Hello and welcome to my first ever blog. And what better way to begin than with an introduction to me and the thing that brought me to blogging: The Stirland approach.

I'm Angie a 52 year old movement teacher who is passionate about helping people to create change in their body. That change may be because of pain or joint stiffness, it could be related to improving performance for a sport or hobby, or it could be because of valuing health and well-being and looking at ways to improve longevity. The Stirland Approach can do all of this and more. But what is it? And how does it work? Let me use this blog to explain how i developed what I consider to be a unique and transformative approach to movement, one that yields pretty incredible results.

Let's go back to the 90s when I was becoming disillusioned with my role in the health and fitness industry. it was at this point that I found Pilates. it was everything I wanted it to be at the time; it was different, and it made sense to me. It seemed to be what I'd been looking for.

I taught Pilates full time for 15 years. It was a great journey to be on. But ten years ago, I started to question not just Pilates but everything movement related that I'd ever learnt. And all of a sudden none of it made sense to me as a teacher. So, what next?

I started exploring movement with myself and my clients in a different more natural way. I'd come from 25 years at this point, of focusing on making my clients stronger. I'd always prioritised muscles and getting them to fire properly and making them work harder because I believed that a strong tighter muscle was better.

But my exploration with movement was proving different. I started to look at the skeleton and its joints and my focus turned to improving the way it moved. I started to realise that the muscular system was the facilitator to the skeleton, but I also started to understand that if muscles were overworking in the pursuit of strength, then they also could act as an inhibitor to the skeleton moving. That was something that potentially created joint stiffness.

I also began to understand how we move through a chain. We were never designed to be a limb that moved alone, yet in all the modalities that i‘d taught most of the work concentrated on isolating limb movement. In order to stop the body moving when a limb is moving we have to ‘hold’ the body still. Holding the body still makes a movement very unnatural.  

The most natural movers in the world are animals and children. Children move effortlessly without overthinking unaware that they have a muscular system, yet we dismiss their innate movement patterns, and we think we can change them for the better. But what better way to move than to use a joints capacity properly, just like a child does. A joint is designed to move and to be supported as it moves and if we learn good movement habits we can restore a joints range to a capacity where it functions best. This helps us move better through the movement chain. The better our joints move the less stiff they are. Stiffness in our joints can age us.

So, in answer to the earlier question ‘what is The Stirland Approach?’ it’s a movement technique that focuses on restoring and improving skeletal mechanics. And how it achieves this is by

·       Understanding the skeletal chain,

·       Restoring joint range to the best functioning capacity for the individual and

·       Allowing the muscular system to become efficient in its response to movement

 So in a world where we think that strength is always the answer I challenge you to think differently. Being strong has its place; I'm the strongest I've ever been as an adult but I don’t train strength in a typical way. But being functional, able, pain free with movable joints that aren’t stiff, is a much better option than constantly dealing with muscle soreness and joints that can’t move

 Keep following for more blog posts, where I will dive deeper into the core principles and practical applications of my groundbreaking movement methodology. Get ready to embrace a new paradigm of skeletal mechanics that will see you embark on a remarkable transformation that will forever change the way you engage with your body.

If you like to get involved you can now join as member with unlimited classes, and a thorough introduction to my technique before you start - Angie