I am teaching all kinds of fun classes this year!
I am currently teaching a Pilates/Gyro-inspired class Sundays 10:00-11:30am at Synergy Fitness at 3556 Sacramento St. In San Francisco.
I co-teach another one at A Body Of Work in the Presidio Thursdays 12-1 with Cathy Berman and Michelle Wing.
These classes are sliding scale $12-$20.
Starting the 18th I will be teaching 10:45 Pilates mat at The Bridgeway Gym in Sausalito, and the following week I will be teaching the Wednesday 10am class, as well.
I currently warm up and run after the Sunday class around 1pm and have been inspired by some colleagues to open that to others as a group meditative barefoot or minimalist footwear walk (at some point to evolve into a run) in Presidio Heights. Anyone up for that can email me! Seriously, these are the ideal super-clean, sunny-warm sidewalks for training outdoor feet...a rare and wonderful treat for San Franciscans!
For those of you interested in what our performers do to train for our shows, you are welcome to take company class with us Saturdays 1:30-2:30 at DanceGround Keriac at 1805 Divisadero at Bush, San Francisco. These classes are appropriate for all levels, both dancers and non-dancers. We use methods from Pilates, Gyrokinesis, Butoh, contemporary dance, improvisation, classical vocal training and our own special blend of voice, movement, and fun right-meets-left-brain work generation games. The fee for each class is sliding scale $10-$20.
Please feel free to email pilates@performancelab.org for reservations or questions!
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Night time run images
Sometimes it seems like I only get to run after 8:30 at night. On the other hand, I love that time and am so inspired by the darkened landscapes. Here are some shots from the last two runs I've taken:
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
News and events
It has been a while again since I've added any entries here, partly because I ran and trained more than I was writing about running, and partly because my other lives took precedence for a while.
Firstly, I am teaching a workshop called "From Distal To Proximal" for Pilates trainers at A Body Of Work Studios on Ruger St. in the Presidio in San Francisco on November 4 from 1-4. The workshop is all about understanding how the feet and the core interact. We will be having some fun with the equipment and will get to know our feet through manual work and anatomy. It should be a blast. Contact A Body Of Work to enroll. Here's the official page.
Secondly, here is a great article which pretty much ties up the hype around barefoot running vs. shod.
"The truth about barefoot running: It’s complicated" by Cary Groner
What he says is that people who wear shoes have certain kinds of injuries. Barefoot runners have others. Training is important. Don't overdo it. Many barefoot runners wear shoes when they run, too. Many runners who swear by their shoes take them off to train.
He talks to Dr. Daniel Lieberman, (known as The Barefoot Professor,) who, while not happy about the hype that has developed around barefoot running, stands by the opinion that soft-soled running shoes that raise the heel are still terrible for human bodies.
I'd agree. On one hand, I have seen more and more people in our neighborhood with decent looking midfoot form in running shoes, and very few people actually running without shoes at all or in very minimal shoes like the FiveFingers or sandals. On the other hand, I still haven't found a minimal shoe (other than the FiveFingers) that I can run in comfortably. That includes huaraches! On the last hand, assuming that I can have three or more hands for the purpose of this paragraph, I absolutely refuse to spend more than $100.00 on running shoes, and continue to feel that the running shoe industry is a series of snake-oil scams.
As for injuries, it is true that each form has its own related set of problems. While I do occasionally get a foot injury from running barefoot and minimal, when I wore shoes I had debilitating pain in my neck, back, hips, knees and ankles. I gladly traded the second for the first!
If I had not had pain from running shod, then the tradeoff might not have been quite as attractive. I have to train my feet and the rest of me about five days a week to stay strong enough to run in the city. Which leads me to the next point.
What about running on hard, man-made surfaces? Is it good for us or not? It's certainly easier when running shoeless. I've heard many times that in order to learn how to run barefoot that the smooth sidewalk or pavement is what you want to start on, but there is a case to be made that a large, heavy person who tends to have lower muscle tone would not want to expose their bones to hard pavement as an introductory surface. If you are slight and strong, though, it may be fine. I do notice that when I run on pavement that my feet tend to be more sore afterwards and need to recover for a longer time than when I hike a trail or run on the track. For the record, I am 5' tall and about 112 lbs.
Lieberman briefly talks about the idea of a hard, smooth surface being unnatural in some ways, and that the consistency of the surface encourages repetitive stress. That takes me back to where I started a while back in this blog - that we are an all-or-nothing culture that loves to generalize without simplifying. We are fascinated with being the fastest, or going the farthest, doing the same thing over and over until we achieve some goal that we don't even realize is completely arbitrary. We forget that exercise isn't simply the repetition of this movement with this amount of weight then another movement with that amount of weight. While we like to create artificially symmetrical, repetitive systems for training our bodies (and everything else, really,) that's not how our bodies work.
If you watch a child outdoors, they don't just run. They run, stop, pick a flower, sprint to a tree, climb it, hang out there for a while and chirp at a bird, then they might stand up, balance and leap to the ground where they will gleefully roll around in the wet mud for a while before getting up and doing something completely different.
Varying activities truly strengthens the body, builds range of motion and balance. Most of all, though, it's FUN! I have learned when running that if I start feeling bored, or that panic when I start to dislike what I'm doing or that edge of fatigue before an injury that it's time to change it up.
Recently I started to use one of those phone applications that uses GPS to chart a run, has a timer and a way to measure how fast you're going. My tendency when I am using that program is to just run, and keep on running exactly the same way for as long as I can, to try to go faster, farther and increase the length and speed each time I run. While I didn't get injured from it, I also wasn't getting the kind of joy I got from simply moving until I felt like stopping, then moving again. Sometimes I go very slowly, sometimes faster. Sometimes I stop and take pictures. To me, a run is somewhere between a prayer and a meditation, and that's where it's at for me.
Finally, here are some pictures from my recent hikes/runs...
Firstly, I am teaching a workshop called "From Distal To Proximal" for Pilates trainers at A Body Of Work Studios on Ruger St. in the Presidio in San Francisco on November 4 from 1-4. The workshop is all about understanding how the feet and the core interact. We will be having some fun with the equipment and will get to know our feet through manual work and anatomy. It should be a blast. Contact A Body Of Work to enroll. Here's the official page.
Secondly, here is a great article which pretty much ties up the hype around barefoot running vs. shod.
"The truth about barefoot running: It’s complicated" by Cary Groner
What he says is that people who wear shoes have certain kinds of injuries. Barefoot runners have others. Training is important. Don't overdo it. Many barefoot runners wear shoes when they run, too. Many runners who swear by their shoes take them off to train.
He talks to Dr. Daniel Lieberman, (known as The Barefoot Professor,) who, while not happy about the hype that has developed around barefoot running, stands by the opinion that soft-soled running shoes that raise the heel are still terrible for human bodies.
I'd agree. On one hand, I have seen more and more people in our neighborhood with decent looking midfoot form in running shoes, and very few people actually running without shoes at all or in very minimal shoes like the FiveFingers or sandals. On the other hand, I still haven't found a minimal shoe (other than the FiveFingers) that I can run in comfortably. That includes huaraches! On the last hand, assuming that I can have three or more hands for the purpose of this paragraph, I absolutely refuse to spend more than $100.00 on running shoes, and continue to feel that the running shoe industry is a series of snake-oil scams.
As for injuries, it is true that each form has its own related set of problems. While I do occasionally get a foot injury from running barefoot and minimal, when I wore shoes I had debilitating pain in my neck, back, hips, knees and ankles. I gladly traded the second for the first!
If I had not had pain from running shod, then the tradeoff might not have been quite as attractive. I have to train my feet and the rest of me about five days a week to stay strong enough to run in the city. Which leads me to the next point.
What about running on hard, man-made surfaces? Is it good for us or not? It's certainly easier when running shoeless. I've heard many times that in order to learn how to run barefoot that the smooth sidewalk or pavement is what you want to start on, but there is a case to be made that a large, heavy person who tends to have lower muscle tone would not want to expose their bones to hard pavement as an introductory surface. If you are slight and strong, though, it may be fine. I do notice that when I run on pavement that my feet tend to be more sore afterwards and need to recover for a longer time than when I hike a trail or run on the track. For the record, I am 5' tall and about 112 lbs.
Lieberman briefly talks about the idea of a hard, smooth surface being unnatural in some ways, and that the consistency of the surface encourages repetitive stress. That takes me back to where I started a while back in this blog - that we are an all-or-nothing culture that loves to generalize without simplifying. We are fascinated with being the fastest, or going the farthest, doing the same thing over and over until we achieve some goal that we don't even realize is completely arbitrary. We forget that exercise isn't simply the repetition of this movement with this amount of weight then another movement with that amount of weight. While we like to create artificially symmetrical, repetitive systems for training our bodies (and everything else, really,) that's not how our bodies work.
If you watch a child outdoors, they don't just run. They run, stop, pick a flower, sprint to a tree, climb it, hang out there for a while and chirp at a bird, then they might stand up, balance and leap to the ground where they will gleefully roll around in the wet mud for a while before getting up and doing something completely different.
Varying activities truly strengthens the body, builds range of motion and balance. Most of all, though, it's FUN! I have learned when running that if I start feeling bored, or that panic when I start to dislike what I'm doing or that edge of fatigue before an injury that it's time to change it up.
Recently I started to use one of those phone applications that uses GPS to chart a run, has a timer and a way to measure how fast you're going. My tendency when I am using that program is to just run, and keep on running exactly the same way for as long as I can, to try to go faster, farther and increase the length and speed each time I run. While I didn't get injured from it, I also wasn't getting the kind of joy I got from simply moving until I felt like stopping, then moving again. Sometimes I go very slowly, sometimes faster. Sometimes I stop and take pictures. To me, a run is somewhere between a prayer and a meditation, and that's where it's at for me.
Finally, here are some pictures from my recent hikes/runs...
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| Land's End 10/24 |
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| Land's End 10/24 |
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| Sausalito 10/16 |
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| Tennessee Valley 9/2 (more of a hike) |
Saturday, July 21, 2012
A Collection Of Runs
It's been a while for various reasons, including recovery from an injury that I sustained from a dance exercise in a class that I took. (Who knew that one supine twist that was held too long would have repercussions that lasted from March to July, and that it would affect my foot, of all things?) Then our performance company took over my life. There were three big deadlines in succession, then two performances, then we traveled back east, and now we're back. We have a show at the end of August (stay tuned to the Right Brain Performancelab site for that information!), then we're quiet until October, although I have plenty of deadlines throughout the next few months. Sigh.
Either way, I'm back, running about a mile and a half at a time, or so. I finally stretched my legs today somewhat.
The first pics are from our visit to the Philadelphia suburbs where I grew up. I took a run in the rain one warm, drippy morning. The next are from some recent nighttime runs - my most comfortable free time is after 8:30 or 9 when our daughter is soundly asleep.
Either way, I'm back, running about a mile and a half at a time, or so. I finally stretched my legs today somewhat.
The first pics are from our visit to the Philadelphia suburbs where I grew up. I took a run in the rain one warm, drippy morning. The next are from some recent nighttime runs - my most comfortable free time is after 8:30 or 9 when our daughter is soundly asleep.
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| Someone planted corn on their front lawn (!!!) |
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| An especially pretty house with a nice garden - kind of a luxury to this San Franciscan. |
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One of the spots where I occasionally played as a kid. |
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Here I am, at Anthony Wayne Park! |
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| At home I tend to run at night. I love the quality of light around 9-9:30pm. As time has gone by I progressed from running a few blocks to running for about 20-25 minutes and about 2 miles. That's pretty slow, I think, but I'm mostly paying attention to how my body feels and feeling the ground clearly. |
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| On July 5 |
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| On July 21 - the first day I really felt my legs start to stretch and to move more. I think I went faster, overall, but I took more breaks, too. |
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| I'm taller in shadow, but my sweatshirt makes me look like I have a tiny head. :) |
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Why we run.
I have recently been reading Chi Running, a thoughtful book that does a superb job of redefining the impulse to run. For Danny Dreyer it was the desire to understand the way the body works mixed with his discovery of Tai Chi that led him to re-evaluate running. He described the transformation of his approach to running from a competitive sport to a practice, like Tai Chi, or yoga.
A week ago I took Anna Halprin's class again where she prepared us for her annual Planetary Dance this summer, and a smaller version of it for National Dance Week in April.
As usual, we began by shifting our weight, walking and then skipping. Then we laid down and did some floor work followed by a free form improvisation. Afterwords we stood in a circle. First Anna asked "who are you running for today?". My ears perked up. It was an excellent question. Then she went on to say that when members of indigenous communities dance or run that they do so for the community, for a loved one, for all people, for the planet. The self is there, but of much less importance. Of course, I thought. When I run barefoot I am thinking about larger things than myself or people I know. I am thinking about making contact with the earth, with the planet and everything that's on it. One by one, we stood and declared for whom we would run. Then we added that we also ran for all other people with this issue. Then the runner dove into the first ring (for individuals/self) of the circle and ran with the others already there. As they felt ready, they turned farther into the formation and followed the second circle (the community), running the other way. An older woman turned again and walked a third circle (the world) slowly in the center. I had the distinct feeling that the third circle was reserved for elders.
Afterwards Anna smiled and said that she loved our dedications because they had been so specific. Everyone had spoken of a friend, a loved one, or a deep connection to important events in the world. She added.
"When you are really running for someone you can just run forever"
A week ago I took Anna Halprin's class again where she prepared us for her annual Planetary Dance this summer, and a smaller version of it for National Dance Week in April.
As usual, we began by shifting our weight, walking and then skipping. Then we laid down and did some floor work followed by a free form improvisation. Afterwords we stood in a circle. First Anna asked "who are you running for today?". My ears perked up. It was an excellent question. Then she went on to say that when members of indigenous communities dance or run that they do so for the community, for a loved one, for all people, for the planet. The self is there, but of much less importance. Of course, I thought. When I run barefoot I am thinking about larger things than myself or people I know. I am thinking about making contact with the earth, with the planet and everything that's on it. One by one, we stood and declared for whom we would run. Then we added that we also ran for all other people with this issue. Then the runner dove into the first ring (for individuals/self) of the circle and ran with the others already there. As they felt ready, they turned farther into the formation and followed the second circle (the community), running the other way. An older woman turned again and walked a third circle (the world) slowly in the center. I had the distinct feeling that the third circle was reserved for elders.
Afterwards Anna smiled and said that she loved our dedications because they had been so specific. Everyone had spoken of a friend, a loved one, or a deep connection to important events in the world. She added.
"When you are really running for someone you can just run forever"
Thursday, February 9, 2012
More running stories (a hint)
I am listening to Coyote Network News with Caroline Casey - something that always makes me grin. That woman can use words like no other person I've ever heard, much less heard on radio.
She is interviewing a man, whose name I'm not sure of (Martin Prectel?), who is from a pueblo in New Mexico. They are talking about lots of things, but (as she usually does) are going from one interesting story to another and one poetic moment to the next, and occasionally touching on a book that he's written about the rituals of his youth. One of those rituals was running.
I love this description: The sun and the moon would be threatened with death because the people would walk too heavily on the earth. So they ran. The run was to keep the sun and the moon in the sky, so that the world would continue on and so that people would have food in their bellies.
Gorgeous imagery, huh?
From what they are saying, there is one whole chapter devoted to this ritual run, where the folks who planned and held the race would actually have to hide the finish line because the runners would refuse to cross it since it would make the other runners feel bad. At one point, they put the finish line down and several of the runners simply turned around and went home. Competition wasn't a part of it.
This is on first hearing, by the way. I just went to their website and the details aren't listed yet. I plan on looking into this speaker in greater depth at first chance...If I can get and read the book I will report back!
Ah! Here he is! (I almost got the spelling correct, too...)
Martin Prechtel
And here's his latest book, which is, I think, what they're talking about. On the other hand, it's Caroline Casey, so it's hard to be sure. <grin>
The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive
She is interviewing a man, whose name I'm not sure of (Martin Prectel?), who is from a pueblo in New Mexico. They are talking about lots of things, but (as she usually does) are going from one interesting story to another and one poetic moment to the next, and occasionally touching on a book that he's written about the rituals of his youth. One of those rituals was running.
I love this description: The sun and the moon would be threatened with death because the people would walk too heavily on the earth. So they ran. The run was to keep the sun and the moon in the sky, so that the world would continue on and so that people would have food in their bellies.
Gorgeous imagery, huh?
From what they are saying, there is one whole chapter devoted to this ritual run, where the folks who planned and held the race would actually have to hide the finish line because the runners would refuse to cross it since it would make the other runners feel bad. At one point, they put the finish line down and several of the runners simply turned around and went home. Competition wasn't a part of it.
This is on first hearing, by the way. I just went to their website and the details aren't listed yet. I plan on looking into this speaker in greater depth at first chance...If I can get and read the book I will report back!
Ah! Here he is! (I almost got the spelling correct, too...)
Martin Prechtel
And here's his latest book, which is, I think, what they're talking about. On the other hand, it's Caroline Casey, so it's hard to be sure. <grin>
The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Daniel Lieberman's new article
It's finally out - a retrospective study comparing injury rates among 16 forefoot (not necessarily barefoot) runners and 36 rearfoot runners by Daniel Lieberman. Lieberman's conclusion was that rearfoot runners have more problems with "repetitive stress injury" than forefoot runners. Since I'm not a doctor I don't have access to the full article yet. I, for one, would like to know what "repetitive stress injury" is. Also, a retrospective study isn't, I think, as definitive as other types...again, it's not my field, so I just nod and say. Okay...more please?
The first thing I did was go searching for the name of the article to see what was being said. I saw, as usual, that all the pro-barefoot running sites were kvelling...honestly, I'm not sure it's time for that yet.
This one was where I felt I got the most information. I've found it before and it's always interesting. It's an international crowd of English-speaking podiatrists who all gripe at each other more or less constantly, some of whom have a clue and some who don't. At least one of them is fairly curmudgeonly about barefoot running with just as much or more bias that the most zealous barefoot running advocates. On the other hand, they are doctors and they have access to a wide range of studies and (presumably) know what they're looking at when they read them.
As someone who has run barefoot and minimally shod now for over a year, I can say that you do trade one set of possible injuries for another, especially as you make the transition. I don't hear much about that from the BF advocates, although you see it constantly on the BF running forums. I also hear constantly about the horrible injuries that rearfoot, thickly shod runners regularly experience. I can say from experience that my pain from running (and living) in shoes was much greater than any discomfort I've had from running barefoot.
What I don't see anywhere is the idea that transitioning from shod to barefoot running requires any kind of lifestyle change, which it does. The assumption is that when you transition to BF or minimal running that a runner will once again work competitively and repetitively to conquer miles upon miles of terrain with their feet.
Bare feet don't necessarily do that without a fuss, especially those that belong to someone who drives, sits and has worn supportive shoes all day most of their lives.
Barefoot work requires a certain amount of reverence for the earth and for our bodies. If that reverent attitude takes you miles on foot, then there you go, but my sense is that people follow trends more than they listen to their bodies. We are a culture that believes in conquests instead of experiences. History is ignored - if we paid attention to it there would probably be fewer wars and running injuries.
Being barefoot is a metaphor for the larger changes we need to make in how we live in the world. Maybe this is an unpopular attitude, but I think that we need to ditch the start and finishing lines and just get out there with our feet on the ground for a while, stop when we're tired, skip when we feel like it and use our senses to experience what we've been missing.
The first thing I did was go searching for the name of the article to see what was being said. I saw, as usual, that all the pro-barefoot running sites were kvelling...honestly, I'm not sure it's time for that yet.
This one was where I felt I got the most information. I've found it before and it's always interesting. It's an international crowd of English-speaking podiatrists who all gripe at each other more or less constantly, some of whom have a clue and some who don't. At least one of them is fairly curmudgeonly about barefoot running with just as much or more bias that the most zealous barefoot running advocates. On the other hand, they are doctors and they have access to a wide range of studies and (presumably) know what they're looking at when they read them.
As someone who has run barefoot and minimally shod now for over a year, I can say that you do trade one set of possible injuries for another, especially as you make the transition. I don't hear much about that from the BF advocates, although you see it constantly on the BF running forums. I also hear constantly about the horrible injuries that rearfoot, thickly shod runners regularly experience. I can say from experience that my pain from running (and living) in shoes was much greater than any discomfort I've had from running barefoot.
What I don't see anywhere is the idea that transitioning from shod to barefoot running requires any kind of lifestyle change, which it does. The assumption is that when you transition to BF or minimal running that a runner will once again work competitively and repetitively to conquer miles upon miles of terrain with their feet.
Bare feet don't necessarily do that without a fuss, especially those that belong to someone who drives, sits and has worn supportive shoes all day most of their lives.
Barefoot work requires a certain amount of reverence for the earth and for our bodies. If that reverent attitude takes you miles on foot, then there you go, but my sense is that people follow trends more than they listen to their bodies. We are a culture that believes in conquests instead of experiences. History is ignored - if we paid attention to it there would probably be fewer wars and running injuries.
Being barefoot is a metaphor for the larger changes we need to make in how we live in the world. Maybe this is an unpopular attitude, but I think that we need to ditch the start and finishing lines and just get out there with our feet on the ground for a while, stop when we're tired, skip when we feel like it and use our senses to experience what we've been missing.
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