Caprice Boisvert: Movement Re-education

10/25/2024

I really enjoyed the ATI Conference in Dorset last weekend. Met some old friends and lots of new ones. And what an amazing venue!

08/11/2024

I spent the weekend at the CanFitPro Global Fitness Conference. All day yesterday, I thought it was Sunday because of the fitness conference. The highlight of the weekend (for me) was Perdita Felicien’s keynote at the closing ceremonies.

So nice to sleep in this morning after waking up at 5:45 two days in a row. Two ten hour days filled with learning and my brain is tired.

08/03/2024

I was honoured to be invited to teach at the South Bank Alexander Centre back in February of this year. This interview with Peter Nobes is a lovely example of why he is so good at what he does. Alexander Technique is the “freedom to” do/be whatever you choose in that moment. It is “freedom from the ‘shoulds’” in our life. I really like that!

Interview with Peter Nobes from London, United Kingdom, about Alexander Technique and life.

03/05/2024

A colleague/friend of mine gave me a shout-out yesterday. It was very unexpected and really made my day! My knowledge of anatomy and biomechanics combined with the Alexander Technique allows me to teach exercise in a unique way. Reach out if you are interested in exploring how you lunge, press, lift, and curl! Thanks again, Stefanie!

03/02/2024

I just came across this title in an email from the University of Toronto: “Look Again: The Power of Noticing What was Always There.”

I have not yet read this book, but the description of it reminds me of Alexander Technique. Why? Because Alexander Technique is about changing how we *think*. Sure, lots of people discover AT because they have neck pain, back pain, hip pain. But ultimately, AT is about changing the way we think about things, whether those things are movements or objects or relationships.

I’m going to check this book out. Maybe you might want to as well. And maybe you might want to try an Alexander lesson and find out what the heck I am talking about. 🙂

Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There

02/03/2024

I should probably have posted about this sooner, but better late than never.

NEXT WEEKEND, I am super chuffed that I will be the Visiting Teacher at Peter Nobes’ South Bank Alexander Centre in London UK, Friday 9 February to Sunday 11 February.

If you or someone you know is in London and would like to come for an intro to the Alexander Technique, you are welcome to come to the “Open House” portion of the weekend (Saturday 10 February 10:30am to 1pm). Peter says your first visit is free. After that, it will cost a little £.

I wanted to attach some cool photos of me doing a bit of “hands on”, but it turns out I don’t have many - just a few from workshops I attended over a decade ago. Perhaps someone will take photos of me and a few students on this trip! 😎

10/24/2023

If your spine feels old, you should explore Pilates and the Alexander Technique. Feel years younger! 😎

Artist: Sarah Andersen

08/06/2023

I came across this article on one of the Alexander Technique fb groups I follow. Sometimes I have a very strong response to articles about posture. They make me feel as if I should blast my thoughts out into the universe. This piece has some good points, but I do want to add some margin notes.

Posture has been a hot button topic for donkey’s years. I was not immune to the words uttered within my own family, especially since i also heard them from my friends’ family members. “Stand up straight!” and “Don’t round your shoulders!” are firmly rooted in my childhood memories. I remember thinking my posture was just fine until I started my pilates teacher training and took Alexander Technique lessons for the first time.

When people come to see me, wanting to address their posture, or back pain, or hip pain, or shoulder pain, one of the most common things I see is people messing with the natural curves of their spine. As the article states:

“But the precise S-curve of your spine is individual to you. It’s in your genes,” says O’Sullivan. “It’s like our signature. It’s just how we are. This idea of homogenising us, I think it’s more social.”

This is pretty much how it goes. The spine is not straight and, as I learned rather quickly after meeting a woman who had Harrington rods in her spine that had removed ALL curvatures (including the ones present in a healthy spine), those curves are what allow us to stand up and balance our head over our feet, allow us to sit and balance our head over our sitting bones. The woman with the Harrington rods had no lumbar curve, which meant she couldn’t stand up straight at all: her version of “standing up straight” would always be about 25 or 30 degrees forward, off the line of gravity.

The first step to a healthy spine is to gently restore the natural curves. However, this brings up the next red flag item in the article:

“There is some evidence people with chronic back pain have weak back muscles. When you image them, you can see the muscle has become withered and infiltrated by strands of white fat. It’s not clear yet why this is. But it doesn’t seem crucial to back pain, because when doctors devised special training programs to strengthen those muscles they found they didn’t help anyone’s back pain.”

The “withered” muscles to which the author is referring, that are “infiltrated by strands of white fat”, are likely the deepest layer of our back muscles. They are withered because they are completely ATROPHIED: they completely forgot they had a job description (not unlike what happens to your muscles when you break your leg and everything is trapped inside a cast for 6 weeks).

The back of our body has three layers of muscle. The deepest layer is the most intrinsic, and these are what we refer to as the “postural muscles”. Because they are so deep, we have a very poor sense of them (we can’t see them in the mirror, for example, and flex them and see them working), and we end up using the muscles we CAN see, the muscles we CAN access. This invariably leads us to use our superficial muscles to support ourselves, and the real job of those superficial muscles is MOVEMENT, not “let’s hold ourselves up”.

Apologies for being repetitive, but the author of this piece states that these atrophied muscles DON’T “seem crucial to back pain, because when doctors devised special training programs to strengthen those muscles they found they didn’t help anyone’s back pain.” They are missing one crucial piece: those special training programs don’t teach people how to discontinue using their superficial muscles for support. So it’s all very nice to focus on strengthening the deepest layer, but if you don’t discontinue the superficial holding pattern, you will never have a healthy, movable spine. It becomes tension with an extra layer of tension. Instead, consider the possibility that the over-engagement of those superficial muscles is the reason why a person’s back pain never goes away.

The essence of Alexander Technique is ease and efficiency, lightness and availability, and most importantly, freedom to choose. If we choose not to support ourselves with superficial muscles that are designed to allow us to move, then those deep postural muscles will have to step out of retirement and relearn how to do their job. It’s not a quick fix, but it will make a world of difference.

For ages, bad posture has been assumed to cause back pain. Now some physiotherapists are rethinking what we should be doing with our spines

01/05/2023

Would you like to do some gentle pilates mat work from the comfort of your own home? Perhaps you have a chronic hip, neck, or back issue that never seems to go away? I run a 60-minute Pilates Mat Class on Mondays at 6pm EST (holidays excluded). All you need is a mat and some space. We use a foam roller, toning balls, therabands, small pillows or cushions, a chair, and a towel or two. Don’t feel obligated to buy a lot of new equipment. People often have suitable things around the house that will work just fine for the first few classes. Each class is $17. You may pay as you go, or pay for five at a time. I leave it up to you to decide. Regular attendees have noticed significant improvements in their mobility and support.

I run the class on Zoom. Reach out to me if you are interested.

https://capriceboisvert.ca/online-classes/

01/05/2023

Would you like to have stronger feet? I run a 30-minute online Footwork Class that may fit your needs. The class runs on Mondays at 5:30pm EST (holidays excluded). Each class is $8. You will need a broccoli elastic, a pair of socks, a tennis ball, and a small tinfoil ball. You may pay as you go, or pay for a month at a time. I leave it up to you to decide. Regular attendees have noticed significant improvements in their foot health.

I run the class on Zoom. Reach out to me if you are interested!

https://capriceboisvert.ca/online-classes/

01/05/2023

I haven't read this self-help book, but I have definitely heard of it. It seems to me, as we launch into 2023, this might be just the ticket.

Watch the world’s best documentaries at the annual Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema and on Hot Docs at Home.

12/02/2022

‘Tis the season. Inhabit Pilates and Movement