by Lesley Powell

“Abdominals come in many Flavors” Doris Pasteleur Hall

“I do have a question - on the KNEE STRETCH & KNEELING ABDOMINAL SERIES - why would you choose the rounded back vs the flat back — would it be for body type, body issues, difficult/easier, different focus? Could you explain.” Kris

For a healthy body, training the abdominals with the spine in many positions of neutral, flexion, extension, lateral flexion and rotation is very important. The core muscles coordinate differently for each position. Training core muscles for dynamic movement is essential. This kind of training supports the physicality for good posture and necessary for our movement loves. This will also teach clients how to use their spines without unhealthy compression. A healthy spine should be able to move through all planes: flexion-extension, lateral flexion and rotation.

Knee stretch is the preparation for Advanced Knee Stretch, plank pose, downward dog, Long stretch and Up stretch. It teaches the client the coordination of the all the limbs with the core.

Advanced Knee Stretch

Certain health conditions require modifications. With osteoporosis of the spine and disk problems, knee stretch in flexion is contraindicated. With Stenosis and spondylolisthesis (go to BBU’s Movement principles - info about neutral spine), knee stretch in flexion is a great exercise. As with Stenosis and spondylolisthesis, you might have the client perform a neutral spine with a imprinted spine or supported neutral.

by Dr. Martha Eddy & Lesley Powell

Traditionally in fitness “core” use to refer just to the abdominals. When someone has back problems, the traditional approach has been to train the “abs” and then the back separately. In our BodyMind Fitness training, one has to train the spine 3 dimensionally for posture and daily movements. First a person has to get in touch with how the spine moves in different directions - moving front-back, sideways and rotating.

3-D Spine with Dr. Martha Eddy & Lesley Powell at Movements Afoot
Dates: Sat   4/12/2008
Time:  4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Somatic Saturday with Dr. Martha Eddy & Lesley Powell
April 12 4-6 PM $60

In our upcoming workshop at Movements Afoot, the 3-D Spine the 3-dimensionality refers to the anatomy of the spine as well as to these various movements of the spine. Part of the lack of effectiveness in overcoming back problems is that people do not understand how the spine moves. So in our workshops, we get you to experience how the spine works. We look at the shape of each vertebra and the Sliding action of the facets in movement. The 3-D core refers to the volume of the torso and the internal contents. This awareness gives you a different understanding of your body. We learn some of the organ anatomy and how to breathe into the torso to feel supported.

IN our upcoming workshop at the BodyMind Expo called Laban Space Harmony: Bringing 3-D to your Session we will incorporate concepts from the 3D Spine, 3D Walking, and 3D Swing. Perhaps you will join us in New York or in CA!

by Lesley Powell, Director of Movements Afoot

Dynamic moving blocks

My training at the Laban Institute of Movement Studies changed how I saw movement, performed and how I taught others. In 1985, I enrolled in the yearlong program at the Laban Institute of Movement Studies. I was fascinated by Laban theories about space as a choreographer and dancer. Being a CMA, a certified Laban Movement Analysis, opened a new world about movement and my teaching career.

Irmgard Bartenieff, the founder of the Laban Institute of Movement Studies (LIMS), was like a Renaissance woman. All movement fascinated her: child development, cultural perspectives, non-verbal communication, psychology, Physical therapy, dance and more.

Bartenieff Fundamentals™ (BF) is a system created by Irmgard Bartenieff to teach people concepts to promote healthy function. The beauty of the system enhances strength, function and mobility. This is one of the few body modalities that address how the body organizes for different spatial demands. How the body moves in basketball is very different than playing tennis.The system is simple in breaking down to 6 basic movement actions. The complexity comes with the many combinations of the 6 actions with underlying concepts of breath, core support, alignment, rotation, phrasing and spatial intent. The applications to movement are endless with no conflict of style. Within the framework of any physical practice, BF is a modular system within any form of movement. By enhancing function, physicality improves. This is essential with problems of injury rehabilitation and sport/dance performance.

Teaching Bartenieff Fundamentals™ within any movement lesson are wonderful shorthand devices to improve the coaching of a session. Whether it is the dancer’s port de bra, the tennis swing or the injured arm of a client, interlacing BF within the movement lesson plans quickly enhances the lesson. For instance if the shoulders are up, putting the client’s attention of working from the scapula can improve form.

My first classes based on Bartenieff Fundamentals™ were at Dr. Backrach’s Center for Osteopathic Medicine in 1987for conditioning to injured clients. Teaching Bartenieff Fundamentals™ to an injured population taught me the power of this work. My colleagues in my certificate Laban/Bartenieff program were such great movers that I did not understand the importance of BF. Working with injured clients led me to a deeper understanding into the concepts of BF and their potential in assisting neurological repatterning. Working with clients with injuries, I saw dysfunction in their movement patterns. BF gave the clients information about their movement patterns and how to make positive change.

Because of my success with working with clients, I was invited and paid to learn how to teach Pilates at JRW Physical Therapy in 1990. The physical therapists at that time were having difficulties with traditional Pilates teachers working with an injured population.

A majority of the cases of the clientele of the physical therapy practice were suffering from repetitive stress disorder. Because their arms/hands were in trauma, a lot of the Pilates exercises were contraindicated. Bearing weight on their hands especially on the footbar was painful. Within my Pilates sessions, I would work with the clients on the Bartenieff Fundamental™: hand-scapula relationship before I trained more complex and weight bearing exercises. My first goal was to get ease of motion of the scapula to help lift the arm. When they could work pain-free, I added slowly more resistance.

The Bartenieff Fundamental™: thigh lift is an important action of all movement: gait and dance/sports activities. It is the dancer’s passé, the initiation of the kick in sports, yoga, fitness and most importantly our walking. The ability to move our legs and move us through space is essential for everyday activities. The freedom of the thighbone in the hip socket with the strength of the leg and torso muscles take us into standing, walking and more complex movement actions. A lot of problems of back, hip and knee pain can be a cause of poor patterning how the thighbone moves in the hip socket, pelvic stability and lifted to propel us in space.

A poor thigh lift disconnects to the deep use of the abdominals and the psoas will be lost. Other muscles will have to take over for the lack of this connection. The thigh lift is essential for all abdominal exercises and all movements that require level changes and propulsion.

This is the beginning towards a book primarily about Bartenieff Fundamentals™. This is a small part of an application of the Laban material.

by Lesley Powell, Director of Movements Afoot

They’re back… two December workshops with two great teachers.

John Chanik & Lisa Love return to teach at Movements Afoot this December.

Lisa Love returns with a workshop about assessment. Learning how to assess is about the art of seeing. Lisa Love, Ed.M., R.M.T., has an Advanced Master of Education in Motor Learning from the Department of Movement Sciences & Education, Teachers College, Columbia University with additional graduate studies in biomechanics and clinical
kinesiology at NYU. She has taught movement reeducation for over 20 years, and maintains a private practice in Pilates in NYC. She has been researching and working with MS clients for 15 years.

John taught this wonderful workshop 2 years ago about the spine. John brings his expertise as a trainer and a personal injury to his back lifting a dancer in his dance career. The Spine workshop this 12/18 is about understanding the function of the spine and the newest research about stabilization. 2 years ago we had a variety of students from those with back problems and teachers. I still use the material in all of my sessions with my clients.

by Lesley Powell, Director of Movements Afoot

When teaching clients with hip replacements, it is important to find out what kind of hip replacement did they have. At the moment, there are 2 different type of surgeries: the incisions are in front of the hip or in the back. Because of the incisions, this leaves the hip vulnerable to displacement due to weakness and the incision. I highly recommend that you and the client talk with their Doctor about their surgery and contraindications for training. With new advances in hip replacement, things are changing.

For instance, surgery from the back, movements of deep hip flexion is contraindicated. That means not to push hamstring flexibility by trying to bring the leg close to the body. Training the posterior hip is very important. Building strength of all the muscles of the hip and legs is important. In Pilates, diminished range of leg circles are great. Full short spine is not recommended. (Some of range of motion depends on their fitness before the surgery. Dancers have a unique range of motion.)

The most important thing to remember with hip replacements is not to push extreme range in the hip. Building dynamic strength is essential. Some clients, who tried to avoid surgery, developed compensation habits around the painful hip. Part of your teaching might be teaching your clients better function of using their legs.

by. Martha Eddy, CMA, Ed.D., RSMT: Director of Moving on Aerobics
212.414.2921

I’ve just walked back to the office at 7:30 am on Saturday Oct 6th from the Opening Ceremony for the Avon-Walk-a-thon: a two-day up to 39 mile event here in NYC. Being The Stretch Lady was a blast for 2007 Fifth Annual event! I volunteered to lead the warm-up earlier in the year and was delighted when the offer was accepted. 3900 people gathered to walk, 430 of them survivors of breast cancer. The talks were poignant as are the facts. Every 3 minutes another woman is diagnosed with breast cancer. Every 13 minutes someone dies from it. The good news is that more and more women are surviving the disease, including those with Stage 4 diagnoses. As cancer crusaders help to raise awareness and money we all continue to need to pay attention to our bodies and get moving. And we also need to pay attention to our bodies while we are moving!

Words to Remember:

First of all the mantra I created is Breathe, Tune In, Hydrate and Stretch
Later on in the day it becomes: Breathe, Tune In, Rest and Stretch (still keep drinking water)!

Here are some of the tips for walking that I shared: as “the Stretch Lady” explaining that this is an adaptation of Moving On Aerobics for Cancer survivors:

Breathe:

• Take some big breaths in and let your arms rise up and down as you do so.

• Tune In:
• Shake out your arms and legs to loosen up.
• Begin with gentle movement that simply checks in on your range of movement
• Pick apples (notice the people behind you and say hello)
• Swing, sway a bit
• Take a step forward and rock from the front to back foot, waking up your feet – your weight shifts from the whole foot to ball of the foot, lifting and awakening the arches.
• Check in with your spine by placing hands on knees and curling and arching the back slowly and gently while inhaling and exhaling.

Rest (or Pace yourself)

• Another key theme of course is to pace oneself.
• Tuning in is a key to this. If you listen to body signals you are more aware of when to slow down or adjust your body. Micro-adjustments are all that you need at that point. If you block signals then when they start to bark at you, you will need a much more drastic recuperation – to lie down and stretch.
• One micro-adjustment I described is the angle that your feet point while walking. While they should mostly be directed straight forward it is okay to vary the direction slightly throughout the walk to stimulate a variety of muscles around the hip socket. Just make sure that your kneed is always directed over your second and third toe.

Stretch:

• Torso: The core of your body: Let your right arm rise up along the right side of your body as you press down with your foot and stretch out your side.
• Legs:
  Calves: Stretch one leg back – front leg is bent, back leg is straight
  Thighs: Bend the back leg and feel the quadriceps lengthening down. (or Stand in a balanced runner’s stretch/yoga pose if you can) Find your hip joints (make a flat table top with your knees bent) and stretch out your hamstrings (back of the legs). Continue with this flat back while bending at hip joint and let knees bend or be straight. It works well to straighten one leg at a time.
• Core: Stretch your torso and shoulders again with side to side and circular movement.
  Stretching can take you places! We ended with stretching in all the directions people came from.
• I asked all three thousand nine hundred people to stretch their upper bodies toward the south, the north, the east and the west while naming places from each direction that folks come from.

It felt great to be in sync and carefully moving together. It was exciting to recognize how far some people had traveled to get to NY and to acknowledge their dedication to traveling by foot for two days filled with compassion for helping others.What a community! Consider joining this walk or another one, for your health and the health of others.

by Michelle Cohen

Martha Eddy’s SMTT program truly reflects her movement experience, in depth knowledge of the body, and responsiveness to connecting to community. Using her creativity, compassion, and intellect she weaves a dynamic system that is accessible for learning and provides a strong foundation from which practitioners can then layer their own movement perspective.

As a movement specialist and dancer, I fuse Pilates, Yoga, and Gyrotonics along with the Bartenieff Fundamentals to create a movement vocabulary. I tend to work from a sensing/listening approach which can sometimes be challenging to contain and shape from exploration into pro-movement action. The SMTT program gave me a structure and a tangible way of assessing movement, listening and perceiving the nervous system, organs, and glands as well as taping into movement expression along with movement function. This focus on motion and emotion helped me recognize how I can better support and hold the space for my clients so awareness and change can manifest from within the client. This work helps me create more on point custom programs for each client where I can address their specific needs.

Martha is a natural community builder and the program is truly a moving community that functions in the same way as we work. I feel we are all participating and energetically adding to thus huge web of movement approaches and communication. We are truly creating a support system not only for our clients but for us practitioners as well.

Michelle Cohen, a professional modern dancer, is a Pilates and movement instructor. She is a senior teacher at Movements Afoot as well as a senior teacher and teacher trainer of Pilates at the Kane School. She has conducted international teacher training workshops for the Kane School in Brighton, England and Tokyo, Japan as well as nationally in Indiana, New York, and Florida. Michelle’s own workshops in nutrition, dance, yoga, and Pilates have been received in places like California, New York, and Belgrade, Serbia. She initially received her Pilates certification with Kelly Kane through the PhysicalMind Institute in 1998 and has been a certified Gyrotonic® and Gyrokinesis® instructor since 2001. Michelle is also a Kettlebell Concepts™ Level I Instructor and integrates momentum training into her teaching practice. Michelle has studied anatomy with Irene Dowd and continues to study Pilates and Bartenieff Fundamentals with Lesley Powell. She has been studying the Alexander Technique with Nancy Wechter since 2001. Michelle has expertise in working with professional dancers and has worked with company members from American Ballet Theater, Limon Dance Company, Royal Danish Ballet, and Merce Cunningham Dance Company. She has been quoted in Pilates Style Magazine (July 2005) in the article ‘Healing Practice’ for her work with clients with disc herniations. As a dancer, Michelle continues to perform locally and internationally with several New York based dance companies. She holds a BA from the American University in Washington, DC and a dance certificate from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She is presently receiving her yoga certification at Laughing Lotus in New York City. As a teacher, Michelle uses her listening skills to hear the body and then fuses her movement sensibilities with sound biomechanics to create customized programs and classes.

by Doris Pasteleur Hall Master Pilates Teacher at Movements Afoot

When one is dealing with Breast Cancer on a personal level, I found many stages of healing.

• The first part of the healing is realizing that one has the disease and how one finds the support system that helps them.

• The next stage is dealing with the healing of chemo, radiation, medication, or combinations of the above.

• Then when all is done is the next stage of healing which I feel takes a lot longer and needs great inspiration, support.

This is where the Pilates method can be a help. If one looks at Breast Cancer in a general way, it deals with the shoulder girdle, arm and of the thoracic. Encouraging bone alignment, working with muscular imbalances, (while moving slowly in each part of the body) is something that can be placed into a session at whatever speed that the client can handle.

I do not think that Scar tissue is talked about enough. When one is cut, small or large one, this affects the fascia. Imagine a tight sweater being pulled somewhere. This displacement can over a period of time not only affect the surrounding area of the scar tissue, but move upwards or downwards into other parts of the body.

This is important to observe this with clients as they move and how they breath. The only other thing, that I would add, is the work of breath. The constriction of the pectoral girdle can affect how the diaphragm functions. So allowing the three-dimensional movement of the ribcage and thoracic spine will not only help with the shoulder girdle and humeral bone, but also help the diaphragm. Breath is also be used as a way to recoup between movements or can be used as something soothing.

Read more in PilatesStyle Newsletter

by Dr. Martha Eddy, Director of Center for Kinesthetic Education

Did you know that its Ovarian Cancer Awareness month? Next month is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Using our body-mind (somatic) approach to fitness we have helped hundreds of survivors to feel better, have more energy and to be stronger physically. In particular I designed Moving On Aerobics in response to a colleagues experience of deep fatigue due to chemo. Due to her persistent research she learned over seven years ago what journals are making commonplace knowledge over the past year and a half - aerobic exercise is a great boon to cancer survivorship (and prevention).

As an exercise physiologist and dancer it was natural to create a program including dance and aerobics. What the somatic approach also brings to Moving On Aerobics is careful awareness of the body, working with breath support and three-dimensionality, as well as being open to taking time to speak about our life experiences, worries, and joys.

Classes throughout New York City are free or by donation. For more information visit Moving On Aerobic’s calendar

by Lesley Powell, Director of Movements Afoot

This weekend I did a lot of traveling on planes and cars. We also did a lot of sitting. Sitting is really hard on the back. The seats of planes and cars are the worse. It put the spine in flexion. When the body is in one position too much, certain muscles are too much on the stretch and others are shorten. This does not mean that they are working. The body is confused about what muscles should hold the body up. Certain muscles tighten in a wrong response to the positions endured over a long time.

We really need to look at how we design seats. When I was traveling to Manchu Picchu. Peru, the travel on the 4 hour train trip, I had two different experiences. The train to the site was an old fashion train with flat seats. I was able to make many position changes in sitting and sleeping on the ride. On the ride back, the seat was the same as in planes. The curve of the seat made changing positions difficult. I felt stuck in one position. My back was killing me.

When I travel on long rides, I try to bring a pillow or a sweater to put behind my back. This is to bring back the natural curve in the waist.

During my travels this weekend, I did a lot of lying on the floor to relax my back. Then I did small tilts in both directions to bring some gentle movement back into my body. Then I did some gentle rocking side to side to bring back gentle rotation. Bridging also helped. Another thing is to take a walk. Walking can get the body moving and get the body vertical.