Gokhale Method Institute blogs
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The Gokhale Method works to realign and restore the spine to its natural shape, bringing you back to a pain-free life. Using healthy posture and everyday movements, like sitting, standing, sleeping, walking, and bending, you will strengthen your muscles, protect your spine, nourish your joints, and prevent injuries
Gokhale Method Institute blogs
1w ago
Esther Gokhale
April, 2024
Have you been taught cobra pose or locust pose to strengthen your back? It is a common practice to try to strengthen the back with back bends, focusing on the long back extensors on either side of the spine. This approach is used by the McKenzie Method, many yoga teachers, and physical therapists.
In the Gokhale Method® we prefer to strengthen the back by working with the muscles which collectively stabilize the trunk. Our focus is on maintaining a healthy J-spine baseline rather than backbending.
Healthy muscle activation maintains a J-spine, protecting the spine ..read more
Gokhale Method Institute blogs
3w ago
Esther Gokhale
March, 2024
You’ve tweaked your back. It may be a stabbing pain that catches with certain movements, it may be that you cannot straighten up, or maybe it’s an electrical, nervy sensation in your buttock.
A back spasm is never welcome—but it is a signal we can act on—when we know how. Image by: Kampus Production
It’s true that time is a great healer—and that most back pain resolves itself without intervention—but there are also things we can do to accelerate the healing, that can help us feel better immediately, and protect us in the longer term.
Should I take ..read more
Gokhale Method Institute blogs
1M ago
Esther Gokhale
February, 2024
As we approach International Women’s Day on March 8, I would like to share a few observations regarding gender and health made over the past three decades of teaching posture.
Does gender affect back pain?
Back pain and the posture distortions behind it are very democratic—people of all ages, activity levels, geographic locations, and gender are affected by cultural postural distortions. That said, some modern posture guidelines and expectations are gender-specific, and some of them affect women disproportionately. We will discuss posture guidelines for men ..read more
Gokhale Method Institute blogs
2M ago
Esther Gokhale
January, 2024
When students first meet with a Gokhale Method® teacher they are sometimes surprised to learn that one of the reasons for their back pain is a tight psoas muscle. What does this little-known muscle, embedded deep within our bodies, have to do with back pain? And what do we need to do to have it recede in the background and leave our backs alone?
Get to know your psoas muscle
Psoas major (pronounced so-as) is a deep-lying muscle with a downwards trajectory through the abdomen. There can be some individual variation, but it usually originates from T12-L4, and ..read more
Gokhale Method Institute blogs
3M ago
Tegan Kahn
January, 2024
Since the pandemic we are delighted to have resumed teacher training and welcomed 12 new teachers to the Gokhale Method community in Europe and the U.S. We are also steadily growing our roots in the Southern Hemisphere. Below, Australia-based Teacher Tegan Kahn shares the story of how and why she decided to train.
One New Year’s Day many years ago, I made a resolution to “have better posture.” This was back before I had kids; when I had time and energy to devote to grand plans! But, like most New Year’s Resolutions, it fizzled out pretty quickly. For several days, I r ..read more
Gokhale Method Institute blogs
3M ago
Esther Gokhale
January, 2024
It’s early January. New Year’s resolutions have swung into action, and many of them involve improving our health. With the impetus of a fresh start, we throw ourselves into ditching poor habits and cultivating better ones. It’s no surprise that January sees the highest gym sign-ups and enrollments for dietary regimens! Other resolutions include getting more sleep, meditating, or learning a new skill—self-care for the mind as well as the body.
Most of us will have made a New Year’s resolution in at least one of these areas.
Posture—a missing pill ..read more
Gokhale Method Institute blogs
4M ago
Emily Agnew
December, 2023
Hi, I’m Emily Agnew, and excited to share my posture journey.
I first attended a weekend Gokhale Foundations course in 2016, to address a painfully stiff neck. I loved it. I also found it intense. To incorporate all I was learning about body mechanics, I had to concentrate so hard that I'd emerge from class feeling like my brain had overheated. On top of that, I was rather sore in unexpected places, from using my muscles in new ways.
Long story short, I was happy knowing I was doing the right thing for my body. But I hardly had the bandwidth to notice any une ..read more
Gokhale Method Institute blogs
4M ago
Esther Gokhale
December, 2023
Choose your remedies carefully
There are many approaches to stretching tight back muscles that involve rounding the back. Though these exercises give temporary relief, we recommend against them because they threaten the spinal discs, nerves, and ligaments. They can also result in the back muscles contracting even more tightly to stabilize the area.
Rounded stretching exercises increase existing upper back curvature (hunching) while pulling aggressively on tight soft tissues and ligaments. Our tissues respond better to sustained, gentle realignment to make h ..read more
Gokhale Method Institute blogs
5M ago
Esther Gokhale
November, 2023
This Thanksgiving I would like to honor two people who profoundly influenced the development of the Gokhale Method®.
Thanksgiving is a time to acknowledge those who lit your way. Image: Unsplash
Noëlle Perez-Christiaens (1925–2019) was my most important influence on this path, and my gateway to inputs from the eminent yoga teacher B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014), the French anatomist André Dalmas (1910–1999), and their numerous discoveries. Noëlle was a beautician by background, who developed an avid interest in yoga. This passion took her to India and B.K.S. Iyengar ..read more
Gokhale Method Institute blogs
5M ago
Esther Gokhale
November, 2023
According to research a shocking two-thirds of professional musicians live in chronic pain. Those of you who are music makers may have felt challenged at times by the lengthy periods of sitting or standing required for practice and rehearsal. Continuously holding an instrument, maintaining a playing position, or just standing holding sheet music, can, sooner or later, trouble your neck, shoulder, or wrist. Playing can become a physical challenge rather than an activity integrated with the music making.
This graph shows the distribution of pain reported in a grou ..read more