Somatic Mechanic

Gnarly Toes on Foot Mechanic

Bop over to my Foot Mechanic page for a post on Gnarly Toes and how they disrupt the natural shape of the foot.

Parkinson's Patients improve with "forced" exercise

The NYTimes has an interesting article discussing the findings of a Parkinson's Disease researcher.  

"Scientific discoveries can be serendipitous, and so it was when Jay L. Alberts, then a Parkinson’s disease researcher at Emory University in Atlanta, mounted a tandem bike with Cathy Frazier, a Parkinson’s patient. The two were riding the 2003 RAGBRAI bicycle tour across Iowa, hoping to raise awareness of the neurodegenerative disease and “show people with Parkinson’s that you don’t have to sit back and let the disease take over your life,” Dr. Alberts said.

But something unexpected happened after the first day’s riding. One of Ms. Frazier’s symptoms was micrographia, a condition in which her handwriting, legible at first, would quickly become smaller, more spidery and unreadable as she continued to write. After a day of pedaling, though, she signed a birthday card with no difficulty, her signature “beautifully written,” Dr. Alberts said. She also told him that she felt as if she didn’t have Parkinson’s."

The article goes on to propose "forced" exercise, that is exercise that is performed at an intensity higher than the patient would normally have chosen, may have significant beneficial effects on Parkinson's Disease characteristics.  I think it is important to recognize that this probably has nothing to do with the patient's internal motivation and whether or not the patient is willing or unwilling to do the exercise. This isn't an unethical use of force by any means! But this *is* a wonderfully intelligent and elegant study design that examines the benefits of the least expensive and yet most effective therapies available to us:  exercise.

Lung imagery can influence your spine flexibility

Didn't know the interior of your lungs was like a shag rug?  Oh yeah, we're talking David Cassidy and Jell-O recipes.  This fascinating photo shows it all! The shaggy pink threads are the alveoli filled with blood and the blue tubes/channels are bronchioles, which carry in the oxygen and carry away the waste products like carbon dioxide, water and, if present, alcohol vapor.

Now, here's for the imagery:  imagine how these shaggy filaments look as air comes rushing into the space, eddying and swirling like the fluttering of leaves on trees:

  

A deeper and more vigorous inhale/exhale might bend and sway enormous stalks of alveoli like this.  (Yes, it's windy where I live!) 

 

This fluttering & shimmering is happening inside your lungs with every breath.  Your lungs are more than a bellows or a pair of balloons sitting statically in your chest.  They move, ripple, undulate, flex and respond to the wind currents.

Now soften your back muscles, your neck muscles, your chest muscles.  Breathe in and out, in and out..... in your mind's eye visualize this responsive rippling inside your lungs.  The next step is a bit more advanced but still quite do-able: if you could feel this rippling undulation of the lungs within your rib-cage, what would it feel like?  Stop.  Think about that for a few seconds.  Imagine it. Take a few minutes to just breathe and imagine feeling the lungs shimmering in your ribcage.  The crucial part is the imagining of the sensations.  As you get familiar with the tools of imagery, you will transform the way you relate to your body.

Upper body Franklin Method workshop August 25

The above is the flyer for my upcoming August 25 workshop being held in the Monterey California area. I will be covering the upper body: shoulders, neck, spine, and upper back muscles.  If you've never attended a Franklin Method workshop, you will love it.  Have you ever heard of the Adventure Education course called "Outward Bound"? Where teamwork and adventure come together in high-ropes courses, ziplines, camping in the wilderness and rock climbing?  Well, this is the equivalent workshop that goes inward instead of outward... this is an "Inward Bound" Workshop!!  You will explore, discover mental skills and simple techniques to improve your movement, play games, learn imagery for relaxation and improved musculoskeletal skills.  Drop me an e-mail if you'd like to attend, I'd love to have you there!

Mediterranean Salad

OK, I don't intend for this to become a cooking blog, but I am a bit of a foodie so it's still representative of my interests.  This is a fantastic hot-weather dish, vegetarian with Mediterranean flavors.  YUM!

Mediterranean Salad with Garbanzo Beans, Feta & Mint

1 can Garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained

Scant 1/4 c. chopped fresh mint

1/4 diced red onion

1/4 peeled and seeded cucumber, diced

.5 oz crumbled feta cheese (~1/8 c.)

1.5 Tbsp Dijon mustard

1 Tbsp. chopped black olives

1.5 Tbsp lemon juice

1/2 Tbsp olive oil

1 small garlic clove (pushed through garlic press)

Salt and pepper

Combine all ingredients and serve!

 

Gluten-free Almond Cookies

I offered my gluten-free Almond Cookie recipe to some friends on Twitter and now I realize I don't really have a place to post it.... except here.  So forgive me, my readers of somatic-ness.  But perhaps you will like a wonderful cookie recipe too.  And it doesn't have to be gluten-free, you can use regular flour.  It's a lovely cookie, crispy on the edges and chewy in the center.  Keep some of the dough in the freezer for cookie attacks.

Almond Cookies

11 ozs (3 cups) Almond flour (sometimes called Almond Meal)

1.5 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free All-purpose Flour (or regular AP Flour if you don't care about gluten)

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

4.25 ozs (1/2 cup plus 1.5 tsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 2/3 cup (13 ozs) sugar

1 tbsp freshly grated lemon zest

2 XL eggs (4 ozs total)

1 cup (4 oz.) whole almonds, toasted and coarsely chopped (sometimes I use Trader Joe's toasted sliced almonds and just crush in my hand)

1 egg, beaten, for egg wash

1. In a medium bowl, stir together the almond flour, AP flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.  In the bowl of your electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar at low speed until smooth.  Add the lemon zest and eggs, scraping down the sides of the bowl. With mixer on low, add the flour mixture, scraping sides as necessary.  Fold in the chopped almonds with a spatula until incorporated.  Put the dough on a big piece of plastic wrap and pat into a 9 x 6.5" rectangle.  Wrap in plastic wrap and put in freezer to firm up, at least a few hours and probably overnight. 

2.  Preheat over to 375 degrees.  Take out your frozen dough and place in front of you with the 9" sides at top and bottom.  Cut the rectangle vertically into 3 sections of 3" x 6.5", then take each section and turn so the shorter 3" sides are along the top and bottom. Cut horizontally into 1/2" slices.  You should have 13 three inch long cookies.  Place cookies on parchment-paper lined cookie sheets.  With a pastry brush, brush the top of each cookie with egg wash.

3.  Bake for 16-19 minutes or until golden brown.  Yum!

Music + Movement = better balance

 

In today's NYTimes, Roni Caryn Rabin described a recent study that showed:

"Elderly people in a new study cut their risk of falling by more than half after they took classes in eurythmics, an exercise-and-music program designed for young children.

The 12-month trial recruited 134 people, average age 75, who were unsteady on their feet. Half were randomly assigned to weekly, hourlong eurhythmics classes for the full year, and the other half for just the last six months."

The classes, called "Eurhythmics" (insert 80s music reference here) involve movements like walking, turning around, moving in time with changing tempos, shifting weight and balance, handling objects while walking, and making exaggerated upper-body movements while standing and walking.  

The creator of these classes was an early-20th-century Swiss composer Emile Jaques-Dalcroze.  I first read of Dalcroze in a terrific book "The Perfect Wrong Note" by William Westney; if you have a child you are hoping will develop a love for creating music then read it.  The author is the piano teacher you always wished you had had.  He proposes that we will all make mistakes, so make juicy ones!  He conducts workshops that he calls "The Un-Master Class", which I believe is very similar to the Franklin Method in its playfulness and pedagogical aspects.

What is amusing to me about the study described in the NYTimes is the conclusion.  The study's lead author says is is unclear how music had its positive effects on the study particpant's gait and balance.  Well, hmmm, moving to music is usually called "dancing" and I believe it's fairly clear how that would improve one's balance and coordination.  

When we move without music, we are moving at our innate "default" tempo.  For seniors, sometimes that means slowly shuffling along, often it means spending more time on a less-dominant leg in an uneven gait.  By deciding to move to music, one is attempting to match an externally generated tempo and color.  YOU try to shuffle along slowly and unevenly to Mozart's Rondo alla Turca!  You can't do it... the music picks you up and pushes you along at ITS speed and brightness.

 

 In your attempt to match the Rondo's qualities, you are asking your body to organize movement at an unfamiliar speed or rate (unless you always have Mozart playing in your head).  If the task is to walk at the Rondo's tempo, your center of gravity must still swing from being over one foot to the other, but now do so at an externally-dictated speed.  That is fitness training, really dance training, for seniors who usually shuffle.  It seems very clear to me how moving to music would positively influence senior's balance and fall-rate.  

Franklin Method Jaw and Neck Workshop

Do you hold tension in your jaw?

The jaw has some of the strongest muscles in the body, allowing us to munch our way through peanut brittle, bruschetta and other crunchy foods, but sometimes they go rogue and cause too much tension.  When these muscles are too tight, it can cause the neck to tense up as well and lead to headaches, neck pain and shoulder tension.  Jaw clenching, teeth grinding, and postural issues such as holding the head too far forward all contribute to jaw and neck tension.

In this class, we’ll learn simple exercises, stretches and imagery that will release these patterns of tension, especially those patterns you were not even aware you were creating and actively maintaining.  We will access our inner sense of movement to learn simple and effective ways to release your jaw and relax your neck.

When: Friday, December 3, 2010

Where: Mindful Movement @ The Barnyard Shopping Center in Carmel, California.  Detailed map here.

Time: 1pm - 3pm

Cost: $50

Taught by:  Donna Luder, certified Pilates, Gyrotonic and Franklin Method instructor.

Class size is limited to 10 participants 

RSVP 831-206-0725

 

Curiosity and Pilates

If you want to significantly improve your movement skills, you must cultivate curiosity!   Without curiosity, Pilates or TRX or weight-lifting becomes just a routine to get done and behind you.  "What's next?  How many reps?  How much resistance?  Am I done?"  What a waste of time and brain-power! 

Being curious about your chosen exercise method will keep it fresh -- each workout is unique and with its own flavors.  What are you interested in today?  Are you curious about why your right hip has been clicking when you do Frogs on the Reformer?  How about that sore spot on your calf, or why do your toes cramp each time you point your foot?  Curiosity about why and when these things happen will lead you to exploration, discovery and ultimately mastery of new skills.

Here's how it goes:

CURIOSITY results in EXPLORATION

EXPLORATION results in DISCOVERY

DISCOVERY results in PLEASURE

PLEASURE results in REPETITION

REPETITION results in MASTERY

MASTERY results in NEW SKILLS

NEW SKILLS results in CONFIDENCE

CONFIDENCE results in SELF-ESTEEM

SELF-ESTEEM results in SENSE OF SECURITY

SECURITY results in MORE EXPLORATION

This chart is actually from an authority on brain development in children, but I think it holds true for adult Pilates students as well.  All of these elements are things that we Pilates instructors want for our students.  I want my students to discover the joy of freedom in the hip joint, in the range of motion of their shoulder, the sensation of the lungs turning in and out while they arch & curl. These concepts and sensations are what they take with them when they leave the studio.  And they do leave the studio, you know.  They are only with us for about an hour at a time, and sometimes they even (gasp) move away. When they do leave (or for that matter, when I go to Maui on vacation) it is still my intention that they are developing and mastering new skills through exploration, pleasure and confidence.  The fuel for that is curiosity and it can be fostered by the instructor.  

It doesn't take much.  If you are teaching a group session, just a sprinkling of an idea or an image that is revisited throughout the session can provide a depth and richness to the workout without annoying or confusing those students who are just beginning their journey and highly dependent on the instructor's guidance.  When you are one-on-one with a client you can develop a truly personalized path toward finding the joy in all movement, not just in the Pilates studio. 

Fascia

Connective Tissue for Trees and Humans

 

When we think about movement or working out, we're used to thinking about muscles and bones, but fascia?  Not so much.  This important structure connects everything together!  If you have ever cut up a chicken and noticed that translucent "silver skin" that surrounds the chicken breast, leg, thigh, etc. then you have seen fascia.  It's what makes up our tendons and ligaments and surrounds our muscles.  Last week when I was out and about, I noticed this palm tree with its fascia hanging out.  Notice its basket-weave structure, how strong this "tissue" is.  I can understand how Polynesian natives might have used this in building their houses -- it looks really strong.  This is the palm tree's fascia, our fascia is very similar.