Shift Movement Studio

28/03/2025

Dancers and athletes often display an alignment of their skeleton that has moved away from centre due to a history of multiple injuries. In this case, multiple ankle sprains was the key for understanding why the centre of mass had shifted away from one foot, resulting in hip pain. With a 5 minute assessment of skeletal alignment, the possible source of pain (compression of the hip) was immediately clear. It boggles my mind that the industry and dance training institutions still continue to be so obsessed with strength training without considering the impact of how the body as a whole organises itself in relation to it’s perceived centre. All we did, through a few simple specific movements was shift the pelvis back (the difference of a few millimetres can have a huge impact) and incorporate that new movement into gait. It’s simple and effective when you consider the body as an intelligent self healing system.

🤦‍♂️🤪🫶

31/12/2024

The holidays are many things… but as a movement and alignment specialist, it often presents as an opportunity to work with family members. These are my 13 year old nephew’s feet. He’s been having trouble with his hockey skates causing a lot of pain where his navicular (the bone on the medial side of the foot below the ankle) has been pressing into his skate in a painful way on both feet.
Looking at the alignment, the rear foot was deeply everted causing this ‘flat foot’ appearance. First I worked on the right foot, and realized that the change was so dynamic that I should take a picture. So this photo is the before and after of working on the Left foot. Checking in with him the next day, much of the new alignment seemed to hold, so here’s hoping he can enjoy his hockey game with less pain. 😌🥅🦶

03/10/2024

I had the lovely opportunity of working with the incredible dancer and athlete .lnz yesterday. Still recovering from a bad ankle sprain a few months ago, our goal in the session was to improve ankle dorsiflexion.
Using whole body movements, we integrated the movement of the foot with the hip and the spine, and voila! Results she was very happy about. The photo on the left was actually taken already half way through the session (as of course I forgot to take an initial before shot), so there had already been been a huge degree of improvement in the range of motion of the TCJ by the time we took it, but even more improvement by the end. ☺️🦶

10/09/2024

Worked with a dancer today. He walked in with one side of his skull two cm higher than the other. One scapula dropped two cm below the other. History of should dislocation. An hour later he walked out with everything balanced and all smiles.
Did I take photos?
No. Was it cool? YES.

Professional dancers are incredible movers. However if a movement that got lost during an injury / healing process is never reintegrated, those movements will also be difficult to access no matter what kind of rehab you do. Biomechanics brings the movement of the bones into relationship, so that sometimes it’s just like flipping a switch - showing the body what it didn’t know it was missing, and everything else falls into place.

Like today.

Greatful for the understanding of the body as an intelligent system that shows you what it wants and being shown the map of how everything is connected. Thank you for this perspective . Thank you for letting me play with your mechanics. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to support such incredible artists with their work. 🦴🩻🤩

22/08/2024

I don’t normally post before an after photos - but it’s not for lack of change, just for lack of remembering to actually take them and ask the client for permission. Today I did it!! The pic on the right is taken after one hour of work with the client. The pic on the left was taken at the start of the session. This client had knee surgery earlier in the year and since then, hasn‘t been able to straighten her left knee.

The knee is really a pretty basic hinge joint, but it does have some important rotational movement on the transverse plane that‘s important to understand for anyone dealing with knee pain or limited mobility.

Essentially we worked on extending the knee while introducing some of the rotation that you would want to see during gait when the knee is extending. We then integrated this with movements of the spine on the Saggital plane.

Et voila! Can you see the difference? I can, and more importantly she could feel the difference. Yhey mechanics! 🦴

02/04/2024

Today is moving day for Betty the reformer and her Pilates equipment friends!! I am moving my equipment directly into the studios of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company in order to be able to work one on one with the incredible dancers of the company. I will still be available to offer private training to other folks who are interested, but will now be based out of the company studios at Schmidtstrasse in Frankfurt. 🤩☺️

06/02/2024

4 SHAPES on the FRONTAL PLANE…
This is a drawing I did for a client the other day to explain how the organisation of your body on its vertical axis when spine-bending to the side differs at different moments in the gate cycle. We have ‘on axis’ side bending, where the pelvis, ribcage and head are line up, and ‘off axis’ side bending, where the pelvis pulls away from the base of support stretching the side line tissue in order to be catapulted back in the other direction. This moment is actually what I named the studio after: SHIFT, is that moment in your gait where every thing is up for grabs and nothing is stable. SHIFT is the potential for change.

08/12/2023

04/06/2023

Anatomical Aesthetics 😜
At SHIFT biomechanics meets Pilates. In training I SHIFT, I en corporate the AiM approach to understanding the biomechanics of the body in gait (how the bones move when we walk and how everything is related in one beautiful coordinated system!) 🦴🦶In the time that it takes to do one footstep (0.6-0.8 s) we move in a habitual or compensated way. And we repeat that movement thousands of times a day. The average person takes about (the average person takes about 3.000-4.000 steps a day and that’s if you spend most of the day sitting). So you can begin to imagine how you move your bones relates to everything you do…