ESTHER GOKHALE DEMOSTRATING GLIDE WALKING 54 South Bay Accent COURTESY OF ESTHER GOKHALE WELLNESS CENTER Among the many non-celebrity Gokhale students in the region is Palo Alto resident Pam Page, who reports she’s “always had a troublesome back” that she previously treated with muscle relaxers and other medication. Her need for relief was obvious. “”It was awful,”” she recalls. “There are times when you have to crawl rather than walk. My back hurt almost all the time.” About five years ago, Page was referred to Gokhale by an enlightened internist, and she took the six-session class with her adult daughter, who had been a national swimmer but also suffered back pain. The results were dramatic and immediate. Page hasn’t taken any pain medication since, and her daughter, after incorporating the spine-lengthening Gokhale techniques into her routine, was measured an inch and a half taller at the end of the six-week class. “It’s a discipline and you have to incorporate it into your daily life, but it sure beats surgery,” Page says. “A lot of people think surgery is an instant fix, but I know many who didn’t have great results. That’s like getting liposuction when you need to lose weight—it’s not gonna last.” In a conservative profession not known for promoting alternative approaches, what is most remarkable is the lineup of physicians who not only testify to the benefits of the Gokhale Method but also have referred hundreds of patients. Stanford pediatrics professor Dr. Harvey Cohen admits, “We have not served our patients with back pain well.” “Within 12 months of my surgery, the pain returned, and my doctors recommended further surgery. Instead, I decided to find my own path out of misery and begin my own deeper research into the causes and treatments of back pain. I studied everything I could.”xxx —ESTHER GOKHALE There are even a few surgeons who support the notion of primal posture. According to Stanford neurosurgeon Dr. John Adler, “Every year, tens of thousands of patients undergo major back surgery without any benefit. By using Esther Gokhale’s novel techniques, many of these patients can avoid such needless and expensive medical procedures and quickly return to a pain-free life.” Gokhale reports, “We get a lot of referrals, and we’ve had over 300 physicians take the course.” One of many converts is Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) internist Dr. Rebecca Davidson, who says, “Esther Gokhale’s vision of what makes a healthy back will be startling to most Americans because it’s so different from what we have always learned. With the adoption of even a few of Esther’s precepts, a life of bad habits can change to a life of healthy sitting and moving and therefore a life of less pain and more freedom.” PAMF colleague Dr. Deirdre Stegman has referred more than 300 patients to Gokhale and says, “As one of my colleagues declared, I’ve become a true believer” in the Gokhale Method. Among her referrals was her 85-year-old As this unhealthy posture eventually became the new normal, Gokhale says, it made its way into the medical profession, leading to many layers of misconception. Achieving the S-shape is still taught as a goal to chiropractors and physical therapists, who urge clients to attain this overly curved shape. Physicians often treat related discomfort through epidural spinal injections and costly surgeries, so there are obvious financial incentives to continue this approach, she adds. As she studied and traveled, it was clear to Gokhale that having a J-shaped spine was the commonality among the healthy villagers she met, so when she returned home, she started sharing posture techniques with her acupuncture clients and friends. The results were so powerful that this later evolved into the Gokhale Method classes, her book, DVDs and a variety of helpful aids. Even now, “People have trouble believing that the way you sit and stand will have such a big impact when so many prestigious, established methodologies have failed,” she says. “It’s our challenge to encourage people to give this a try.” A common refrain among those who have taken Gokhale’s classes—“We call them students because it’s an education,” she says—is sorrow that they didn’t discover primal posture years earlier so they could have avoided so much pain. In the Bay Area, her approach has garnered testimonials from dozens of former students, including well-known figures like Joan Baez, You Tube CEO Susan Wojcicki, high-tech entrepreneur Donna Dubinsky, Oracle board member Ray Bingham, three time Olympian PattiSue Plumer, renowned author and professor Paul Ehrlich and many more. According to Ehrlich, before the Gokhale Method, he had spent more than two decades suffering from back pain so bad that it often interrupted sleep and sometimes, ““was unable to walk more than 50 yards without squatting to relieve the pain,” he reports. Renowned runner Plumer successfully used the Gokhale Method after nothing else had worked for five years after an injury. (continued on pg. 96)
South Bay Accent - Jun/Jul 2016
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