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These days, Franzi has added a new blend of postures to his classical yoga instruction — exercises from the Egoscue Method, which is a nonmedical, common-sense approach to allowing the body to regain its proper alignment.
Franzi is one of his own best customers. "I was in pain from my hip — it was a constant pinched feeling — and I wasn’t happy with the answers I was getting," he says. "I was in danger of losing my livelihood. You can’t teach 12 yoga classes a week with chronic pain.
"I came across the Egoscue Method on line, and that’s when I realized that it wasn’t the symptoms I was having that were the trouble, it was the fact that my body wasn’t in the position it was designed to be in. That’s what was causing my pain."
The Egoscue Method is a series of simple, realigning exercises, he says, that are designed to put your musculo-skeletal system back in the posture it was designed for: with the head sitting evenly between the shoulders, hips level and with the shoulder, hip, knee and ankle joints vertically aligned.
"Over time, we get away from that proper alignment. In today’s world, we don’t have the opportunities for such complete range of motion as we did when we weren’t sitting for long periods, working at desks or driving in the car," he says.
"Our bodies are meant to move, and any movement the body can make is a movement it SHOULD make. People think that age is about limits: not lifting heavy things, not disturbing the muscles and joints by moving as much, when in fact, your body is designed to keep doing those things."
This system was established in 1971 by Pete Egoscue, a former Marine who was wounded in Vietnam, according to Casey Lyon, vice president of Egoscue Method, Inc. in San Diego.
In constant pain even after his leg wound healed, he studied an anatomy book and discovered that his body didn’t look anything like the posture charts showed. "He concentrated on getting his body into the right position, the way it was designed, and he started to feel great again," says Lyon. "He started helping other Marines, and it became kind of a hobby for him."
Today, 34 years later, Egoscue has 22 clinics nationwide, an on-line program, a nationally syndicated radio show and four books detailing the method.
"Best of all, this method is something people can teach themselves," says Lyon. "You can learn it from the books or on line or with a few sessions with an instructor. And then you’re on your own.
"Getting rid of the symptoms is easy, keeping them away is what takes a commitment. You have to make the effort every single day, but you’re in control. You’re the one who understands your own body. We’re proudly nonmedical. And we have a success rate in the high 90s."
Phoebe Boyer of Hamden, 65, has been using the Egoscue Method for about a year. "I had hip pain that was really limiting what I could do," she says. "I realized that my hips hurt because of the way my whole body was aligned.
"My shoulders were tense from working at a computer all day, I was walking bent over, my toes weren’t pointed straight ahead. I took a lot of Advil, but the pain never went away."
Today, she’s pain-free, she says, as long as she does the exercises. "They take about a half-hour to do, although you can hardly call them ‘exercises,’" she says with a laugh.
"They’re certainly not strenuous. Mostly, they’re lying in the proper position to put your body back into alignment, the way it was designed to function. Today, I tell everyone about it: my doctors, my friends, anybody I know who believes that you have to have pain when you get older. You don’t. I firmly believe that."
Contact Sandi Kahn Shelton at mailto:%20sandishelton@comcast.net .
