Mind Body Awareness

Mind Body Integration (Alexander Technique) sessions direct one toward the natural balance within oneself that has been masked by habits coming from life’s stresses, self-driven pressure, or injury. We build awareness of the dis-ease these habits impose – an awareness accessed by quieting the mind and finding a better way to use our bodies. The end result is the freeing of one’s self to live with ease and confidence.

This treatment offered exclusively by Cathy Fallon

In this Mind Body Integration (Alexander Technique) session with Cathy Fallon, the student explains what they are seeking to learn or change. This is often a pain issue but is sometimes a desire to increase achievement or joy in something they love doing. We explore sitting, standing and walking, trying to notice where habits of effort and inefficiency creep in. You will be guided physically and verbally toward effortless, comfortable, easy movement. When we notice a shift toward more balanced effort, we move to the table.

The student lies on the table fully clothed and we revisit how to use the self with better alignment and less effort. Not fighting gravity gives the student an experience of just how easy movement can be when the habitual patterns are by-passed. We may then return to the chair or explore walking to “test” new discoveries and discuss applications for life outside the lesson.

In subsequent 30 or 60 minute Mind Body Integration sessions, we will review the concepts of slowing down, observing and directing the thoughts and the body toward ease, balance, poise and improved functioning. It takes time to unravel habits that take years to layer on. While the pace of one’s learning is very personal, up to six months of weekly sessions may be needed to truly allow the student to own the concepts and change how they move and perceive their world. Some students continue to study for the rest of their lives, switching to monthly or as needed “tune ups” as they master their self-understanding.

Mind Body Integration (Alexander Technique) group sessions offer the opportunity to not only observe ourselves but to learn by observing others. A nonjudgmental environment where we can observe our balance and effort in sitting, standing, and walking provides a growth enhancing experience for all. We look for stiffness, or mal-coordination. We explore how to free our joints, always searching for where we work too hard. We may examine work-related activities that require repetitive movement. Group members may wish to apply their discoveries to activities they enjoy such as yoga, sports, singing, dancing, speaking, golfing, playing a piano and holding a baby. You may find you return to your day feeling calmer and more physically and mentally organized, feeling ease where there used to be stress.

In each 60-minute session, you’ll team with Kendra to identify the compensations your body has picked up — the shifted weight, the guarded shoulder, the overworked muscles standing in for weaker ones — and gently unwind them. Through gradual, guided movement, you can retrain your nervous system, rebuild strength and confidence in your body, and expand what feels safe and possible again. It’s not about pushing through pain — it’s about finding the right entry points that help you relearn trust in your own movement, one step at a time. 

The goal is to work within a range that feels safe and pain-free for your body, then gradually expand it. Clients typically look forward to their sessions and report feeling either relaxed or energized at the end of each hour.

This treatment offered exclusively by Kendra McCuine.

Your first session is about getting a clear picture of where you’re starting from and working together to create a plan. You’ll talk through your pain history, what movements feel difficult or worrisome, and what you’re hoping to get back to in your life. From there, Kendra will guide you through some gentle movement assessments to understand how your body is compensating and where it might be bracing or guarding. Finally, you’ll learn a few simple movements to practice at home before your next session. By the end, you’ll walk away with a clearer understanding of what’s happening in your body and a sense of what the path forward might look like. Movement therapy meets you exactly where you are. You don’t need any prior fitness level or experience — the work adapts to your body’s current capabilities.

The goal is to work within a range that feels safe and pain-free for your body, then gradually expand it. Clients typically look forward to their sessions and report feeling either relaxed or energized at the end of each hour.

This treatment offered exclusively by Kendra McCuine.

Every session starts with understanding where you are that day — your pain, your energy, what’s feeling tight or guarded — and what you noticed between sessions. From there, you’ll work through movements designed to meet your body where it’s at, teaching it how to move without compensations and feel safe and stable enough to calm the nervous system. Sessions are collaborative; you’re never just following instructions passively. You’ll leave each session with new movements to practice at home, so you can keep moving forward.

You should plan on 8 to 10 sessions spread over approximately three months for your initial treatment. From there, Kendra can help you decide on an appropriate plan– whether you’re continuing treatment to work on a new, more challenging goal, checking in periodically (every 1-2 months), or end your Movement Therapy work. 

Movement therapy often overlaps with physical therapy, but they’re not the same. Physical therapy tends to focus on a specific injury or diagnosis — evaluating what’s wrong, then building a plan to restore function or reduce pain in that area. It’s often short-term, with clear clinical benchmarks for progress.

Movement Therapy for Chronic Pain takes a more integrative approach. While it addresses physical patterns — strength, mobility, compensation — it also considers your nervous system, your awareness of how your body moves, and how stress and tension show up in your body. Instead of focusing narrowly on the injured area, it looks at how your entire body moves and compensates, and how compensations in one area may contribute to pain in another. 

Many people find the two approaches work well together — physical therapy to address an acute issue, and Movement Therapy for Chronic Pain to help maintain progress, understand compensations, and build long-term confidence in how you move. People have found success starting Movement Therapy for Chronic Pain:

• while in physical therapy
• after “graduating” from physical therapy
• having been to physical therapy in the past, but not recently
• never having tried physical therapy