Tobin Rangdrol, Founder of Middleway Method

Tobin Rangdrol Founder of Middleway Method My training in the field of somatic education is in the Old World tradition of one-on-one apprenticeships. My primary mentor is my mother, Shari Sunshine, who has been a somatic educator since 1978, when she was a student of Judith McKinnon, founder of McKinnon Body Therapy Institute. Shari was […]

Middleway Method is Somatic Education

Middleway Method is in the field of health education that uses touch, words and directed movement to deepen awareness of existing patterns of movement in the body as well as to suggest new possibilities of movement. Similar practices include, but are not limited to the Feldenkrais Method® of somatic education, the Trager® Approach to movement […]

Relaxing Meditation

Relaxing meditation is quite simple. All we do is get as comfortable as possible, breathe with awareness, and relax our bodies as best we can. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. No matter how many words we use to describe it, there is never anything more to it. Get comfortable. Breathe. Relax. You […]

You Can’t Steal My Chocolate

Sometimes when I am at home alone, I turn up the music really loud and dance like a madman in my living room. Yesterday while I was dancing, my phone rang, and I didn’t hear it. The music was too loud, so I missed the call. We’ve all had experiences like this. When the ambient […]

Sujata’s Gift

In the life story of Siddhartha Gotama, just before his enlightenment he is skeletally thin and barely alive, having deprived himself of sustenance to the point of starvation. A young woman named Sujata gives him a bowl of rice and milk. Understanding that deprivation is not the path to awakening, Siddhartha gratefully accepts Sujata’s gift, ending his six-year experiment with rigorous asceticism. Enlivened by […]

Against The Wall

When we injure our bodies, we feel physical pain. If we didn’t feel physical pain, then we would keep using the injured part, and make matters worse. We don’t like physical pain – when we feel it, we want it to stop – but we can rationally appreciate that it is a useful sensation because it gives […]

Thought Samurai

To do the exercise, you’ll need to completely clear your schedule for a half an hour. A completely clear schedule means no chores to do, no emails to write, no phone calls to make or answer. Nothing to do at all except this practice for a half an hour. Next, you’ll need a warm, pleasant space, […]

How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?

Three or four times a week I go to the gym to exercise for an hour. I work hard. I sweat. It isn’t easy, but I really enjoy doing it. My body has changed significantly since I started exercising this way. I’ve gained weight, my muscles have gained tone and definition, and my posture has changed. I can […]

Refresh Your Browser Frequently

All too often, we confuse meditation with concentration. Specifically, we attempt to lock our attention into a fixed, non-thought position. While there are meditation techniques that include one-pointed concentration on an object – the breath, a candle, a visualization, etc. – these techniques are mental exercises and alone do not constitute a complete path. Due […]

Whack-A-Mole

Stop Seeing

Mostly Silent

Each winter, I spend about ten days in solitary meditation retreat. I stay in a cozy little cabin in the wilderness, at the banks of a rain-swollen river. There is something about the depth of the silence there that permeates my awareness until I become truly quiet. Residing there day after day creates a lasting […]

Conscious Awareness

“I know what I know. I’ll sing what I’ve said. We come and we go. That’s a thing that I keep in the back of my head.” – Paul Simon Looking back at my life, I can’t remember having had any experience that took place outside the realm of my own body-centered, me-centered perspective. I […]

Caring Touch: A Fundamental of Therapeutic Massage

Very often, when new students start practicing massage for the first time, they assume that massage involves rubbing, squeezing, and pressing on tight spots on client’s bodies to make them relax.  Also, both givers and receivers tend to assume that if you find a tight spot that is also tender – so that when you […]

Stretching is Not Stretching, And How It Really Works

When we bend forward to touch our toes, we feel what we call a “stretch” in the backs of our legs.  The sensation of that stretch is familiar to us all.  We may notice that after a few minutes of stretching this way we can reach further down toward our toes.  The idea is that […]