Monthly Archives: March 2023

A quick heads-up: rates (as warned), went up this year. Still nowhere near what most of my peers charge, but up. That will have to go up for established clients as well. For most long-running clients, as of May, fees for lessons will go up by $10 (i.e., what you’re paying now goes up by that much: Denton area clients will keep their special rate as negotiated). It’s just what I have to do in order to keep up with rents, which track inflation.

The Good News: recently I’ve had some new clients coming on board. (which means I’ve got a little wiggle room: the more I’m able to work with people, the more leeway I have to delay rate increases with current clients). If this rate increase would put you into hardship or make it less likely for you to seek out lessons, let me know and we’ll figure something out: the last thing I want is for somebody who needs lessons to have to let that go for inability to pay.

Enjoy spring, and more soon about an upcoming project you may enjoy, called Klutz Therapy!

I have a student right now who’s working to get past a really NASTY case of tennis elbow that has completely put her out of business for months on end. Physical therapy has helped a little bit, but not enough.

One of the strategies we’re pursuing is helping her to “Re-route” her movement so that she can lift her arm from a surface by bending her torso (in any direction) or slide her hand along her thigh, thus allowing her elbow to get bent, rather than trying to use the muscles of her forearm to bend the elbow all on their own.

We need to use the “big power” muscles at the center of our bodies to generate force, and the little muscles to refine that force. Pain is not actually damage: it’s a signal to us that we’re doing something improper that requires attention (the “pay attention” part is why chronic pain is so exhausting). That pain can in many cases go away if you can learn to move your body in a way that isn’t causing the injured place additional damage, and that recruits muscles differently. “Nerves that fire together, wire together.” If you change the muscular recruitment pattern, you can diminish the risk that pain levels you. There is a tremendous difference between allowing your shoulder blade to move while you bend your elbow, and not allowing it to move!

Tai Chi is full of examples of learning to move from the center of your body, and my upcoming book Klutz Therapy will have several specific examples of how you can add these habits to your daily life so as to get the majority of the benefits that tai chi players get from their art*, at no additional cost to your daily schedule.

*of course, if you’re learning tai chi to fight, rather than for health benefits, that’s a different kettle of fish and a lot more work.

An odd thing has happened recently post-Covid(tm), and that is that interest in group (Awareness Through Movement) classes has gotten really odd. I am still teaching ATM by arrangement (so if you have a group, please do reach out to me!), but interest in “walk-in group classes” is low enough right now that I’m discontinuing them in favor of private lessons at lunchtime. The interest now appears to be from pre-existing groups who want to study and learn together, and that’s how I’ll be pursuing ATM classes for the next year.