In the early seventies when Maggie Lettvin accepted me into her Self-Designed Fitness Program at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) in Cambridge, I found my lifetime work. We studied anatomy, physiology, and kinesesology as they relate to human movement. We held pain clinics and looked for pain problems to solve. At M.I.T., we were light years ahead of establishment thinking about physical fitness, exercise, and pain relief.
While still a teaching assistant for Maggie I saw beyound the pioneering work she was teaching. In fact, it was Maggie's supportive and kind teaching style that allowed me to learn. I was able to use both my mind and brain at the same time I was using my body. That freedom gave me the ability to create a new way to exercise and all the other programs I developed over my 40 years of teaching often solving the problems others found difficult. Hopeless problems just means that something else needs to be done.
When you give the body even a little of what it needs for pain relief, it can't help but move in that direction
When I first met Nadia she was unable to get out of bed and carry her own weight She couldn't support herself in an upright position. Nadia ended up bed-bound at home after 3 years of medical procedures and interventions for pain control that included 2 unsuccessful surgeries for her sciatica, spasms, chronic pain, muscle weakness with atrophy down to her feet with repeated cycles of flare-ups and more loss of ability.
It didn't take Nadia long to rebuild her strength and activity once she knew how to position herself for pain relief so that she could rest and exercise without causing more pain and damage. The door to relief and recovery opened wide. Within six weeks Nadia had her first dramatic triumph...... she was able to towel herself off after a sitting shower!! Six months later she was going up and down the stairs in her house, playing ping pong, walking the icy streets of Boston, and able to resume living outside her home.
Nadia's husband wrote my first letter of recommendation before moving to California. Part of what he wrote said: "Ms. Margolis has worked intensely with my wife over the past six months assisting her recovery from severe back disease, unsuccessful back surgery, and prolonged bed rest. Ms. Margolis is a very talented, inventive, and successful teacher of the difficult and complex exercises required for the re-education of muscles and the alteration of body balance and mechanics which contribute to recovery from back disease."
When Harvard Medical School accepted Meg's proposal for her pain relief program, she was already a teaching instructor at M. I. T., giving exercise classes at Harvard University for their foreign students and teaching a full program of pain relief exercise classes at the Cambridge Y.W.C.A.
Meg moved to California in 1976 where she has been teaching her pain relief exercise programs to community organizations, corporate groups and individual clients who are often referred by doctors, hospitals, and spine centers. All clients and diagnoses receive the same treatment: pain relief from positioning for comfort, exercises from a new way to exercise, and correct repair and recovery information from pain relief theory. Meg has taught more than 2,000 people how to move outside the confines of pain and rebuild health with her original exercises and positioning system.
A New Way to Exercise for Pain Relief and Physical Repair
Classes, Workshops & Symposia
The College of Marin
Student Nurses’ Association of California
Jewish Community Center
Mended Hearts Inc.
YMCA
The Consortium for Nurse-Midwifery, Inc
Sir Francis Drake High School
Mount Zion Hospital & Medical Center Pre-Term Labor Strategies
Dominican University
Expanding Horizons: Girls in Math & Science
Marin Risk Management
Whistlestop For Active Seniors
While still a teaching assistant for Maggie I saw beyound the pioneering work she was teaching. In fact, it was Maggie's supportive and kind teaching style that allowed me to learn. I was able to use both my mind and brain at the same time I was using my body. That freedom gave me the ability to create a new way to exercise and all the other programs I developed over my 40 years of teaching often solving the problems others found difficult. Hopeless problems just means that something else needs to be done.
When you give the body even a little of what it needs for pain relief, it can't help but move in that direction
When I first met Nadia she was unable to get out of bed and carry her own weight She couldn't support herself in an upright position. Nadia ended up bed-bound at home after 3 years of medical procedures and interventions for pain control that included 2 unsuccessful surgeries for her sciatica, spasms, chronic pain, muscle weakness with atrophy down to her feet with repeated cycles of flare-ups and more loss of ability.
It didn't take Nadia long to rebuild her strength and activity once she knew how to position herself for pain relief so that she could rest and exercise without causing more pain and damage. The door to relief and recovery opened wide. Within six weeks Nadia had her first dramatic triumph...... she was able to towel herself off after a sitting shower!! Six months later she was going up and down the stairs in her house, playing ping pong, walking the icy streets of Boston, and able to resume living outside her home.
Nadia's husband wrote my first letter of recommendation before moving to California. Part of what he wrote said: "Ms. Margolis has worked intensely with my wife over the past six months assisting her recovery from severe back disease, unsuccessful back surgery, and prolonged bed rest. Ms. Margolis is a very talented, inventive, and successful teacher of the difficult and complex exercises required for the re-education of muscles and the alteration of body balance and mechanics which contribute to recovery from back disease."
When Harvard Medical School accepted Meg's proposal for her pain relief program, she was already a teaching instructor at M. I. T., giving exercise classes at Harvard University for their foreign students and teaching a full program of pain relief exercise classes at the Cambridge Y.W.C.A.
Meg moved to California in 1976 where she has been teaching her pain relief exercise programs to community organizations, corporate groups and individual clients who are often referred by doctors, hospitals, and spine centers. All clients and diagnoses receive the same treatment: pain relief from positioning for comfort, exercises from a new way to exercise, and correct repair and recovery information from pain relief theory. Meg has taught more than 2,000 people how to move outside the confines of pain and rebuild health with her original exercises and positioning system.
A New Way to Exercise for Pain Relief and Physical Repair
Classes, Workshops & Symposia
The College of Marin
Student Nurses’ Association of California
Jewish Community Center
Mended Hearts Inc.
YMCA
The Consortium for Nurse-Midwifery, Inc
Sir Francis Drake High School
Mount Zion Hospital & Medical Center Pre-Term Labor Strategies
Dominican University
Expanding Horizons: Girls in Math & Science
Marin Risk Management
Whistlestop For Active Seniors