Plantar Fasciitis
- Is plantar fasciitis preventing you from doing the activities you love?
- Have you tried traditional remedies to no avail?
- Are you ready to learn how to stand, walk, and run without pain?
When your feet hurt, life becomes difficult. Our sense of vitality and well being is dependent on our ability to move around in our world, and this ability is compromised when walking is painful.
Medical sources tell us that plantar fasciitis is caused by straining the ligament that supports the arch. Repeated strain caused tiny tears in the ligament which then leads to pain and swelling1. The traditional remedies include rest, ice, stretching, orthotics, and buying new shoes.
The problem, though, is that this explanation doesn’t answer the question: why is your ligament becoming strained? And even more importantly: How can you stand, walk, and move without straining the ligament?
The Feldenkrais Method is often able to help, when the traditional remedies have failed because it takes a revolutionary, systems oriented approach. Instead of focusing on “fixing” the foot, it looks at the way you are using the foot in standing, walking, and running. By improving the way you moves, we can spread the work across the whole system and remove the unnecessary stress on the ligament.
This perspective is captured well by Neil Young’s (of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young) description of his experience with Feldenkrais:
“For a year or more, I stopped walking because my feet were hurting. At a doctor’s advice, I tried wearing special inserts in my shoes, but they threw off my balance. Eventually I learned from…a Feldenkrais practitioner…that bad posture was putting a lot of strain on my feet. It’s amazing what you can learn when you step outside the realm of people who are selling you something and into the realm of people who treat the body, not the symptom.” — Neil Young
One of my clients also expressed it well when she said:
After suffering from Plantar Fasciitis for months, I finally went to Laura for some help. At the first visit, she watched me walk, made a few suggestions, and then did some painless manipulation of my foot. After a few visits, I was walking pain free and have continued to enjoy easy movement. She truly changed the way I move as well as the way I think about moving.
Are you ready to become pain free? Ready to learn to move with ease and comfort?