"The Posture Guru of Silicon Valley"By Amy SchoenfeldThe New York Times

Mr. Drudge, 46, hasn’t just been sitting for two decades. Like so many workers chained to their technology, he has been hunched over desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets, and it’s all taken a toll on his body. He tries to limit the time he spends sitting to four or �ve hours a day, but sometimes he sits for up to 17 hours.

To ease his back, neck and shoulder pain, Mr. Drudge says he has learned how to adjust his posture. Whether he’s typing in the car, from the wooden folding chair in his Miami home o�ce, or from a boardwalk bench at the beach on cloudy days, he makes sure to tilt the top of his pelvis forward, roll his shoulders back, elongate his spine and straighten his craned neck.

Mr. Drudge is one of thousands of people who have trained with Esther Gokhale, a posture guru in Silicon Valley. She believes that people su�er from pain and dysfunction because they have forgotten how to use their bodies. It’s not the act of sitting for long periods that causes us pain, she says, it’s the way we position ourselves.

Ms. Gokhale (pronounced go-CLAY) is not helping aching o�ce workers with high-tech gadgets and medical therapies. Rather, she says she is reintroducing her clients to what she calls “primal posture” — a way of holding themselves that is shared by older babies and toddlers, and that she says was common among our ancestors before slouching became a way of life. It is also a posture that Ms. Gokhale observed during research she conducted in a dozen other countries, as well as in India, where she was raised.

I N T H E N E W SGokhale Method®

"Posture guru's solution is just 'ducky'"By Noelle RobbinsSan Francisco Chronicle

Esther Gokhale is not a stalker, but she has pursued hundreds, even thousands of people around the world, mimicking their body alignment and walking style until her shadow matched theirs. She has studied men and women in isolated African, Brazilian and Indian villages where back pain is virtually unknown, despite long hours spent harvesting, weaving, cooking and toting heavy loads.

What she learned inspired her to open the Esther Gokhale Wellness Center in Palo Alto a decade ago, to help others better understand the di�erence proper posture can make.

Over the years, she has become a "back whisperer" of sorts, winning over tech execs at Google and Cisco Systems, Stanford academics, working moms and medical doctors - including one who described her as "nothing less than the Michael Pollan of posture."

Gokhale Method®

Primal Posture™ for a Pain-Free Life

650-324-3244gokhalemethod.com

"Health: Back To Basics"By Megan ConwayVOGUE

Esther Gokhale wants you to take a stand. Speci�cally, she wants you to push your bum out and roll your shoulders back. Gokhale, a pain specialist and author, maintains that Americans—indeed, most developed cultures—have erroneously championed the so-called “S-shaped” spine when a J-shape is really the ideal posture. Turns out, maybe we shouldn’t be tucking in our tailbones, mountain pose–style. “We’ve forgotten how to use our bodies,” say Gokhale, who notes that back pain is more than twice as common today as it was in 1950. “We’re not designed to withstand improper use.”

Featured in:

"Lost Posture: Why Some Indigenous Cultures May Not Have Back Pain"By Michaeleen Doucle�NPR

An acupuncturist in Palo Alto, Calif., thinks she has �gured out why [a few cultures in the world have hardly any back pain]. She has traveled around the world studying cultures with low rates of back pain — how they stand, sit and walk. Now she's sharing their secrets with back pain su�erers across the U.S.

[...]

If you look at an American's spine from the side, or pro�le, it's shaped like the letter S. It curves at the top and then back again at the bottom.

But Gokhale didn't see those two big curves in people who don't have back pain. "That S shape is actually not natural," she says. "It's a J-shaped spine that you want."

Gokhale Method®

Primal Posture™ for a Pain-Free Life

650-324-3244gokhalemethod.com