forward, and chest to go back. This helps us to balance. It also creates a kind of collapse, since our hips aren’t under us and the chest is behind us. It’s the All American posture and you won’t see it in anyone who walks around barefoot or in flat shoes. Go to any Caribbean beach town where flip-flops and barefoot walking prevails if you need an example.
What this does…
Heels also tend to shorten the connective tissue of the calves and as a result the hip flexors, and when you’re standing with your hips shifted forward the upper hamstrings shorten which makes sitting difficult. When the hamstrings are tight they pull the sitbones under which makes an upright posture while sitting impossible without strain.
Gentle exercises to try…
Full body arching and curling is a fantastic exercise to find a balance stance, especially the arching part. Standing, try arching back, your tail back and up as if you have a 6 foot squirrel tail and you’re trying to touch the back of your head. Really exagerate it. When your head goes back shift your weight into your toes, this helps the sitbones to lift. With your tail back, weight in the toes, breath deeply, spiraling the arms back to open the upper ribcage. Inhaling is important because it opens the upper ribcage and supports the shoulders to rest more on the back. When you exhale, let your body spring back to neutral leaving your hips back, tail lifted. You should naturally find a less collapsed posture.
You can also go back and forth following the inhale with an exhale into the heels, rounding the shoulders, but make sure you end by inhaling and letting your body come back to neutral.
Another one…
Calf stretches are good with the knee bent and the hips back.. straiten and bend the knees with the hips back, to work different parts of the calves. Be sure to put even pressure in the ball of the big toe as much as the pinky toe ball so your feet dont twist. This will help the hips rest more back over the center of the feet.
Flip Flops…
If this article finds you escaping the New York winter someplace tropical heels probably aren’t your biggest worry right now, but flip-flops might be.
For many people flip-flops or thongs force the wearer to lift their toes or scrunch them up (which is kind of like pushing your toes down while you lift them) to keep the sandal on. Walk down any street in New York in the Summer and you’ll see someone struggling to both hold their cell phone to their ear and balance while they shuffle along in this year’s flip-flops. Holding that floppy footwear on is tough work and it’s kind of like multitasking for the feet.
Your toes were designed to respond to the ground, and they have a much easier time doing so if they aren’t having to wrestle with your footwear at the same time. Lifting your toes is something that most yoga teachers will ask you to do to find your arch. This is a great thing in yoga because it aligns the bones of the foot. If you tend to pronate, you probably have a little trouble finding the ball of your big toe and lifting your toes really helps to find that part of your foot without loosing the alignment of your ankle.
Unfortunately, all that toe lifting makes our ankles and arches stiff, and makes for a hard landing on the heel when we walk. When we are walking we want the arch to flex like a spring. The spring of the arch provides shock absorbsion for our bodies, but it can only happen when the foot is relaxed. If this is you, try this.. Standing, try placing the outside of your heel down first, then the outside of your toes,then the big toe ball and then the inside of the heel. When you press your toes down, you might notice that it’s easier to lengthen them out as you press down. This is the action you’re looking for in flip flops, instead of scrunching, pressing down as you lengthen through the toes.
Easier walking…
This exercise can help whether you’re in shoes, barefoot or in sandals. When you’re walking, try starting by standing over the center of your foot (all four corners with equal pressure) with your knees strait but soft, feet relaxed. Once you’ve found this posture standing, begin to walk. If you try this barefoot on a hardwood floor your walk should go from loud and pounding to almost silent. This is because you are landing closer to the center of your foot, instead of the back of the heel. How you start your walk will essentially determine how you end up moving. If you start over your center, you’ll end up walking over your center.
While flip-flops aren’t the best for your feet, if you wear them, you’ll want to find ones with a tighter strap across the top of the foot for a snugger fit, or one that allows you to press your toes down to hold the sandal on. Your toes shouldn’t have to do anything more than respond to the ground, don’t make them hold your sandals on too.
I hope this helps,
David.
Effort and Grace: Applying the Anusara Principles to Everyday Life
January 16, 2010 1-4 PM
ViraYoga Annex
With Tara Glazier & David Murphy
In this workshop David Murphy (Certified Structural Integration Practitioner) and Tara Glazier (Certified Anusara Teacher) will lead an exploration into how the Anusara principles can be applied to every day movement to create more ease, balance, strength and grace in the way we move through life.
Through breath and movement, we will explore how tuning in and aligning ourselves with our most essential nature, we can feel more supported, improve our experience of ourselves and better connect to others.
After doing a personalized postural assessment with each student we will learn to move from our optimal blueprint by deepening both our perception and our awareness of support. Throughout the class, we will explore everyday movements as well as asana practice.
Cost: $75 Max 5 students
To sign up go to the Virayoga website.
Tara and I are partnering again for what promises to be an amazing retreat in Costa Rica. We’ve been exploring the Spanda Karikas and are excited to share our revelations on “The Song of the Sacred Tremor” through yoga, meditation, and of course playing in the waves. Email for more information.
 
I’m excited to announce, I’ve just moved into a cozy new office at 920 Broadway at 21st St, on the 14th Floor. Thank you for supporting my practice as I transition into this new space. If you’re there for a 6 PM session, you’ll be in for a treat, the sunsets are amazing.
Introducing the New School of Structural Integration
Friday October 16, 7-9pm
If you’ve ever been interested in Structural Integration as a career, I can wholeheartedly say, this is the school. A dear colleague and friend started this school to combine the best aspects of other Structural Integration schools. This Friday will be a great opportunity to meet the director, and learn what it takes to become a practitioner of one of the most cutting edge healing modalities.
Meet Dan Rawson, School Director of the New School of Structural Integration in Laguna Beach, California. Find out about the next training, starting in February 2010. www.newschoolsi.com
Location: Moving Body Resources
112 W 27th St. Fourth Floor, between 6th and 7th Ave.
After a long summer away from New York, I’m finally back. If you haven’t heard already, Bali was the journey of a lifetime. I partnered with Anusara Yoga Teacher Tara Glazier for a 10 day retreat on the coast and in the cultural center of Bali. The retreat included Structural Integration sessions, daily yoga, meditation and breathwork classes in the midst of one one the most spiritually grounded cultures in the world. I think it’s safe to say that all of us had a profound, life changing experience there. We’re already booking space for next year in Bali, so let me know if you’re interested in coming. Stay tuned for pictures!
As someone who spent a year exploring barefoot running, it was difficult for me to accept the idea that an insole could strengthen my feet. While I still think that walking and running barefoot is one of the best things you can do for your alignment and core strength, I do wear shoes most of the time I’m outdoors.
More than you probably realize, the way you find support from the ground has a lot to do with how easy or difficult it is to engage your core. Many of us were born with a foot structure that tends to promote instability and misalignments due to a congenital twist in the talus. This tends to promote a lack of contact between the big toe and the ground and less support through the midline of the body. If you do have "Morton’s foot structure" or "Rothbart’s foot structure" you’re in good company. In Botticelli’s painting of Primavera, Mercury and Charity have this foot design and you can see what it’s doing to the alignment in their knees. Unfortunately most of us are not gods, and are more prone to problems with our feet, knees or low back due to this misalignment.
The way that Posture Dynamic insole work is to provide a minimal lift to the ball of the big toe (we’re talking millimeters here) that allows the medial arch to engage sooner in the gait cycle. This subtle shift helps to align the foot and consequently the leg and pelvis. Because it’s not an orthotic it isn’t designed to support the foot, but instead strengthen it and bring it back into alignment by changing the timing of when you feel the ground through your big toe. A wacky concept, but it seems to work.
Anyway, here’s a link to Posture Dynamics. If you’re unsure about whether these insoles are right for you, I can do an assessment next time you come in. It takes about 5 minutes.
If you’ve already done the series, are thinking about coming in for a Hellerwork series or just want to know how you can improve your posture, this is a fantastic book. It’s called The New Rules of Posture by Mary Bond and I’m recommending it to anyone starting the 11 session Hellerwork series. The New Rules of Posture is filled with fantastic body oriented exercises that come from Mary Bond’s 25 years of experience as a Rolfer, Rolf Movement Therapist and Dancer.
Many of the exercises are similar to ones I practice with clients in a more personal way during the Hellerwork series. They cover the basics of breathing, sitting, standing, and walking while developing core stability and making changes in perception that make it easy to recover a feeling of balance no matter how out of whack you may feel. Even an advanced mover can learn something from this book. In my Hellerwork practice, I find that the movement aspect of the series is often what allows my clients to develop the personal awareness to continue to find balance and improve their alignment long after the series is over. The new rules of posture is a great compliment to this work.
I hope your Holiday Celebrations have brought you closer to friends and family, and may 2007 be all that you wish for.
A little about what I’ve been up to in 2006…
This year brought a lot of change to my practice. At the beginning of the summer I moved my office to Midtown Manhattan where I share an office with a fantastic colon therapist, Rachel Bastow. While I miss being able to walk 8 minutes to work, being at 34th and 6th Ave. has made my office much more accessible for the majority of my clients, and even better, I no longer have to convince anyone how close Williamsburg is to Manhattan.
In September I finished my Somatic Experiencing Training and I am now a full fledged Somatic Experiencing Practitioner! It was exciting to have completed the three year training and I’m looking forward to assisting the upcoming trainings with some of my favorite teachers.
This summer took me to New Orleans where I joined a team of trauma therapists with the Trauma Outreach Program (TOP). We provided sessions and training for Social Workers from Catholic Charities, and other care givers who provide direct services to people in New Orleans. The most exciting part of the trip was our training where we taught the basics of Somatic Experiencing and how to work with Traumatic Stress in a disaster situation. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and it was an amazing experience to watch how quickly they were using the material and how empowered the participants became in the process.
During frequent trips to New Orleans and to Thailand after the Tsunami in 2004, TOP has done two initial studies to determine the effectiveness of Somatic Experiencing for working with PTSD after a disaster. Results showed the highest level of statistical significance with a high reduction in symptoms in only 1-2 sessions, both in Thailand and in New Orleans. Obviously more studies need to be done, but it’s exciting to see some credible research to back up this exciting work. Results of the studies can be found here.
With the help of a fantastic designer I was able to put the finishing touches on my new website. I’m very excited to have it up and would love to get your feedback to make it as articulate as possible. I’ll also be updating it throughout the year with body awareness and movement tips, so be sure to check back every now and then.
As you have probably already heard, the biggest excitement in my professional life has been my project to design a line of therapeutic shoes. My idea to start designing shoes came from my difficulty teaching movement to people wearing shoes, especially shoes with heels or that restrict the movement of the foot. This summer I began partnering with a very enlightened Podiatrist and a team of design engineers to create an initial design. Coming up with a design that’s both flexible, supportive and stable is not an easy project! The process has brought up all sorts of questions about how we connect and relate to the ground, and while I don’t think our first design will create world peace, our first round of prototypes were a great success. As part of our commitment to promoting alignment, each pair of shoes will also come with a DVD that teaches a lot of the movement principles that I cover in my Hellerwork sessions. It’s certain to be like no shoe you’ve ever worn and the feedback we’ve gotten on looks have been extremely possitive, so my hopes are high that this project will be a success. We’re planning to spend the first half of the new year continuing to develop the footbed while we secure funding. I’ll keep you posted as it develops.
On a personal note, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to spend the holidays with family in Georgia, Nevada and California, which meant a lot of traveling, not including my now annual surf trip to Puerto Rico before Christmas! This year I’ve been blessed with a growing practice, fun travel, great friendships and a supportive family. I couldn’t be more thankful.
Wishing you great success in the coming year,
David.
Gratitude is something I think about a lot. Lately I’ve been thinking about it less as something I feel like I should do and more as a solution to whatever is going poorly in my life. Often when I start to feel upset, if I look at the situation I’ll realize that the cause of my negative feeling, thought or sensation is a tunnel like focus on something negative. When I’m able to broaden my focus to what I’m grateful for, new opportunities always begin to appear in the periphery.
This isn’t always easy if your attention is easily drawn to negative thoughts, feelings, or sensations, so sometimes it’s better to take a break from the negative subject all together rather than to try and re-spin the negativity as positive. After spending some time focusing on what I have to be grateful for, when I return to the subject that’s vexing me, I’ll often feel better about it.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend I received this email about Gratitude from a stranger, Dave Faagau. I couldn’t have said it better myself, so I’m reposting it here. I hope you enjoy it.
Happy Thanksgiving. I hope your holiday season brings you much to be thankful for.
Here’s his email:
Most people do no realize the many health benefits of gratitude. Studies indicate that thankfulness is directly linked to physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Compared to people who do not live a lifestyle of thankfulness, research shows that grateful people
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1. Experience higher levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination optimism and energy
2. Experience less depression
3. Better manage stress
4. Are more likely to help others
5. Exercise more regularly
6. Make more progress towards their personal goals
7. Have stronger immune systems
8. Have fewer symptoms of physical illness
Those are some impressive benefits that can be yours without even increasing your physical activity or changing your nutrition plan. All that is required is a grateful heart. Are you a thankful person? If you are unsure, then it may be in your best interest to consider the following questions:
Are you the type of person who dwells on the good or on the bad things that happen to you?
Do you tell others about the blessings in your life as much as you tell them when things go wrong?
Are you considerate of the people closest to you or do you often take them for granted?
Are you thankful only when things are going well or do you look for blessings even when bad things happen?
Is there someone you admire who is a thankful person? What other attributes do you admire about them?
Are you leaving a legacy of thankfulness that others will remember you by?
There is nothing complicated about gratitude. Quite simply, thankfulness is a choice. To say we fell grateful is not to say that everything in our life is great. It just means that in spite of all we see that is worthy of complaint, there is far more we can choose to focus on that is worthy of thankfulness.
Why not choose to extend the tradition of giving thanks through the entire year, instead of limiting it to the Holiday Season? You’re physical, emotional, and spiritual health will all reap the benefits of a thankful heart. The choice is yours.
By Dave Faagau, a Fitness Specialist and owner of Total Body Training
– Happy Thanksgiving!
“You are not what you think you are, but what you think
you are!â€
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