Susan Chandler

May I Have Your Attention, Please: Awareness in Movement

A new student in Monday night’s Minding Your Balance class experienced subtle changes in her balance during the centering exercise when she shifted her attention in different directions. The exercise, which teaches students how to find center-of-balance, brings to light the way in which attentional focus leads movement. Sometimes people notice a significant drift of their body in the direction of…

Finding Center: Stability or Mobility?

In Ki-Aikido, we use a firm push on the torso to check balance stability as a form of “no-tech biofeedback” in learning to how to center.  If I place my attention at my center-of-balance (in the gut a few inches below the belly button) I remain stable without having to work at it; if I shift my attention to, say the top of my head, I immediately wobble on my feet when my partner pushes on me. At…

Rusty and the Rabbit

Rusty spotted the rabbit when I wasn’t looking; the rabbit sprinted off and Rusty lunged forward in pursuit. Fortunately, my centering and weight underside practice, something I regularly focus on during our morning walks, saved the day: I remained rooted to the spot with leash firmly in hand. When Rusty hit his tether’s end he returned to my side and we continued our walk – in the opposite…

Mind Body Techniques from the Martial Arts for Better Balance — on Your Feet and in Life We tend to take balance for granted, not noticing the ongoing adjustments that automatically keep us stable and upright as we move in the world. Balance only comes to mind when we begin to lose it – something that happens more often with age. One in three adults age 65 and older takes a fall every year, with…

Parkinson’s and Art as Action

Join me Tuesday, September 1st for my conversation with Sarah Leversee, dancer and creative director of Art as Action, and poet Wayne Gilbert, who is living and dancing with Parkinson’s disease. Art as Action’s Reconnect With Your Body dance classes “explore the power of dance, creativity & artistic expression and enable participants with and without Parkinson’s to discover new ways to move their…

Jamie Zimron – Training Across Borders

Join me Tuesday, August 18th for my conversation with Jamie Zimron, 5th degree black belt Aikido Instructor, creator of the Aiki Way and co-founder of the Middle East Aikido Project, about the Training Across Borders aikido seminar happening this coming October in Loutraki, Greece. Training Across Borders 2015 will bring together aikido practitioners from conflict regions around the world to…

Maedée Duprès – A Living Arts Centre

Join me Tuesday, August 4th for my conversation with Maedée Duprès,  Alexander Technique teacher, Tai Chi Chüan instructor, dancer, and the founder of A Living Arts Centre in Denver, Colorado. Maédee, a native of Switzerland, began her dance career in London where she also studied Tai Chi Chüan with Gerda Geddes, the first teacher of Tai Chi in Britain.  An Alexander Technique (AT) instructor…

Join me Tuesday, June 2 for my conversation with Mary Lynn Newark, creator and Artistic Director of Between the Bones dance studio and Projekt Move. Between the Bones classes provide young dancers the opportunity to “cultivate body-awareness, coordination, self confidence, strength, stage presence, and embodiment of the foundational elements of dance, developing imagination while building solid…

Turn, Tumble, and Swing!

Join me Tuesday May 19th for my conversation with Angela Hanscom, pediatric occupational therapist, creator of TimberNook camps, and an outspoken advocate for the importance of getting kids moving in the outdoors and learning through play. Her writing on the topic has been featured in the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, and the NPR Education Blog, among others.

TimberNookis  an award…

Embodied Asana & Body-Mind Centering

Join me Tuesday, May 5th for my conversation with Amy Mathews, Body-Mind Centering and yoga instructor, movement therapist, and founder of Embodied Asana. Amy is also co-author of the best-selling book Yoga Anatomy.

Amy, who has been teaching movement since 1994, has taught workshops on embodied anatomy and movement across the U.S. as well as in Canada, Europe, Israel, and Japan. She also offers…

Join me Tuesday April 21 for my conversation with Jamie Leno Zimron, creator of The KiAi Way, “Innovative Mind-Body Trainings for Better Golf, Better Business, and Better Health and Fitness.”

Jamie brings a rich and extensive background to her work: she is a 5th degree black belt in aikido, a professional LPGA Golf Instructor, she hold a Masters in clinical psychology and has extensive background…