Egoscue and Starting Again

The menu I did this morning

A. You think I'm psycho because I keep starting and stopping Egoscue. 

B. You completely understand because you've been there too; life just gets so busy that Egoscue falls by the wayside. 

WELL, as of today, no more. The trick for me was to look at it as not something that I had to squeeze into my day quickly ("Ayayay do I really have to do 40 minutes of Egoscue before I sit at my desk in the morning? Where is the time?!"). Instead I said this to myself: "I want my body back. I want to be flexible again. I know I can get there. Every morning from 10:00-11:00 I am going to do Egoscue in a leisurely fashion, not rushing, and afterwards I will do some yoga or strength training to get strong again." 

You should see my little list I have taped onto the wood stove. It says this:

1 minute: goalie squats (going back and forth, knees bent, as if you were going to save a soccer goal)

30 seconds: squat thrusts

1 minute: jumping jacks

5 push-ups

10 leg lifts

You should see me huffing and puffing doing these things. But my plan is to do these daily so that they get easier and easier, at which point I will up the reps.

Not rushing = good.

Egoscue and Scoliosis

This is what my spine looked like pre-surgery

Here is an Egoscue Portland's blog post about scoliosis and Egoscue that is pretty amazing because it shows  the before and after pictures of a woman who did an Egoscue menu of ecises for an hour and a half. If I had known about this Method 20 years ago I might not have the steel rod that is fused to my spine right now!

The picture above is similar to the xrays that were taken of my spine before I had my spinal fusion in 1984. I had an 'S' curve of 51 degrees. The surgeon was able to straighten out the larger curve to about 12 degrees. Is my stiffness now due to the rod? I don't know. But I do know that Egoscue helps my body feel right again. Not stiff. Free. But only if I do the ecises.

This morning I did Static Back for five minutes, Airbench for two minutes, and the foot and heel circles for 40 reps. Bending over the sink afterwards to wash my face - again, a delight.