The topic of Posture Awareness is too large to cover well in a single class. There are two distinctly different workshops that I teach. These workshops are independent from each other; you can take any workshop at any time.

Throughout your life, your body is either in stillness or in motion. These classes are designed to maximize the ease of your body no matter what you’re doing. If a machine has certain gears, the machine will last much longer if the gears work together smoothly. If the gears are a little off, there’s more stress on the machine and it’ll break more quickly.

Your body has gears. These gears are called joints. The better aligned these joints are, the better health they’ll be in. In my years of practice, it’s rare for me to see someone with their foot/ankle posture aligned properly. Not only is this gear affecting the immediate area (the foot/ankle area), but also the gears above (your knees, hip sockets and lower back) are directly and negatively affected by the misalignment of the foot/ankle area. This misalignment (sometimes small and sometimes large) may not be causing you any symptoms now. But by the time you’re 70 or 80, this improper positioning of your joints may have a very noticeable impact on how comfortable you feel and how well you move around. The foot/ankle area is only one gear of the many different gears/joints of your body.

Taken care of, your body can work well until the very end of your life. Not taken care of well, your body will feel more pain, discomfort, and tension as you age. That’s a simple and profound fact. Tension builds where the gears are not working well.

These workshops are designed for you to do better than what your automatic way of posture and movement has become. This will guarantee a more ease-filled future. Each workshop will focus on a different aspect of how to use your body and how you can directly change posture and movement to have a more ease-filled life.

Lower Body Posture Class Plus Walking and Sleeping
Wednesday, September 10; repeated on Wednesday, September 24; and repeated on Wednesday, October 8
Posture Awareness Workshop 6:00 – 7:45 p.m.

• Pre-registration is required. You can call me or e-mail me.
• There will be approximately 6 people per class.
• The classes start on time.
• Please give me 48 hours notice if you cannot attend.
• Cost: Donation.

These classes are very experiential. There is not much time spent in just listening to me talk. You’ll gain experience practicing the principles taught in the class.

What To Bring

There are Three Parts to the Class

Part One – Foot, Ankle, Knee, and Hip Position While Standing

Your foot-ankle position is the foundation of your entire body’s posture. All of the weight of your body must be supported by the two small areas of your feet. When the foot-ankle area is improper, all of the rest of your body will be more stressed; especially your knees, feet, and ankles.

Here are two recent examples of why this part of the class is so important.

I was recently (August 2008) working on a 21 year old active male with bad foot/ankle posture. He has been prone to ankle sprains. Otherwise has no symptoms in the foot-ankle-knee area.

Young people often think that no symptoms equals no problems. I told him I understood what he was saying. I also said that if continued with this improper foot-ankle posture, he was much more likely to have knee problems when he was 70.

It's usually decades of imbalances that lead to bad symptoms later in your life – whether it be poor diet or poor mechanics.

At his next appointment, he told me that he had gotten orthotic inserts for his shoes. That’ll be a big help that when he’s 70, he’s going to be very thankful that he helped his foot and ankle meet the ground in a functional way.

That’s great for his feet when he’s wearing the orthotics. Orthotics do not retrain your feet and ankles to be proper. If he’s not wearing the orthotics, he’ll still have bad foot-ankle posture.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to help him to understand this important part of having proper foot-ankle posture.

A second example is my nephew (age 25 in August 2008). He started playing soccer when be was very young. He played on his college soccer team for 4 years and he's very athletic. He said that he can't play soccer any more because his ankles are shot – at 25 years old! I looked at his foot-ankle posture, and there was the reason his ankles are shot.

If he wanted to, he's young enough to rejuvenate his ankles if he specifically does a couple of things (get orthotics and retrain his foot-ankle position when he’s not wearing the orthotics). My nephew didn't have to wait until he was 70 to experience the consequences of poor foot-ankle posture.

I’ve given two recent examples of how this improper posture can lead directly to foot and ankle problems. My opinion is that improper foot-ankle posture is the primary reason why people's knees give them trouble as they age. And going up one joint further, to where your leg bone connects to your hip bone – this is where people get hip replacements. Improper posture below the hips can add greatly to the stress in your joint where your leg meets your hip.

I'm teaching these classes to help you more in the future than in the present.

Part Two – Walking

Walking is your most basic physical activity.

If you get out of the house at all, you’re probably taking a minimum of 6,000 steps a day. That’s almost 3 miles in distance. 6,000 steps equals taking a walk for 45 minutes a day, and not taking another step for the rest of the day.

That means that you’d take 2,190,000 steps in a year (6,000 x 365).

If you take this many steps over 70 years, then you’ve taken 153,300,000 steps (2,190,000 x 70).

Over 90 years, you’d have taken 197,000,000 steps.

That is a phenomenal amount of steps to take on improper foot-ankle posture!

Everybody wants to be able to walk well to the day they die. This class offers you the opportunity to improve your mechanics.

Many people say old age is a bitch; that old age isn't for sissies. Your body could have a good reason to bitch at you because of the way you have treated it.

Part Three – Sleeping

25 - 33% of your life is sleeping. Being unnecessarily twisted or imbalanced for 25 - 33% of your life adds to your body's chances to have trouble as you age.

If you sleep 7 hours a day that equals 29% of your entire lifetime.

Last year my sister began having low back pain that wouldn't go away. She had never had low back pain like this before (55 years old). She went to a chiropractor regularly and she'd already been using a massage chair daily for many years. Her lower back pain went on for many months. It turned out that her problem was related almost entirely to the way that she sleeps. When sleeping, she had a twist in her hips and lower back. After 55 years, her body couldn't tolerate this imbalance. Almost immediately after improving (but not fully correcting) this imbalance, her bad lower back problems went away.

Conclusion

The Posture Awareness classes are the best way I know of to receive valuable, useable, and practical instructions for you to improve your mechanics so that your present life and your future life doesn't have to be a bitch (if your problem is being caused by improper mechanics).

Most of your body’s aches and pain, as you age, are because of a combination of improper mechanics and not enough stretching.

You've, most probably, never been well instructed on your mechanics. Here is an opportunity, in two short classes, to receive the most important instructions on proper mechanics.

My goal for you is to apply two or three keys points from each class that will have a significant impact in helping you to feel better as you age. I’m not looking for you to gain a full understanding of all aspects of proper mechanics by taking these classes. Why use your one body unwisely/untrained throughout your entire life? Come to these short and simple classes to feel better for the rest of your life.

Upper Body Posture Plus Bending and Lifting
Wednesday, September 17; repeated on Wednesday, October 1; and repeated on Wednesday, October 15
Posture Awareness Workshop 6:00 – 7:45 p.m.

• Pre-registration is required. You can call me or e-mail me.
• There will be approximately 6 people per class.
• The classes start on time.
• Please give me 48 hours notice if you cannot attend.
• Cost: Donation.

These classes are very experiential. There is not much time spent in just listening to me talk. You’ll gain experience practicing the principles taught in the class.

What To Bring

There are Two Parts to the Class

Bending and Lifting

Bending and lifting involves your entire body. Most bending and lifting injuries happen from your hips up rather than in your legs. This is why bending and lifting is included in the upper body class. The upper body class covers the area of your body from hips to your head. A little bit about your legs is included, but not much. The lower body posture class thoroughly covers your legs and feet.

Many people have weakness or trouble with their lower back area. They’re limited in lifting, bending, sitting, and exercising. This class will go over the four main reasons why your lower back area can become a problem. Learn the four main ways to have a healthy lower back area.
If you improve in any of these four ways, your lower back area will be healthier. If you put attention to all four areas, you can have a good lower back area throughout your life (unless you've already caused irreversible damage).

Sitting

We sit a lot. People sleep between 25 - 33% of their life. For some people, they can sit for more of their life than they sleep.

If you're aligned and you don't breathe too shallow, your body can do well while sitting; even for prolonged periods of time. Improper alignment and shallow breathing are the two primary reasons that sitting can be stressful for you. Improper alignment leads to more tension. More tension leads to you being more uncomfortable.

This class emphasizes how to have your body align, lengthen and relax while sitting. You can learn how to help sitting be a positive, rather than negative, time.

Your meditation, or prolonged times of sitting, can go from bothering you toward being more symptom free and feeling good. This is not an instant change from improper to wonderful. You have many years ahead of you to help make your times of sitting much more beneficial for your body.

Your neck, shoulder area, upper back, and jaw can also gain great benefit over your lifetime from applying the principles taught in this class.

Conclusion

The Posture Awareness classes are the best way I know of to receive valuable, useable, and practical instructions for you to improve your mechanics so that your present life and your future life doesn't have to be a bitch (if your problem is being caused by improper mechanics).

Most of your body’s aches and pain, as you age, are because of a combination of improper mechanics and not enough stretching.

You've, most probably, never been well instructed on your mechanics. Here is an opportunity, in two short classes, to receive the most important instructions on proper mechanics.

My goal for you is to apply two or three keys points from each class that will have a significant impact in helping you to feel better as you age. I’m not looking for you to gain a full understanding of all aspects of proper mechanics by taking these classes. Why use your one body unwisely/untrained throughout your entire life? Come to these short and simple classes to feel better for the rest of your life.