Embody Awareness

When Mark Grauman, 62, came to Embody, he was afraid to move. “I’ve never seriously exercised in my life,” he wrote to me. “And it’s coming back to haunt me.” He was in pain and had a list of ailments, including tendinitis in both elbows, compression fracture in his cervical spine, and bulging discs. “Oh,” he added in a follow up email, “I also have a frozen shoulder. I’m a mess.”

Mark had tried other modalities, including personal training. But his experience was of a one-size-fits-all approach to fitness. He was detached from his own body and its vital messages. The trainers he found seemed to reinforce this detachment. He quickly grew frustrated and quit. He figured it was safer on his own couch than venturing out into the gym. But newly retired from many years at a desk as an engineer, Mark wanted to enjoy playing blues guitar and hanging out with his two young grandsons for as long as possible.

At first, I tried some of the movements from the first level of the Gyrotonic method with Mark. But this proved too much. Though Mark was flexible in many ways, he lacked the basic shoulder and pelvic stability to move safely to simultaneously build strength and range of motion. He cancelled a few sessions, sore and teetering on the edge of giving up.

Working with clients is a relationship. It is about building somatic awareness. This requires the client’s feedback about how movementsfeel during and after. It is also about the trainer listening to both verbal and non-verbal cues. Together, Mark and I backed off from level one exercises and began spending almost the entire hour on the floor, building Mark’s awareness and strength from the inside out.

Supported by the floor, Mark began to build strength and confidence. He soon moved from skipping sessions to increasing his frequency to twice a week. I observed him sitting taller without effort. Perhaps most amazing of all, he began to perceive his pain differently. Soreness not longer always signaled danger to him.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I just might be sore.” This shift in Mark’s perception came from his deepening trust in the messages his own body was giving him. As his somatic awareness has increased, his belief in his body’s ability to heal is also being restored.

“I’m now a few months into my work with Susan and I’ve regained a lot of flexibility while strengthening core, lats and gained greater awareness of psoas, the muscles that connect my torso to my legs. I look forward to my sessions.”

Embody Breath

When Bill E. came to me four years ago to learn the Gyrotonic method, he was looking for something to augment his Pilates and weight training. Specifically, he wanted more freedom of movement to improve his skiing and golf. He is a determined man. You see it in his gait, the way he holds himself. He is not a quitter. He’s a goal-setter. Here’s the thing about Gyrotonic movement: it is as much about effort as it is about surrender.

Gyrotonic practice quickly shows us that brute determination can work against us in our quest for improvement. “Trying hard” is often marked by holding one’s breath. This was one of  Bill’s biggest challenges. “I still find that I hold my breath when I’m trying to figure out a movement,” he says. “There is a learning curve. It’s hard to remember patterns. I have to be reminded a lot. But the more I become comfortable with the movements, the breathing gets easier.”

Breath creates movement. In the four years that Bill has practiced the Gyrotonic method, he has learned to trust his breath — even when he doesn’t have the choreography “perfectly” memorized.  That trust translates to greater fluidity of movement, which in turn helps him learn the movement pattern, because he is more relaxed. The symbiosis of breath and movement comes through practice.

Many experience Gyrotonic study as a process of letting go, softening our grip, both muscularly and mentally, to find something deeper. In Gyrotonic practice, ‘trying hard’ becomes ‘trying soft.’ As Bill’s breath and movement become more integrated, his movements have become more fluid. And this has a direct and measurable benefit in Bill’s life.

“By breathing with movement, the fluidity of my skiing when I race has improved,” he says. “My body is more supple, not herky jerky, which is really important when you’re skiing or golfing.”

At 68, Bill sees no end to his potential for improvement. “In my age group, I did my best ever in racing this year. My new goal is to go up a level in racing next year. I’m very close now. Gyrotonic helps me be able to do things within my limitations with greater ease.”

Through the Gyrotonic method, Bill found something he didn’t  expect: Sometimes breathing through what we don’t know yet is the most efficient path to mastery. Bill has learned that you can’t get down the ski hill in one breath; and that by breathing through the gates on the hill, he is most likely attain the next ski level when winter rolls around again.