Home gardeners are getting older. Yes, we’re all getting older,
but many baby boomers who took up gardening when they bought their
first homes could easily be in their 50s by now. And this brings us
to a type of gardening known as
”
effortless gardening.
”
Home gardeners are getting older. Yes, we’re all getting older, but many baby boomers who took up gardening when they bought their first homes could easily be in their 50s by now. And this brings us to a type of gardening known as “effortless gardening.” Of course, any home gardener, including youngsters, would probably prefer their gardening to be “effortless.”
Miriam Levenson recently spoke about the subject to the Garden Writers of America at their annual symposium in Chicago. Levenson explained about the Feldenkrais method of movement education. This method is named for Moslie Feldenkrais, an Israeli physicist, engineer and judo master. According to Feldenkrais, any type of physical habit can cause pain.
In terms of gardening, this translates to everything from lifting heavy bags of soil to how you might dig a planting hole, prune a shrub or even how you might rake leaves. Simply put, many kinds of gardening chores can result in you overusing certain muscles. With overuse and habits, comes pain.
“Gardening is an excellent example,” Levenson says. “A lot of gardeners, for instance, may weed for an hour at a time. Doing the same movement – bending or stooping – will cause pain. You can weed for an hour or more, but you need to vary your movements. Lean, scoot around, bend, hoe – anything but doing the exact same movement for a prolonged period of time.”
Even something as simple as raking leaves needs to be varied. Most people rake utilizing only their arms and lower back, she says. Instead, move your hip joints, and wiggle a bit while you rake.
To get up from the ground, Levenson recommends you get up the way a toddler might – butt first. “The same goes when you’re lifting heavy objects, such as 40-pound bags of soil,” she says. “Bend from your hip joints like someone might be pulling your tail if you had one. Get your knees out over your feet, and have your rear-end stick out while lifting.”
Sure this might sound funny, but who is watching you while you’re gardening? Who cares if you’re wiggling your rear end a bit while raking, or sticking your butt out while lifting that 40-pound bag of soil?
“When gardening, we either consciously override the signals our body sometimes gives us, or we are simply unconscious of the pain until it’s too late,” Levenson says. “Tune in to what your body is telling you. And don’t overdue one movement for any length of time.”
More information on effortless gardening is available on two Web sites: www.effortlessgardening.com, and www.feldenkrais.com. Your body will thank you for it!
