Six Best Exercises You Never Heard Of
June 7, 2011
As a young dancer training in ballet and modern dance, I didn’t think much about longevity. My body was my musical instrument, and I figured if I got it polished and kept it tuned, it would last me a good long time. Now, at 58, I’m still a performer, dancing with Mountain View’s Academy of Danse Libre, the nation’s leading vintage ballroom dance company and doing a dozen shows a year – some in high heels!
Valerie and Academy of Danse Libre dancing a Ragtime era Maxixe
As a movement coach and educator working with the mind-body connection, I study and teach movement to everyone from little children to the fragile elderly. Along the way I’ve learned some very unique longevity secrets that have helped me and many others to feel great, avoid injuries, relieve pain, and stay active. Here are some of my favorites – some may surprise you!
Stretch in Bed. This most basic full-body yawn is the best exercise you can do before you get up in the morning (or even at night). Babies and animals do it naturally, and so should we. Just flex and stretch this way and that, slowly and lightly at first. Reach in front of yourself, over your head. Fold your knees over your chest and curl up, then stretch your heels away from your fingertips. Wake up the muscles to support the bones, so those first steps out of bed are secure enough to avoid a stumble or fall.
Go to Hawaii. Drain tension and improve posture that’s cramped from too much desk our couch time with a free Hawaiian holiday via dynamic imagery. Sit or stand comfortably with bare feet on the ground. Close your eyes and imagine warm sand beneath your feet. Wiggle your toes, heels and arches in the delicious warmth. Take a deep breath and notice that right behind you is a warm waterfall, splashing softly on your shoulders and down your back. Nestle into that water flow and allow your shoulders to drop into the downward streaming flow of the water. Take another breath and observe your tension drain away as you exhale. Stay there on the beach as long as you like. When you are ready to return from your holiday, just gently open your eyes. You may need to brush some sand from your toes!
Relax your Jaw. Many of us carry tension in our throat, neck, and jaw that can cause headaches, dental and health problems, and wrinkles. Finding a neutral posture for your tongue is a surprisingly effective release for your jaw and throat. Place the top of your tongue lightly up against the roof of your mouth, with the tip of your tongue touching the back of your upper teeth. As you relax into this posture you will notice an immediate release of your jaw tension. Remind yourself to practice this while you are doing your regular exercise or anytime you might be straining.
Lift your Face. Ancient wisdom meets modern exercise with facial yoga that eliminates the need for plastic surgery while building tone and expressive mobility to our faces. Here’s a simple fix. For a sagging throat or jawline, place your tongue in its neutral position, lift the chin, and press upwards with the tongue on the roof of the mouth for several seconds, release, and repeat several times.
Respect your Feet. Ever hear the expression, “My dogs are barking?” Keep your pups quiet and happy with daily attention of movement, imagery, and grooming. My friend, the dancer/choreographer Sybil Shearer (who died at the youthful age of 95!) had a daily practice of circling every bone in her body, slowly, this way and that. While sitting or standing, extend your leg and very slowly and lightly circle your foot around your ankle a few times. Change feet, repeat, and reverse. Try circling just your big toe, or middle toe. Point and flex your foot. Take your foot in your hand and give it a little massage at both the arches, under the toes and under the length of the foot. Make space between the bones with your fingers, then quietly stand. Sensing the connection to the ground through the soles of your feet will help you maintain your balance, posture, and mobility as the years go by.
Dance every day. Music and movement harmonize the energy fields of the body. So turn up the music and just move. You don’t even need a partner. You’ll release those feel-good endorphins, your body will wake up in a new way, and you’ll have renewed energy as well as a boost to your fitness program. If you can’t dance, who’s to know? Run with music, walk with music, sing or hum along. Even if you’re moving to your own drummer, it’s dancing. So, let’s face the music and dance!
Valerie Baadh Garrett, Founder and President, Agile Aging LLC
Valerie is a movement coach, speaker, and Spacial Dynamics® practitioner working in the San Francisco Bay Area.
For more information on the ideas and programs mentioned, please visit:
Arthritis and the Mind – A Holistic Approach to Healing
February 4, 2010
Hip Pain is Hot!
The hip ache starts when I’m 52. I’m tossing and turning at night, trying to get comfortable, like a rotisserie chicken. First, on my belly, then my side, then my back, then the other side, and the turning starts again. My husband teases me that I’m cycling all night, but he’s not laughing. Finally, there’s relief with a pillow between my knees, and I fall into a deep sleep.
Arthritis. Who, me?
I managed to keep fit enough to still be a high school PE teacher in my 50s. I first notice the aching hip after an occasional ballet class. My strength seems OK, my flow and balance are still there, but something is weakening in the joints, something I only notice at night.
This was my first serious sensation of aging. Sure, I’ve had grey – rather, silver – strands for a long time now, and real wrinkles join my laugh lines along with that nasty jowly sag I hate. But this ache in my hip was not vanity, this was palpable pain. It hurt and disturbed my already fitful sleep and I wanted it gone, now.
So I began to study my movements in general and the field of arthritis medicine in particular. This is what I learned.
• The body doesn’t last forever. Bones thin, muscles atrophy, strength fades, even for me.
• Our own individual movement patterns, including poor posture, can and will create stress and strain (as well as strength and stability) that can actively break the body down, over time. The longer we live, the longer time we have to be healthy, and, yes, the longer time to become decrepit. Our lifestyle choices help determine our fate. It’s a constant work in progress, to keep active and fit, and to delay the decay.
• Arthritis can have many causes. Mine, I felt, was from a lifetime of dance, training my “turnout” and straining the hip joint. New studies show that, after 45, excessive exercise (emphasis on “excessive”) can cause arthritis. Even wearing athletic shoes as regular footwear increases the likelihood of arthritis in the knees!
• Arthritis is painful. As we age, we lose the fluid and movable space between the bones at the joints, and the bone rubbing against bone causes pain, swelling, stiffness and, ultimately, limited mobility. Limited mobility is bad and leads to, well, death.
• Pain medication is available. From herbal remedies and rubs to serious narcotics, folks will use whatever works to give relief. What works for me? What’s the most helpful yet healthful?
As a movement therapist, I began to look at these phenomena. What can I actively do to heal the current problem, correct it and anything like it that may arise in the future? What if I consciously began to move, sit and stand in a new way? Could I create space in that hip joint? Could I reduce the swelling and achy feeling through my movement itself?
In my practice with Spacial Dynamics®, a somatic approach to understanding movement, I know that the space surrounding my body is alive and full of living forces that help and even enable my movement. These ideas are core principles in my life’s work, and form the basis of my movement coaching and mentoring.
What about the spaces between the bones of the body? Could those spaces come alive as well? And, would a result be less pain and stiffness?
I experimented with myself and the damn hip. What if, instead of pressing my back towards my leg – in a hamstring stretch, for example – I actively opened the hip? I closed my eyes and envisioned the hip joint. The head of the femur, the curve of the acetabulum, expanding space between them. In doing so, I began to actively move the other way, stretch the leg away from the hip, rather than squeezing the leg into the hip in deep flexion. Space grew instead of strain. From the outside, I looked as though I were doing a common hamstring stretch, nothing fancy or different.. In my reality, I was moving quite differently, actively opening the space. This new way of thinking and moving was actually the opposite of what I had been doing my whole exercising and dancing life!
I changed the way I moved in that hip. From sitting to standing to dancing, I try to create the image of space moving where aching used to live. I still put a pillow between my knees much of the time while I sleep. Even a small pillow seems to release my hips and lower back at the same time, and it feels softer and cozier than my own knees pressed together.
When I bring this concept to my Agile Aging exercise classes for seniors, they are interested right away. Everyone has a bit or a lot of arthritis somewhere, or knows someone who has. We’ve discovered the space in our necks, our jaws, our hands, our feet, our knees and our backs. We’ve gotten stronger and more flexible without strain. We laugh and dance and ask questions and share stories.
And, we are learning how these new ideas can work in our everyday life, how this new idea of space can help us with our daily chores and with getting around without falling down. We are aging with agility and grace, with a bounce in our step, a smile on our face, and, for me, the reality of pain-free space in my hip.
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