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LAUREL BEVERSDORF

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laurelbeversdorf

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August is heavy enough with the heat and humidity,

August is heavy enough with the heat and humidity, but the grief adds another layer. My mom died 9 years ago today.
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I managed to get outside with my kettlebells and embrace this heavy feeling that’s been sneaking up on me. Last night it hit me hard. I slept like the dead and struggled to get up.
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This afternoon when I finally left the darkness of indoors, I got outside and started with some hip work in loaded Z-sit variations close to the ground (swipe L.)
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Then I did a circuit from a past class I taught.
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Finally I swirled and twirled around on the grass with my 20lber and came up with this backyard flow. (Bonus if you kneel on an acorn!)
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All in all, I think I managed to ground myself, focus my mind on the present, and get my heart rate up.
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I still feel sad, but also a little stronger and a little lighter.
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#augustennui
#kettlebellgym #kettlebellflow #kettlebellexercises #kettlebellstrong #kettlebellswing

Not your average W3 or single leg deadlift — WHY

10 years married and we’re still walking around

10 years married and we’re still walking around hatching plans for our next big adventure. I love you, @blomnathan. You make my life better and you make me better. There’s no one I’d rather be on this adventure with.❤️

Align your neck — WHY THO? . Cognitive dissonanc

Align your neck — WHY THO?
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Cognitive dissonance abounds when you learn posture doesn’t correlate with pain.
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Especially if you’ve been fixing people’s posture to solve pain problems. You might be helping, just not for the reasons you think.
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The more useful factors to consider in helping solve pain problems is movement and load.
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Now, posture, movement, and load are not mutually exclusive. Our posture influences *how* we move and how we load, but it’s one part of the story, not the main plot line.
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Additionally, we might also consider how muscle fitness (strength and endurance) plays a role in pain.
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Also, how proprioception—the way we perceive our body’s position and movement—influences how we load in order to be able to train strength in certain movements.
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This short video contains 3 ways to improve neck alignment + also strength, endurance, and mind body mapping through touch feedback and external load.
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All of the sensory “data” influenced by gravity, blocks, balls, blankets, bands, and body position help us to both “make sense of” posture and (maybe more relevant to pain relief) have a novel sensory experience to improve mind body mapping.
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These strategies all utilize propriceptive cues — the type of cues you might not verbally articulate, but rather, the learning you might organize through props and sequencing (and then reinforce later with verbal cues.)
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The best part of proprioceptive cueing is, as teachers, instead of talking, we organize learning and then observe. Students’ experience is the teacher. The type they can continue to reference through motor recall beyond the cue and class.
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Does this exploration excite you? Then you might love what @caitlincasella and I have planned for you in our new CUE workshop WHY THO: Own What You’re Saying vía Zoom, Aug 12 LIVE 3-5p EST + downloadable recording (yours forever!)
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5 days left to sign up! Link in bio. 👆

Not your typical 🐸— WHY THO? . old pose + new

Not your typical 🐸— WHY THO?
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old pose + new cues = novel experience
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C(l)UE: the words and props combine to make muscle activation task-based, or, the *outcome* of performing tasks, rather than the *goal* in and of itself.
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Think about it: daily movement is most often an outcome of performing tasks, not the goal in and of itself. We move to get stuff done.
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Task-based cues speak to our nervous system in a way that has been (evolutionarily-speaking) fundamental to our survival. We had to getter done to survive, carry water, hunt food.
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We definitely weren’t engaging our adductors or finding neutral spine to survive.

We had to do actual work WITH our body TO our environment.
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Task-based cues ask us to DO TO.
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And in this way, they help us perform authentic, efficient, and accurate muscle patterning (way better than when we’re told to engage muscles.)
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CUE: place Coregeous ball below xyphoid process (and later) let your spine “do what it wants to do” and sink toward the ball, now move it away from the ball.
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WHY THO?: students learned where their xyphoid process is (by palpating that little snaggle tooth at the bottom of their breastbone). The ball is an external target to move toward/away from to help students initiate spinal movement from this level of their spine.
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CUE: press your inner knees down into floor to “accordion” the blanket
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WHY THO?: similarly, instead of saying “engage your inner thighs” (an internal cue), students ACT on the blanket (their environment).
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An accordion, which folds and unfolds in a pleated manner, is more imagery than actual. It’s analogous. But it’s still external in the sense that we’ve all likely experienced the pleating of accordions, fans, or napkins.
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Maybe more helpful, its a novel cue that perks ears up instead of an overused one that goes in one ear and out the other.
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If asking Why Tho? about the cues you use excites you (+ you wanna cue more thoughtfully and effectively) then you might love what @caitlincasella and I have planned for you in our cue workshop WHY THO: Own What You’re Saying
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Where: Zoom
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When: 8/12 LIVE 3-5p EST (You’ll get a downloadable copy after.)
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Link in bio 👆

These words came out of my mouth when I spoke to S

These words came out of my mouth when I spoke to Sherry, the host of the @titanium__blonde podcast.
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We talked a lot about an experience many of us have been thrust into which is the difficult process, the tech-maze, the self-doubt, the awkward feelings of moving our teaching online.
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My POV is that it’s in these transitions, in these places in our lives (this one being quite extraordinary) where we’re forced (or feel forced) to adapt that our relationship to difficulty is probably what constitutes the majority of our work.
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It’s not that we can’t do it.
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It’s not that we won’t be able to do it.
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It’s not that we aren’t good at it.
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It’s just that we need to gain perspective on what our relationship to things feeling difficult is. We need to build that relationship.
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I say this because over the years (since 2017) it’s only been the process of being online, filming myself with the intent to publish, then publishing material I don’t feel is perfect, then receiving feedback on that material and then using that feedback to refine my message and my approach, that my relationship to this type of difficulty has been elevated.
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Don’t get me wrong, it’s still hard. But it’s no longer scary.
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It’s still frustrating, but it’s also a challenge I’ve learned is very much worthy of my time and struggle.
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The through line to so much of my process has been in learning to get acquainted with this feeling of difficultly in its myriad forms. And then doing it anyway.
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Wanna hear the rest of the conversation on the Titanium Blonde podcast? It’s in the link in my bio! 👆
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#keeponshowingup #consistencybeatsperfection #publishtheimperfect #befrienddiscomfort

@caitlincasella with some Why, Tho? 🧠Cue deeper

Do you cue on auto-pilot? Maybe the repetition of

Do you cue on auto-pilot?

Maybe the repetition of a script has worked for you up until a point.

Have you started to see how your go-to cues work for some students but not all?

Repeating the things we hear our teachers say is a natural part of learning, but eventually we want to find our own style so we can articulate what’s important to us and our students.
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Are you seeking a deeper understanding of WHY certain cues are more effective than others?
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Do the words coming out of your mouth feel stale and disconnected from what truly inspires?

Now that you’ve expanded your knowledge base to include more anatomy and kinesiology maybe you’re recognizing that some of the cues you’ve used are too rigid, anatomically inaccurate, or shaped by some aesthetic ideal of alignment you don’t subscribe to.
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If this sounds like you, let’s dive deeper.
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WHY THO? Own what you’re saying

This 2-hour workshop will be a roadmap for developing your own teaching language. Join @caitlincasella and me live on August 12th + you’ll get a download of the workshop to keep and refer back to forever.
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Our aim is to set you up with tools for understanding the rationale behind the cues you use. Through a combination of lecture, discussion, and experiential practice, you’ll learn how sensory-motor learning and task based activities foster a student-centered environment that prioritizes autonomy and exploration.
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Follow along with me and @caitlincasella right here on our beloved IG to see examples of sensory-motor, task based, and exploratory cueing from our COVID era live classes. We’ll be counting down the days until the workshop.
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9 days left to enroll! We don’t know when we’ll offer this again. Link in bio 👆

Cart closes tonight midnight EST! We don’t know

Cart closes tonight midnight EST! We don’t know when we’ll be offering this again. Link in bio! 👆👆👆
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@sarahcourtdpt @anulamaiberg @movementlogictutorials #shoulderhealth

When you only know a couple of rotator cuff exerci

When you only know a couple of rotator cuff exercises and you’ve run out of ideas...then our Movement Logic Shoulders Tutorial is for you!
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But after today, it's gone - and we don't know when it will be available again.
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The Shoulders Tutorial is packed with 2+ hours of corrective exercise techniques, 45 minutes of pain science, anatomy, biomechanics and kinesiology...and more!

Interested, but don’t have time to watch it right now? No worries. After purchase, it’s yours forever!
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It's Carpe Diem time! Click the link in bio 👆👆👆 and get your copy or go here—
https://laurelbeversdorf.com/movement-logic/shoulders/
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Doors close TONIGHT at midnight and @anulamaiberg @sarahcourtdpt and I don’t know when we’re offering it again!
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#movementlogic #shoulderexercises #shoulderpain #shoulderstutorial #shouldermuscles #shoulderhealth #teachsmarternotharder #sneakystrength

The Shoulders Tutorial goes away after tomorrow! W

The Shoulders Tutorial goes away after tomorrow! We don’t know when we’re offering it again. Link in bio👆
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More from @sharilarsonyoga:
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🗣 Hey! I just wanted to say thank you so much for the Shoulder Tutorial (all the tutorials really). There is a woman who has been coming to classes and she has barely moved her left arm for years out of fear (of pain). She had shoulder replacement surgery, went through rehab, was discharged all good and then just stopped moving. I asked if I could meet with her. We went through her exercises together - I helped her slow down, breathe, stop the negative self talk and helped refine her movement. One week later she came back and was excited to tell me she washed her hair with both hands for the first time in years. She also has hope that will regain painfree movement of her arm for the first time in years. I had a lot of the knowledge I needed beforehand to help I just lacked the confidence. This tutorial, so specific to the shoulder, all the info in one place helped so much. Thank you!

Wanna learn the tools Shari learned? You’re in luck! Right now we’re making our Movement Logic Shoulders Tutorial available for a LIMITED TIME. The cart closes after tomorrow and the course goes away.
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Click the link in bio to purchase. 👆Or go here — https://laurelbeversdorf.com/movement-logic/shoulders/
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@sarahcourtdpt @anulamaiberg and I don’t know when we’ll be offering this tutorial again.
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#movementlogic #shoulderexercises #shoulderpain #shoulderstutorial #shouldermuscles #shoulderhealth #teachsmarternotharder #sneakystrength

New podcast interview! 🎧 . This was one of my f

New podcast interview! 🎧
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This was one of my favorite conversations to date. Sherry (aka @titanium__blonde) and I talked adapting to pandemic circumstances + moving for many reasons but prioritizing feeling good and having fun + the layers of how we teach *who* we are.
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Link in bio to listen 👆
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#repost @titanium__blonde
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What inspires you to move? What sort of movement brings you joy? Not because you think you need to move because of what you look like, what you ate, what your day looked like, but actually makes me feel joyful. Like the childhood joy of playing at the park. Are you even in touch with what that might be in your life at this point? ⠀
⚡️ @laurelbeversdorf and I had quite a chat about movement, fear, enjoyment and exploring ways to teach that encourage people to find joy in moving. Her story is such a great one as she talks about how she came to where she is today.. ⠀
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We also cover some interesting ground on being a teacher & running a business, especially as we are looking at rapid change in the world of classes in person and online. Enjoy our conversation and I hope it helps you seek out some sort of movement just for the joy of moving without expectation of any desired outcome!
Link in my bio!!⠀
#joyfulmovement #womensstories #womenswisdom #ladiesofthepod

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