First Organ Prolapse Prevention Class - YAY!

Today 14 of us got together with Candy Conino, a physical therapist and Feldenkrais instructor. I put class together because of the information I learned at the 2010 Weston A. Price Conference. You can learn more here: WAP Conference – Organ Prolapse.

Well, Wow! I have been in this body for 44 years and I am amazed at how much I don’t know about using it! Candy is an amazing, fun and gentle instructor, with great visual and verbal instruction.

First, using her skeleton, Lucy, Candy taught us about the muscles that make up the pelvic floor and how they work. This was very important for me, as I finally had an understanding of what I am supposed to use to do Kegel exercises. Until now the Kegel’s have been ineffective for me.

Next we moved on to various ways of learning about our pelvic floor and how to use the muscles to maintain our organs and prevent incontinence. A couple of key points for me were:

• That when we breathe our organs our pushed into the pelvic floor

• That in order to properly breath and promote effortless posture we are supposed pretend we are eight months pregnant when we breathe because our society’s emphasis on holding our guts in prevents proper posture and breathing

• When we stand we are using our pelvic floor

• When we sit we are supposed to release our pelvic floor

I can’t describe the practices, but they were easy and amazing, and I was shocked by how little I knew about my body. After various practices I was standing and walking differently. We are supposed to do 100 of the pelvic floor exercises a day that Candy taught us.

The class finished with a preview of next week’s class: how to sit. Candy had us practicing walking and sitting. When we sat we immediately released the pelvic floor. The posture of everyone in the room was amazing. For me it was effortless.

Pelvic floor weakness and resulting incontinence and organ prolapse are epidemic. Our society has created a situation where women suffer when we don’t have to. I am greatly looking forward to sprinting, jumping and sneezing again without fear and I am grateful that Candy has me on my way.