Classes

Cultivating Ease – The Sustainable Gardener

Gardening is a full-body activity that promotes physical and mental health.  However, stiffness, strain, or pain can sometimes get in the way.

This workshop focuses entirely on you. Using the principles of the Alexander Technique, you will learn to move with more ease, coordination, and presence while gardening. You’ll be paying attention to your self, your senses and how you use your body to create greater vitality and freedom of choice in the way of being and the way of doing.

What we will explore:

• Mindful awareness of posture and movement.
• Strategies to prevent and reduce back, neck, and knee pain.
• Practical application to weeding, bending, all 4s, shoveling, and more.

What you will gain:

• A complimentary plant to take home!
• Practical skills for ease of movement while gardening.
• Improved balance and coordination.

What to bring (Optional): Yoga mat, garden kneeler, or stool.

Please pre-register.

Private Alexander Technique lessons & pain coaching sessions

Address individual concerns such as reducing pain, strain, stress or anxiety, improving balance or breath, or moving or doing an activity with greater freedom and ease. Online or in-person in Charlo or Missoula. (Contact me for home/office/clinic visits.) You’ll be amazed at what you can achieve in online visits!

Private sessions are approximately 50 minutes. (Your first session may be up to 90 minutes to allow time to begin a thorough understanding of your concerns.) You and I will coordinate a convenient class date and time. Use the Schedule button to the right to choose an appointment time from my calendar, or contact me to schedule. You must notify me 24 hours in advance to change the class time if you need to do so.

Schedule a free 20-minute consultation using the Schedule button or contact me.

Gift Certificate

Give something that will last forever – greater ease of movement, poise and performance with a gift certificate for Alexander Technique classes.

At DiscoverEase in Movement, I help people from all walks of life to
– reduce pain, stiffness and fatigue
– restore dynamic balance, coordination and efficient use of the whole body
– respond to challenges consciously with a broader range of choices

The gift certificate can be used for the group and/or individual classes you would like to give. Group classes are online and individual classes may be taken online or in person in Charlo or Missoula, Montana. (See the group class schedule. Red Willow classes are not included in gift certificates.) Feel free to contact me for more information.

After ordering your gift certificate, please send me the name and address of the recipient to info@discoverease.how.

The Science of Posture & Pain workshop video

“The Science of Posture & Pain” was originally presented by neuroscientist Tim Cacciatore and pain specialist Mari Hodges on April 23, 2023.

Purchase access to a video recording of the workshop.

Common wisdom says that poor posture can cause chronic pain, but is that really true? Can you improve and prevent pain conditions through better posture? And if so, how do you do that, anyway?

This workshop was meant for people in pain or curious about pain who want to better understand the relationship between posture and pain and explore more constructive and ultimately pleasurable ways of being in their body.

Both pain and posture are widely misunderstood and science can give us important insights into understanding our own pain.  We drew on posture-related techniques, such as the Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Method and Craniosacral Therapy, which can provide cutting edge insight into managing pain.

This 2-hour workshop was presented by two scientists who were brought to this topic due to their own struggle with pain issues and found postural methods provided valuable insights that have been essential to their own recoveries, and ultimately motivated them to better understand posture and pain.

Pain Science for Alexander Technique Teachers and other Somatic Professionals

Many clients come to the AT with pain issues. And often the AT can be helpful.

Modern pain science is much more relevant for us than it used to be. Understanding the significant advances in pain science can help to develop optimal strategies for working with the unique challenges of a person with persistent pain.

In this webinar we systematically approach modern pain science in a way that is specifically tailored to AT teachers. It is taught by two AT teacher-scientists who have a lived experience of chronic pain. We’ll delve into the biological, psychological and social factors that contribute to pain in a systematic way that looks at the whole picture. We’ll focus discussions on how Alexander Technique relates to a modern understanding of pain science as well as pain management and recovery. We will look at how emerging interventions are treating pain with greater success and highlight the unique contributions the AT brings. And we will address as many of those pertinent unanswered questions as possible.

Mindful Movement @ Red Willow

This class is currently not being offered. We will hopefully return to a regular schedule in January. Please contact me if you are interested and I will keep you updated.

In this gentle movement class you’ll discover how you can free up your body and quiet your mind to prevent, reduce and manage pain and to move with greater freedom and ease. Movement exploration is based on the Alexander Technique, an embodied mindfulness practice shown to reduce pain and anxiety, and improve balance, coordination and respiratory function.

Mindful Movement involves the whole mind-body self in a practice that brings us more fully into the body in the present moment. You will learn how you can reduce patterns of tension that create excess effort and that pull your body out of its natural, easy alignment. Alexander Technique promotes healthy organization of the whole body and integrated movement. This practice helps us to become more aware of what we are doing in our mind-body self without realizing it. With practice we cultivate the ability to choose how we would like to move and act in every activity.

We apply this practice to movements and activities of daily life to discover ways of sitting, standing, walking, reaching, bending, lying down, breathing and all the other movements of life with greater ease, comfort, freedom, balance and coordination. Alexander Technique helps us to discover an easier, kinder way of being and moving that we can take into our daily life so we can move through life with greater ease and get more benefit and enjoyment out of movement.