Introduction

In my Osteopathic work I am often asked “What exercises can I do?” It isn’t always easy to give a good answer in an Osteopathy Consultation because the rooms I’m usually working in don’t have enough space to move around to demonstrate an exercise. It is also usually not a good idea to try a new movement /exercise when your body has just been changed by an Osteopathic treatment. It takes time and careful coaching to help someone to do an exercise in a meaningful way. I have seen people given “exercise sheets” by Osteopaths, Chiropractors, Physiotherapists etc. – I hate it!!!! The usual result is that the pictures and words mean nothing to the client and the sheet gets lost or thrown away and the exercises are forgotten. That is usually for the best!! If people try to work from the sheet they usually get into trouble – not knowing how far to bend - should it hurt? – how often?  - how many times? – etc. etc.. A piece of paper cannot really explain how an exercise should feel – and our bodies learn by feeling. In fact our bodies can only understand themselves through feeling. Our minds can do great things to support or hinder the body’s processes but until what we think gets fed into something the body can feel there will be no change in the body.

Franklin Method and Movement Work Individual Sessions

My Franklin Method / Movement Work sessions have grown out of my aim to help my clients to find effective ways to find the tools to help themselves. As an Osteopath I’m concerned with finding how I can assist the patient’s body to recognise where it has gone “wrong” and to try to find a way out of its predicament by using my hands in treatment. For self help or exercises to work in the healing of your body a similar process has to be gone through. We have to find what is wrong in our bodies and then we have to gently encourage the body to find a way to move out of and beyond the problem. Franklin Method really emphasises the way that we can experience and feel the shapes of the body parts (anatomy) in ourselves and how those parts relate to one and other. Using the tools of Franklin Method (imagery, touch, experiential anatomy, focused specific movement) we can begin to feel into our bodies and find how they are working currently. Franklin Method is unique in the simple and effective way that it allows us to experience and work with the body-mind connections. (Eric Franklin is fond of saying ”If you want to change your body – first change your mind”) Once we have found where our body is currently we have a starting point from which to initiate change. Movement Work is about helping you to discover and work with the connection between body, heart and mind so that you can truly begin to unblock your self and start to achieve all of your potential. My Movement Work is about using movement – structured exercise and free movement – to help to find the feelings in the body and to allow the body to release those feelings into movement. Feelings held in, or stuck in the body can be of physical or emotional origin – what is important is that they are able to move. If anything in the body is stuck and unable to move – be it an anatomical structure or an emotional state - you will not be well or able to achieve all of your potential.  Movement Work is about strengthening body-heart-mind interconnections and getting your whole being, on all its many levels to move freely.

The exercises I develop in these sessions with my clients are based in what the client wants to achieve. If you want to walk with economy of energy, ease of movement and pain free  - it is unlikely that screwing your face up, grunting a lot and lifting weights in a contorted posture for a few minutes a day will help. Yet that is often what happens. You have a problem – say with your low back – that stops you walking well. You decide that your back is “weak” and you go to a gym. The gym staff –all very well intentioned – give you some back strengthening exercises “off the shelf” as it were for you to do a few times a week. The exercises are not tailored to you - they are just generic exercises that will focus on toughening up some of the muscles around the back of the spine. Will it help you to achieve the goal of walking well? – probably not. In all likelihood your back isn’t “weak,” as in having no or little strength in the muscles, it is more likely that the strength in your back has become misdirected or imbalanced. If this is the case – that there are imbalances in your low back affecting your walking - then first you need to find the imbalance and then second you need to find ways to bring balance and harmony back to the body. The third step in the process is then to practice walking well! (You get good at what you practice!) That’s what we do in these Individual Franklin Method / Movement Work sessions – we find what is wrong then we find ways that you can work to heal yourself. That third point needs a bit of emphasis - as it is central in many ways to what makes my approach (based in Franklin Method) very different from other "exercise" approaches.  What I mean by that is that I really emphasise doing normal things normally and well. That means that if you want to get good at walking it is best to walk - doing it consciously and well. Swimming for instance, while good in itself will not really help you achieve the goal of walking well. I try to find exercises that mirror and strengthen the things you want to do - and often that is everyday activities. If you are sports person or a dancer or some other kind of "movement specialist" then we will work with your specialist movements and requirements - but if you want to walk well - we'll walk!!!! :-)

My background of more than 20 years of Osteopathic* work really helps me to be able to analyse what is going on in the body and to find safe and effective ways to facilitate change and healing in the body. I take a case history to make sure that we don’t ask your body to do anything that would be unsafe for it. But equally I can think around any medical problems you may have so that we can focus on what you can do to get the very best function you can from your body. My study and experience of Franklin Method has really helped me to take my developed Osteopathic sensitivity to the microscopic and internal world of the body into a larger arena of whole body function and movement. My ongoing work with the School of Movement Medicine  allows me to go deeper with you in finding paths through your body-heart-mind interconnections that can help to illuminate, release and transform your whole being.

When and Where

Usually these individual Sessions take place at my Studio in Graveley, Hertfordshire on a Monday afternoon – sometimes they can be arranged for a Saturday morning. I work with all sorts of people – from children to the elderly. The charge for an hour long session is £50.  the first session may need to be an hour and a half long and the charge for that would be £65 (if you have previously seen me for Osteopathic work we will be able to start with an hour session at £50 as I will all ready have taken a case history) If you would like to know more or to discuss whether a session would be right for you either email me at David Kellett DO, Franklin Method Teacher or telephone the receptionists at Northwood 01923 827833, or Hitchin 01462 438622 and leave a message asking me to call back about Individual Franklin Method / Movement Work Sessions. Since we won't need to meet very frequently with this kind of work (rarely more than fortnightly and most likely monthly) it is worth travelling some distance to come and see me - so don't be put off by the "wilds of Hertfordshire"!! People come from all over Hertfordshire, London, Middlesex, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire from towns like like Hitchin, Letchworth, Stevenage, Baldock, Royston, Welwyn, Hatfield, Hertford,  Luton, Dunstable, Bedford, Cambridge, Northwood, London, Harrow, Stanmore, Ruislip, Pinner, Watford and Hemel Hempstead - to name but a few!!!!!

My aim in these Individual Sessions is to bring to you all I have to give, from all my studies and all my ongoing practice, so that you can start to achieve all that you can in your health and life.

*Structural Osteopathy, Cranial Osteopathy, Visceral Osteopathy.