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 Heather Dennis
I have been a lifelong mover. In my twenties I was a member of the Canadian Three Day Event Equestrian team which was physically challenging and no doubt where many of the issues in my body originated.
In my late twenties yoga found me and for 15 years I studied and taught yoga,enjoying the combination of developing body mind and spirit. However ,I was curious about the human body and wanted further study in anatomy,movement and biomechanics. I thought I would find that in massage school but my education there was really focused on the muscles and intuitively I knew there was alot more to movement than the muscles.
I have certified in pilates through Stott and Long Beach Dance and have studied various forms of somatic movement.
I continued to search for a system that made sense of functional human movement. I have found that in the Egoscue Method. My own pain- a lifetime of compensation patterns colliding with a skiing accident two years ago had me in a permanent state of pain. I saw these compensation patterns in my students and clients but despite all the other methods I had learned, I could not loosen their grip on myself or others.
Compensation patterns are movement patterns where we substitute a muscle group to do the work of another muscle group. For instance someone who has a dysfunctional hip and has difficulty stabalizing may tighten and tense their neck and shoulders in an effort to balance their body. These compensation patterns twist us, bend us and pull us out of a functional relationship to gravity thus distorting our posture.
What the Egoscue method has taught me is how to look at someone's posture,find deviations,and then test them to see if that deviation is a dysfunction or a compensation. It then allows me to create a menu of ecises ( movements) that reeducate the body back into a more functional relationship to the world around it.
In my own body this has resulted in me being able to have a tool to manage my pain and be able to swim, run, do yoga, and know I can enjoy these activities for a long time to come.It is also a tool that I am using with my private clients and classes with much success.
Heather Dennis lives in Rose Bay Nova Scotia and teaches "Wise Moves" a combination of yoga,ecises and other somatic practices that stimulate the nervous system to make positive changes in the body to allow it to be more vital and enjoy our birthright of movement.
www.heatherdennis.org |
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