Better Balance

At Last You Can Unlock The Secrets Of The Hip Joints

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When we are looking to improve the functionality of the hip joints stretches and corrective exercises only help to reinforce our bad habits. Looking instead at what we are doing and change our behaviour patterns. I’ve seen my hips lessons improve and change my students very quickly, some see changes after only one lesson.

Often we blame the hips, back or neck as being the problem especially if we have been to stretch classes to ‘fix’ the problem or tried other corrective exercises with little or no ongoing relief. Blaming the bad hip, bad knee or bad back for the discomfort, pain or stiffness.

Let’s look at a few things you can do right now to make changes.

How do you sit?
Bring yourself forward on a chair and separate the knees shoulder-distance apart, directly above the feet. If you keep your knees together you are tightening in the hip joints, stiffening the lower back and which likely pulls you into a slumping forward posture. The chair height must be so that the hips are a little higher than the knees. Please avoid bucket-type seats, like the old primary school chairs. As these force the knees to be higher than the hips and scrunch up the hip joints.
To have some functionality in your seated learning to sit with a dynamic pelvis, meaning that the position you sit gives the pelvis independent freedom so that it can move forward into extension without stiffening your back. This movement is one of the first to teach my new students. Without being shown how to you may find that you are gripping and fixing your deep hip flexors and compressing the hip joints.
How do you stand?
When you are standing:
Do you shift weight slowly from side to side?
Do you practice this every time you are standing like a gentle slow dance with a relaxation response in the non-weight bearing leg?
If not, then you are standing forever without any end, on two legs, neither one will ever be able to relax. Meaning that both of your legs and that includes all the muscles around your hip joints are getting tighter.
You can learn a lot about side shifting in standing. While standing quietly, more weight should be over the heels, not the ball of the foot. Be calm, patience and present within yourself as you stand. Don’t be thinking what’s next or jumping ahead of yourself. Even a little bit of impatience (as in I can’t be here I have other things to do) while standing will tighten the muscles surrounding the hip joints and may move your weight into the ball of the foot. While standing be aware if you are grabbing in the hip joints and let it go. Above all don’t sit into one hip, resting all the weight on the hip because you are balanced over one leg. Stand tall on the standing leg don’t push the weight too far to the opposite side.
How do you walk?
Where you engage in walking there needs to be a little shifting of your weight from side-to-side There needs to be a relaxation response (one leg free) in the non-weight bearing leg. Do not thrust your moving leg in front of you as many people do. By doing this you are placing undue stress on the hips, ankle and knee. It tightens the low back and pushes your head forward. Not the most elegant and efficient way to walk and a major cause of hip pain.

Want to make real changes?

CLICK HERE to sign up to the Free Happy Hips Video Program

Give Back in a Grand Way

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By having a stronger connection and awareness of yourself you’re better able to contribute to your family and your community. I believe this method can help people contribute to the world in a grand way. This is something I know is Moshe Feldenkrais talk about a lot.
Some of you that have been listening to me for some time already know my passion about helping people improve their movements and lower their stress levels. But this part to my story I don’t share with many. It’s this part that to me is fundamental to many human interactions and to our very human existence.

When you take responsibility for yourself you’re better able to connect with others, to contribute to society and be available for your family.

Learning in the way The Feldenkrais Method® teaches you is about building responsibility for yourself. By building a functionally integrated system means you can be a greater contributor to your community.

It’s this connection to yourself that shows you how you are doing what you are doing. Allows you to notice in detail how you are using yourself. Asking how you can use yourself with less effort or if there is another way to move. Giving yourself options and allowing yourself to make informed choices. Therefore increasing your own responsibility.

My “Why” I teach this method isn’t just about help people have effortless movement but also about building a community that has self awareness, empathy for each other and strong loving families

3 Little Known Ways to Whole Body Fitness

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Fitness these days is more than getting fit and having a slim, toned body. It’s become a lifestyle choice, and forms part of our identity. With so many choices available to us, our friends telling us to try this class it’s the best, new novel classes popping into the market weekly to grab our attention and fitness guru’s pitching to us to strengthen this area, stretch out and in order to achieve results the rule is; No pain, no gain!

 

How do we find out what feels right to us? Which fitness routine calls us to join in and try it out? What will keep us coming back for more? Does it have to be such hard work to see and feel results?  

 

With access to technology and information at our fingertips we have the means to research but without the experience of doing how do we really know if it’s right for us?  We are all different and have a unique way to move.

 

The beauty of The Feldenkrais Method® is two fold. Firstly there is no ‘hard work’ before you see results and secondly there is no right way or a good way to move, it’s about how ‘YOU’ move. Only problem is for us who market the method is you can read all you like about the benefits, the theory behind the method and how it makes you feel after. BUT just like dancing and sex until you try it you really don’t know what’s it’s like.

 

The term ‘Functional Fitness’ is the new buzzword in the Fitness industry. A quick google search will inform you that this type of training is used to incorporate multiple muscles and joints at the same time to improve endurance, strength, balance, posture, coordination and agility. To build real world strength. All this movement is great as long as you’re building on a functionally integrated system.

 

Functional Integration® is the name of a Feldenkrais 1 to 1 lesson. As practitioners we have been working with functional fitness for years. The difference being Feldenkrais uses the mind/body connection by tapping into the nervous system which brings alignment, strength and flexibility to the skeleton. In an easy and non invasive way. Different to the current fitness trend which trains the muscles and joints. For a “Full Fitness Diet” combining the two will work wonders for your health and fitness levels.

 

Your brain will help you to understand what you are doing with you body.  To enable you to build on a fully functional integrated system. If your skeletal structure is out of whack in any way an unable to support you, then adding load, force or intensity will only create more problems.

 

3 ways the nervous system helps in a ‘Whole Body’ fitness to build better movement, better living and ultimately better function. It’s the nervous system that governs it all, flexibility, strength, alignment and moods:  

  1. Function

While the nervous system is wired for staying alive. Without mastery of certain body functions  the body will continue to live with tension, discomfort and nagging aches and pains. Limiting not only our movements but our quality of life. Two main functions to have mastery over: orientation and reaching. These are the basic movement we began with as a baby. The ability to look around then reach for what we want.

 

  1. Safety

The nervous system senses if you are safe. If there is a threat to you it goes into fight, flight or freeze mode.  Which triggers the sympathetic nervous system, and floods our system with cortisol. It’s not a great place to live. Yet many of us live in this place, on high alert. If the nervous system has us living in this place there is simply no way to perform at our best.

 

  1. Curiosity

The brain thrives on novelty and gets stimulated by giving it interesting things to engage with. This is how it forms new movement habits and rewires over old bad movement patterns. Therefore it’s not going to learn anything if you repeat the same repetitive movements over and over again and then expect a different result. Building on an already dysfunctional system will only bring about more pain and discomfort.  
Pushing through the pain not matter what we have been told is not good for you, it will eventually break you down and you won’t be able move at all without pain. When you push through the pain all your body learns is to protect itself from further pain. Hence why, the “No pain, No gain” rule is detrimental to our bodies.

 

The idea to move the whole body as a complete complex system has been missing in some fitness routines. In order to find balance within our bodies starts with understanding how the body works as a whole system. Firstly taking into account driving force the nervous system.

 

Doing Feldenkrais enables you to tap into the nervous system and starts the groundwork for more complex movements. If you know what you are doing you can do what you want. By understanding what the brain and nervous system can do will ultimately help you in whatever else you do with movement and in life.