Welcome October, a month full of beautiful warm colours, slightly cooler temperatures, less daylight hours, conkers …. time to get out cozy jumpers, warm socks, scarves, gloves … I’m getting a bit carried away, so let's focus on the warm colours in nature. Lots of reds, oranges, greens as well as lots of berries, I just love it. 

I am focusing on movement in this week’s Newsletter, the Exercise of the Week is moving our shoulders and how that helps the mid-upper back, as well as opening up the front of the chest — brilliant for posture, I hope you enjoy. Then in Your Whole Self I talk about how movement is medicine, it can feel healing both physically and mentally. And of course we have our classes to help you keep moving.
 

This week I want to share a variation of a Swan Dive which helps to achieve more movement in the shoulder girdle and mid-upper spine. It's a great exercise to help with posture and mobility. 

I also provide alternatives in a different position for those who do not feel happy in prone. Keep away from pain and work appropriately for your body, and if you have any questions please get in touch.

Change happens through movement and movement heals.

Joseph Pilates

I wanted to share this for Your Whole Self this week, as I have witnessed how the power of movement can make such a difference to people’s physical and mental wellbeing.

When you are feeling stressed, tired, lacking in energy, worried, indecisive, angry, upset, sad, happy …. any of these can be affected by moving the body. 

For example if you are having a stressful time with work, or with life in general, doing some movement with breath, control and lengthening and opening up the body can make such a difference to how you are feeling. 

If you are feeling tired and lacking in energy because of having a busy time, movement doesn’t have to be leaping around, pushing your body. Taking some time to stretch, breathe and do some gentler movement can be all thats necessary to re-energise and reset. 

If you are feeling happy then movement can be a celebration of feeling good, choosing a more energetic set of exercises, with more power and challenge.

It doesn’t just apply to our emotional health, it can also make the difference to our physical health. 

If we are in pain, discomfort, or we are recovering from an injury, finding some gentle, conservative (with a small ‘c’) movement can make a huge difference to those physical symptoms. 

And if we are feeling physically good there may be physical goals we want to work towards achieving, so we choose more demanding exercises.

The reality is that there is NO bad movement. All movement is good, but sometimes we need to modify the movement appropriately to suit how we are feeling physically and mentally to feel the full benefits.

Have a lovely week folks, keep moving, keep feeling and looking good.

With love

Jane xxx