This is personal training with extra steps. The aim is not just to transform the body but to transform your relationship with it. In this kind of personal training, we achieve your physical goals, but we also untangle your relationship to exercise, improve your movement quality, and learn to enjoy exertion.

Many meditators have transformative experiences: things that completely rewire how they relate to the world. That same rewiring is possible in movement. If you’ve found clarity and enjoyment while meditating, you can find it while moving.

Here’s how one client put it:

“Exercise went from an arduous obligation to an extension of my contemplative practice that I find really pleasant and look forward to. My mana and HP are higher than ever. … When I meditate, it’s great — and now exercise feels like that too.”

- Elwyn Foote

When Jan and I started working together, he told me: “Exercise is such a grind. I don’t like it. So I push through.” Here’s what he said last week:

With most clients, I like to start from where enjoyment and capacity are already available and grow their practice from there.

So what kind of transformation is available here? My clients go in different directions, but here are a few:

• Turn running from a grind into something pleasurable

• Establish a living practice

• Run your first 10K

• Learn to relax unnecessary tension and move with more grace and efficiency

• Add 60 lbs to your back squat

• Get your first push-up

• Get your first handstand

• Move with less fear and timidity

• Improve, and perhaps dissolve, chronic pain

You’ve experienced transformation in meditation, and you suspect your relationship to movement and exercise could also transform. If you check both of these boxes, you’re probably a good fit.

The first step is a free 30-minute call. It’s a chance for us to get to know each other. If you’d rather reach out over email, you can do so at tannerholman97@gmail.com. To learn more about what Personal Training for Meditators entails, here’s the website.

Book a free call

P.S. Alongside the standard offer, I’m also running a pricing experiment called incentive-aligned personal training. You pay half when you commit, and you only pay the other half if I get you the results you’re hoping for. If you’re interested in trying an experiment, here’s the page.

Vaughn is an inflexible person. Not mentally, he says.

He can’t touch his toes, “probably never will,” but he knows flexibility is important or whatever, so he comes to me:

Probably.

You can narrow range of motion down to three bottlenecks: strength, flexibility, and coordination.

Improving strength and flexibility both require time because they are about upgrading your current capacity. Coordination requires time, but much less, because you can start by improving the capacity you already have.

So if my friend Vaughn wants to increase his range of motion without spending months stretching, it is possible. Improving coordination will not give Vaughn a body he hasn’t worked for, but it will unblock the body he already has.

Coordination is often the fastest W because it is the least trained quality. Most people have spent some time stretching. Many have done some strengthening. Almost nobody has spent time learning how to fold, squat, pull, reach, or twist as a whole-body coordination problem.

Improving range of motion is usually treated like a single-volume knob: “turn up the stretch.” A whole-body coordination approach treats range of motion like a mixing board.

Just as a mixing board gives you more control over a song, coordination gives you more control over a movement. Let’s look at a forward fold:

On the left side of the image, I’m cranking my capacity. On the right side, I’m bringing more of my body online: every part works together to achieve the desired action. No hardware upgrade required!

Because of reasons1, coordination is under-emphasized and under-trained. This is why improving it can create fast gains.

Note: improving coordination is not actually a magic pill (or peptide) for range of motion. Coordination gains are limited by the strength and flexibility you actually have, and serious range-of-motion change may still require tissue adaptation. But most people underestimate how high the coordination ceiling is. And when you coordinate better, you often pick up strength and flexibility along the way, because the movement is loading more of you, more of the time.

In many things, it’s worth asking if you can do more with less. Before spending another six months hammering away at stretching or strengthening, check-in: do I actually coordinate this movement well?

Day 1: The Dance Is Already Happening

Posture cannot be held

When people talk to me about posture, they typically say something like, “I have terrible posture.” Then, they yank their head around to show me what it should look like.

Embedded in these conversations is the assumption that good posture is a fixed ideal that you can adopt and then hold. This causes trouble because posture cannot be held — because posture is not static.

Even in stillness, you are moving. Your proprioceptors are always gathering information from joints, skin, and ground pressure, so you can adapt to your current situation. This happens everywhere and all of the time: on patches of icy sidewalk, on the tile floor of your shower, and as you sit eating dinner. This sensorimotor data results in something called postural sway: reflexive, whole-body rebalancing.

“The small dance” is the practice of attending to postural sway as it unfolds.

Because postural sway is always happening, you don’t need to make it happen. The small dance is already happening. The simple practice of listening to postural sway can result in less bracing, better feedback from the body, and a global feeling of ease.

Okay, let’s try it: guided small dance

Temporarily abandon your notions of “good posture.” Notice the urge to improve or fix your posture, and let it relax into the small dance that’s already happening.

Give it a try!

But where are the alignment cues? Tell me how to fix my posture mr teacher sir

You’ll notice a distinct lack of instructions about what your posture should look like. There is no “stack your spine,” no “tuck your chin.” This is intentional.

The point of the small dance is to discover the body’s self-organizing capacity for alignment, not to install a shape from the outside. Your body is already aligning itself, right now, as you read this. Using alignment cues or corrective approaches can be useful. But the small dance takes a different approach. The small dance is a method to help you get familiar with what’s already happening, and to learn to get out of the way. That’s what this course is for.

The above was an excerpt from my 5-day course for meditators who want more comfort, less tension, and a more embodied way of sitting and standing.

If you’d like to check out the full course, you can do so below

Link to course

"I've had plenty of meditation teachers, instructors, podcasts tell me to 'feel the earth support me,' but to be honest I never really got it." — Matthew Phillips

In spiritual circles, ‘connecting to the ground’ is something you do to be a nice, zen person. You’re probably not supposed to ‘get it.’ It’s best to nod in sage agreement, or give one of those slightly vacant, closed-mouth spiritual smiles.

But your relationship with the ground does not need to be a vague spiritual idea. It can be felt as practical, deeply supportive, and always available.

The issue with “connect to the earth” is that it does not give you anything concrete to feel. There’s no direction for how to feel grounded, so you’re left with your best approximation, which often feels vague or slightly fake.

Below is a practice that is based in physics and appreciation, that will leave you with a clearer sense of how to relax into the ever-present generosity of the earth. I hope it supports your posture and your well-being. Enjoy!

You’ll need: a place to lie down, a wall, a chair, and some feet (without shoes).

A lot of meditators treat posture like an ideal to uphold. There’s a right way to sit: cross-legged on the floor, Burmese, full lotus, whatever. You’re supposed to be very still. You’re supposed to find the right position and then stick with it. But if you need a chair, or to kneel, or to lie down — it can feel like you’re doing a lesser version of the practice.

I think this angst is unnecessary, because the primary function of traditional meditation posture is to promote alertness and relaxation, while aesthetic aims like special positions and perfect alignment are secondary.

The posture exists to promote alertness and relaxation. As the sit progresses, I think many meditators forget to ask, does this position help me relax? or is it making me tight and uncomfy?

It’s easy to spend the first few minutes wiggling on your cushion, finding a workable alignment — before you say, yep, that works. Hold that pose.

But you really can’t know ahead of time what your body is going to give you that day.

What seemed fine at the beginning of the sit can result in a lot of unnecessary effort ten minutes later. Often, the “correct” posture is not the one that best supports awareness. It becomes necessary to find something better: to make a small shift, add another cushion, or lie down. But moving toward comfort is often viewed as sign of weakness. A sign of being a bad meditator who can’t do the real thing in the right position.

When I decided that lying down “counted” as practice, my upright meditation improved. My mind was more clear and my body was more relaxed. It sounds silly now, but I didn’t realize I could prioritize comfort while I practiced.

There’s value in facing discomfort, but if that’s the only approach available, you might be missing out on easy gains. If your posture isn’t helping you stay alert and relaxed, consider doing something.

If you want to play with changing position in your next sit, try this: don’t assume discomfort automatically means “stay with the pain, boyo.” If your posture stops supporting alertness and relaxation, change something. Sit higher. Kneel. Use a chair. Lie down. There is alpha in treating posture as an ongoing conversation, and not as something you need to get right once and for all.

Here’s a guided meditation you can use while lying down:

This practice is an excerpt from my last Body Mapping class, where we learned how to enter into a relationship with the ground that was based on felt experience, and not a nice spiritual idea of "being grounded."

You can watch the full class here: https://tannerholman7.gumroad.com/l/bodymapping2

Body Mapping classes are held once a month via Evolving Ground, a growing community of practitioners establishing contemporary Vajrayana. In addition to the classes I run, you'll find many more trainings on confidence with uncertainty, responsibility, personal autonomy, capability, and flair. Check out the community here: https://www.evolvingground.org/join

Be well!

T

Hello email list,

I’ve got a new course out!

Finding Ease in Meditation Posture: The Small Dance

It’s a 5-day deep dive on one of my favorite methods for making upright posture more easeful and comfortable.

Course link

I made it for meditators who find themselves wrestling with posture, and also for people who have a growing sense that bringing a little more sensitivity, openness, and ease to the body would really help their practice.

It’s grounded, practical, and built around an actual physiological process you can learn to notice directly.

It’s been really fun to make, and people are saying nice things.

You can check it out by clicking below:

Course link again

Use code EMAIL-LIST this week for 10% off

Other updates

Once a month I’m hosting body mapping classes at Evolving Ground. You can sign up for those by joining the community. Each class is $20 a pop.

On top of that, I’ve been staying busy with 1on1 coaching, and I’m excited to have more offerings for meditators on the way soon.

If you’re curious about how you can support your meditation practice through movement, you can respond to this email or email me directly at tannerholman97@gmail.com.

Big hugs,
Tanner

This article was originally posted on Debug Your Pain, where Max Shen and I write about chronic pain.

Broadly, physical therapy (PT) is most effective in situations of acute injury, like a torn ACL or broken arm. PT can also safely reintroduce physical activity level after a period of injury or inactivity. Many PTs are skilled at controlling intensity, volume, and load to match an individual’s capacity. PTs usually have more clinical precision than a personal trainer, which means their exercise selection may have more bang for your buck when addressing weaknesses in strength and coordination, or functional deficits like reaching overhead or bending over. PT can also help when pain is driven by a mix of tissue damage and heightened nervous system sensitivity.

However, PT as a profession is still grounded primarily in a biomechanical view of pain. Therefore, the default is biomechanical intervention: stretching, strengthening, and manual therapy1. Unfortunately, this creates an “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” dynamic. In situations where pain has shifted from acute to chronic, interventions must address the nervous system2. Continuing physical activity is important, but physical activity alone may not be enough to re-calibrate the nervous system’s pain response.

In these cases, methods that target the learned aspect of pain can be more effective than exercise3.

This article was originally posted on Debug Your Pain, where Max Shen and I write about chronic pain.

Does posture matter? Does bad posture cause pain? Most of us would say yes, because duh.

But let's look at the claim that "bad posture leads to chronic pain."

"Bad posture" usually refers to an obvious deviation from textbook anatomical alignment, such as forward head posture or excessive anterior pelvic tilt.

The path from bad posture to pain is simple: deviations cause muscular tension and eventually, damage (like a herniated disc). There are a couple problems with this.

First, everyday postures keep spinal loads well within our capacity to adapt1. Even in your very worst position — extending your head forward while hunching your shoulders — the pressure exerted on your vertebrae are less than half of that applied by a simple jump. You are not going to herniate a disk with bad posture (which is not to say that herniated disks consistently cause pain).

Second, postural deviations are hardly predictive of chronic pain. Many people with horrible posture have no pain. Forward head posture and pelvic tilt are weak predictors of chronic pain. For example, if you tried to guess who has back pain just from pelvic tilt, you'd only be right ~1 out of 100 times2. In the case of head posture, there is a correlation with pain in adults, but it tells you only a small part of the story. Pain severity seems to depend on entirely different factors.3

Perhaps the worst downstream effect of the meme that posture causes pain is that "fixing posture" becomes overly prioritized in pain treatment. Sure, ergonomic keyboards and keeping your monitor at a good height can make you feel better. But spending months doing posture-correction exercises may not have the impact you’re hoping for.

For most people, other interventions (i.e. education, pain reprocessing, graded exposure to feared activities, lifestyle modifications) have more juice4. Excessive focus on posture can become another way to keep you trapped in a catastrophizing loop. In our evolving hierarchy of strategies for reducing chronic pain, posture ranks low on the priority list.

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Some related content:

I first heard this prose poem when Mark Rylance used it as his acceptance speech at the 2011 Tony Awards.

These are “living notes.”

I plan to update them when time and interest allow.

Guided Practices

Craig Mallett’s two-part series. Clear and concise. Helpful for establishing a practice.

Steve Paxton has a wonderful guided practice for attuning to postural sway1. [I recently published a 5-day course that goes deeper into this practice, specifically designed for meditators who are struggling to find ease in meditation posture].

This meditation from Mairtin McNamara helps you attune to the two fundamental physical forces at play in your body while standing: gravity pulling downward and ground reaction forces moving upward. Learning to stop resisting these two forces can improve alignment and release excess muscular effort.

Reading

This article by Scott Jeffrey might be my favorite primer on the benefits and practicalities of Standing Meditation.

Dynamic Alignment Through Imagery is a meta-systematic approach to using imagery to improve alignment in different movement situations. It also functions as a reference and introduction text for different methods of enhancing alignment.

This is a ‘living note,’ so feedback is much appreciated! Feel free to drop a comment below or message me directly if you have something to add or correct.

These are “living notes,” not an organized essay.

I plan to update them when time and interest allow.

Posture depends on context

Posture is inseparable from a given task or situation. Good posture in one context is bad posture in another.

• Wrestlers and boxers adopt protective & functional postures for their domain. These same rounded postures are less efficient in relaxed situations.

• There is no single universal 'good' posture. Posture changes based on what you’re doing and for how long you’re doing it.

A better definition of posture

A more accurate description of posture is dynamic, situational alignment—an ongoing process of adjusting to external loads, tasks, and one’s own musculoskeletal state.

• Posture is never static or completely still.

• Postural sway is a technical term that refers to the “the subtle, unconscious movements the body makes to maintain balance and an upright posture, constantly adjusting to changing stimuli without our conscious awareness”

Efficiency matters

Efficient alignment is better than inefficient alignment in every context.

• Inefficient alignment may not “directly cause pain,” but efficiency feels and works better. Therefore, efficient alignment is worth cultivating.

• Small alignment changes can make a large cumulative difference in repetitive tasks like walking or standing.

Getting older makes the importance of alignment obvious

You eventually reach an age where everything becomes a performance. Stepping over curbs, reaching to grab a stack of plates, and dealing with crowds all require attention.

• For a healthy 25-year-old, the differences between slightly inefficient and efficient posture may feel negligible. But for a 75-year-old, small improvements in efficiency can profoundly affect quality of life.

Becoming more efficient is hard

Improving alignment can be hard, slow, and boring.

• Teaching efficient transmission of force is much more difficult than rote recitation of “pull your shoulders back.”

• Postural improvements are often subtle. Noticing the impact of change requires sensitivity, stillness, and patience.

Additional notes:

We are very confused about posture

Everyone knows that good posture is good, but can’t tell you why.

• Many people cite reasons such as “injury prevention” or “muscle tension,” without a clear understanding of how posture would create either. Posture is complex!

• Advice about posture tends to rely on oversimplified cues ("sit up straight," "pull your shoulders back") without addressing the complexity of movement or context.

• Popular ideas around posture treat it as a static position rather than a constantly adapting alignment. This creates confusion.

• Experts disagree widely, and this creates confusing contradictions: some claim posture doesn't matter at all, while others argue certain postures inevitably lead to pain or injury. My take: both/and. It depends on context.

The connection between posture and pain is unclear

Posture alone does not seem to 'cause' chronic pain directly. Pain is complex, and many people adapt well to a variety of postures without obvious injury.

• Important: It’s possible to have pain with excellent posture and its possible to be pain-free with shitty posture.

• Strength training constantly puts people in “bad postures” like a rounded spine to achieve useful training effects.

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This is a ‘living note,’ so feedback is much appreciated! Feel free to drop a comment below or message me directly if you have something to add or correct.