While listening to my favorite podcast, “Armchair Expert,” a guest said that Virgos are optimizers. I’m a Libra, so close enough!

If you’ve known me for a moment, you’ll know how my last few years have been chaos. As exhibited by my last blog post in 2019 *I just noticed that-whoops!*

Luckily, things are calming down with moving to Kansas City from Chicago. The kids are settling into school, our house renovation (again) is ending, and getting used to the new lifestyle.

I haven’t contributed as much to my website, blog, Facebook, or workshop planning as I had hoped three years ago.

BUT! I’m not going to blame perfectionism. I’m going to blame being an optimizer. If you’re like me as a movement teacher, your superpower is how you can optimize every client session or class. Your brain is constantly working on improving a session or clients’ health, and it’s a non-stop hamster wheel.

I love teaching clients full-time and will never switch 100% online. All my best ideas come from my lab and working with actual bodies.

I want to participate in the workshop circuit again in 2022. Fingers crossed!

That being said, here are my latest fav optimizing moves:

• Using the cue “nestle.” It gives a great image of hugging back into something, and I feel like it creates the movement I want.

• Breathing with a “ha” and hesitating the choreography. I find that breathing and moving is hard. I’ve been tinkering with creating a deliberate delay. It slows people down but also gives the abdominals a moment to connect and typically makes the choreography easier. And bonus brain challenge!

• Calf stretching in quadruped. No clue how I came up with this, but if you know Leg Pull Front, teachers sometimes add some dorsi/plantar flexion. Instead, I have people plank with one foot and then rock back and forth between dorsi/plantar flexion to not only change the load prone, but you can drop your head and watch the tracking of your foot!

I will be deliberate about sharing my “aha” moments with clients and things I’m working out on daily because it’s forever a work in process. Not perfection!