We had a fun introductory workshop of primal posture today with Abeja, a Gokhale Method instructor!
Esther Gokhale (who wrote the book, 8 Steps to a Pain-free Back) and her teacher, Noelle Perez in France, have studied the postures and bearing of people of indigenous cultures who don’t experience back pain. They also study the natural posture of children before the age of 3. Apparently 80% of us in the western world experience back pain!
Abeja started incorporating the movements and posture recommendations into her bodywork practice and has seen amazing results.
Today she showed us the shoulder roll to help open our chests, how to stretch-sit to take the sway out of our backs, how to lengthen the neck, and the first step in how to walk using the gluteus medius muscle. In traditional cultures, the spine is more of a J shape than an S shape. There is a straight groove where the spine is; the shoulder blades are prominent; the gluteal muscles are well-pronounced and the bottom is behind the spine.
Abeja plans on teaching an intensive weekend workshop in Marin some time in the early spring. I’ll keep you posted!
The dinner was lovely! We had egg salad, cauliflower soup, Good Faith Farm olives, homemade pickles, Wild West roots kimchi, sourdough bread with raw butter, a fall salad, a kale salad, a leek, daikon, carrot ferment, ginger turmeric lemonade and almond cookies. Yum!
And we had lively conversation with lots of talk about broth techniques!
By Karen Hamilton-Roth