Feature Story:

Headline:

You Can Exercise Away Most Aches and Pains,
Believes Movement Specialist

Wondering why your muscles and joints ache?

Walk past Anita Boser and she can tell you why.

You probably sit, stand, walk, and lift wrong, she's quick to say.

If you stand with splayed legs, your legs spread far apart and feet turned out, you create tension on your low back, points out this Issaquah, Wash.-based movement specialist and the author of "Relieve Stiffness and Feel Young Again with Undulation" (Vital Self, Inc., www.undulationexercise.com,
[425] 765-2713).

Just as bad, when we remember we're slumping in a chair, we usually pull ourselves erect from the shoulders, thus increasing our upper body rigidity, rather than pushing up with feet placed on the floor.

"If you sit at a desk for eight hours a day, you have to counteract the inevitable rigidity with fluid movement-and a lot of it: enough to re-hydrate all of your tissue," Boser advises. "You can do that many different ways, but the method that works for the greatest variety of people is undulation."

Boser did not invent undulation, and she doesn't expect it alone to solve her clients' problems, but it's an important part of what she teaches because these exercises can be done anywhere, anytime and by anyone. They can be done at a desk, during a commute, even in a wheelchair. Undulations can be used by marathoners to relax and stretch before a race-and by people so wracked with pain they're not sure they can climb out of bed.

Although Boser didn't worry about her health until she reached her 30s and started noticing tight muscles and sore joints, her interest in health began early with a career in health insurance. She was active in efforts to reform the health insurance system in the early 1990s because, as she notes, "I'm a solution-oriented person and I was attracted to the concept of creating a better system."

But, Boser says, she soon recognized, "There is no better solution without a personal commitment to good health."

It doesn't matter who pays for health care services, she points out, if people continue to engage in unhealthy practices.

"Each of us has to take stock of the body we have to work with and make conscious choices to maintain-and improve-the health of this body," emphasizes the movement specialist.

Boser's choices? She started with karate, which led to Hellerwork Structural Integration and eventual certification as a practitioner of this holistic modality, which combines deep-tissue bodywork with movement education and awareness dialog. Along the way, she became involved with yoga, belly dancing, and undulation. She also graduated from the Institute of Structural Medicine.

Since 2001, Boser has been providing workshops and 75-minute individual sessions for people with chronic pain such as that caused by fibromyalgia or those who, as she describes it, "realize their bodies are letting them down."

It's for these kind of people that she wrote "Relieve Stiffness and Feel Young Again with Undulation." Illustrated with step-by-step photos that outline correct spine position, "Relieve Stiffness" includes 52 undulations-one for each week of the year. By working from the Beginning with such exercises as "Happy Dog" and "Hip Hiker" through Intermediate (for example, "Octopus" and "Inchworm"), Advanced ("Hula Hoop" and "Coffee Grinder") and Mastery ("Whirlpool" and "Partners"), readers learn to relax and strengthen every portion of the spine and to improve every way of moving.

For more information about undulations, contact Boser at (425) 765-2713. Information on upcoming demonstrations and presentations is at www.undulationexercise.com.