“I Can See Better!”

One of the last people I taught before I moved to San Francisco in July was a woman in her mid-
fifties. I taught her a total of five private classes. Sometime during those classes, she mentioned
that she had glaucoma.

All I know about glaucoma is that it’s serious, that it’s caused by increased pressure within the
eyeball, and that there’s a lot of research being done to find a cure.

Knowing that she had glaucoma did not change the way I taught her. I simply wanted to give her
an experience of being more on the line of gravity. My intention was to get her more aligned and
more comfortable. I also wanted to give her the guidelines that would help her find the line on
her own.

The very last thing I did with her was to show her how to sit in her car for greater comfort. After
I demonstrated what she would do, she climbed in. I used my hands to help her scrape her
buttock bones down the back of the seat and to help her elongate her spine up the backrest. I
made a slight adjustment to her shoulders and gave a final hint with my hands to back up her
neck and bring her chin toward her throat.

Then I stepped back.

She shouted, “I can see better.”

I was flabbergasted.

From the very first moments when I began to pass on what I knew of Balance, people would come back to me a week or two later and say things like:

When I did what you taught me last week my back felt better.

My knee felt better.

I felt safer picking up my baby.

This week I didn’t have to do back stretches before I got out of bed.

So, when this woman said, “I can see better!” I was delighted, but not too surprised. Still, the moment stuck with me, and I’ve been ruminating on it.

I never thought that Balance would “cure” her glaucoma. The significance of this story is that what she felt was true. She could see better. And she could see better because as each of us becomes more centered, more on the line of gravity, there is less undue pressure in our body’s systems.

Look at these two pictures of me:

I posed for these two photos to demonstrate how high I had to get my chair so that my arms were well-positioned for typing. But they reveal much more than just a difference in my arm positions.

In the first photo, notice the lump in my jaw under my ear, and the gripped muscle running from below my ear down to my collarbones. I had no idea that lump of tension was there until I saw the photo.

In the second photo, where I am positioned more on the axial line, the lump is gone. And the gripped cord of muscle from my ear to my collarbone is much softer. Being more centered dissolved this unconscious stress. And these are just the releases I can see.

In Balance, more releases are happening all through the body. This is why Balance is so powerful. It’s also why people who practice feel a sense of greater well-being as time passes.

All of the ancient body arts value being centered and in line with gravity. Yoga, tai chi, judo, taekwondo, and karate all direct practitioners to “center,” to “ground,” to “be on the line.”

In the very first yoga class I took at the Iyengar Institute in San Francisco, the instructor told the class to “center yourselves.” At that moment, I said to myself, “That’s what I came to learn.”

But it wasn’t until I worked with Noelle Perez that the directions to “center” and “find the line” became specific. Finally, I learned that centering is not just a fuzzy concept. It’s a distinct, physical experience of aligning with gravity.

The benefits of practicing Balance cannot be overstated. If you haven’t been in a class for a while, or if you have never taken a class, please do whatever it takes to do a class, real or online. My website has over a hundred recorded classes that can get you going.

Here are the websites of other teachers. Each of these people has a lot of experience and you will learn something valuable from each of them:

Thea Sawyer: https://liveinbalance.com/

Jenn Sherer: https://spinefulness.com/

Eve Johnson: https://spinefulness.ca/

Janet Cook teaches in person on Wednesdays, at 505 E Charleston, Palo Alto, Unitarian Church, fireside room.

The national teachers’ organization is very close to having its website in place – where you’ll be able to locate teachers throughout the US.