The TRAGER® Approach
The TRAGER® Approach to PsychoPhysical Integration: …hmm… What could be lighter? What could be freer? What could be easier?
The TRAGER® Approach is an innovative movement re-education modality developed by Milton Trager, M.D. over a 65 year period. The intention is to bring you to a state of deep relaxation, in which you feel loose and limber, free and easy. In this state old physical and mental habits begin to release, allowing for new, more efficient choices to emerge.
A session consists of both table work and explorations off the table. We use soft touch and gentle, effortless movements, including rocking, swaying, and stretching. These movements can be done throughout the day, thus recreating the release on your own anytime the old tensions arise.
The TRAGER® Approach – a pleasant in-the-body experience!
“Milton Trager’s work will benefit anyone wishing to lead a healthier and more dynamic life”
— Deepak Chopra
The Alexander Technique
The Alexander Technique brings conscious awareness to the habitual ways in which we live in our bodies. Often we create our chronic problems of stiffness, pain, and eventual injury by how we use our bodies in daily activities: how we crane our necks at the computer, how we hunch our shoulders at the steering wheel, how we stand at the kitchen counter. The Alexander Technique can guide you in bringing awareness to these unconscious patterns and help you to make new and more efficient choices.
A lesson is usually one hour and consists of hands-on assistance to identify your patterns and to find and feel a different path. A large part of each lesson is devoted to helping you find these new choices on your own.
Performers of all kinds have benefited from The Alexander Technique; in fact there are often Alexander teachers on university faculties. It is also very useful for pilates and fitness clients and teachers, equestrians, bodyworkers, counselors, dentists, computer workers, chefs, …. anyone who wants to feel better about themselves and in themselves!
Pilates
Joseph Pilates (1880-1967) had an entire philosophy of how to live, as described in his book “Return to Life”. His exercises were one part of his program for full health, which also included sleep and hygiene methods.
Pilates had a genius for designing machines that require full body engagement in each exercise. The emphasis is on working cohesively from myriad angles, rather than many repetitions isolating a particular muscle. Resistance is provided by springs, which create graduated tension and mimic the elasticity of muscle. Many exercise machines allow you to move in only one direction and provide stabilization; pilates machines require your body to find it’s own stability, thus building strength and coordination at the same time.
Some of the studied benefits of Pilates are:
- increased spine mobility
- increased muscle flexibility
- improved endurance
- improved posture
- improved body awareness
- decreased low back pain
- reduction in the need for lumbar surgeries
- improved bone density
GYROTONIC® Method
The Art of Exercising and Beyond®
As much as Pilates was innovative at the turn of the 20th century when the world view was still informed by Newtonian physics, GYROTONIC® Method is the innovative exercise system for the 21st century. We have the DNA spiral as a common image and our current science teaches us the interrelatedness and connectivity of all life and energy systems. GYROTONIC® exercises are multi-dimensional, using rhythm, breath, and spiraling, circular, flowing and expansive movements.
Juliu Horvath created GYROTONIC® Method in the 1980’s as a way to recover from severe injuries that ended his dance career. GYROTONIC® Method offers similar benefits also derived from yoga, dance, swimming, tai chi and gymnastics.
GYROTONIC® exercise:
- Elongates the spine while strengthening the core
- Mobilizes joints
- Encourages flexibility
- Builds coordination
- Increases circulation
- Develops agility
GYROTONIC® exercises are adaptable to any body, from those who are just beginning an exercise program, recovering from an injury, to the Cirque du Soleil level performer.