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Women’s Health

The Importance of the Pelvic Floor

The Pelvic Floor is not a topic that we talk openly about in yoga classrooms like the back, legs, arms or chest. But it is an important area of the body that needs conscious attention. The Pelvic Floor is referred to in two ways: the Pelvic Floor as an area or the Pelvic Floor as an anatomical structure. It is important to understand the anatomical Pelvic Floor and Assessor Muscles to have an affect on the Pelvic Floor as an area in your yoga practice. Pelvic Floor muscle dysfunction can have an adverse effect on one’s life ranging from incontinence to intimacy.

The Felt Sense Method sm

Reclaiming the Pelvic Floor.
A Description of the Remedy.

The Felt Sense Method SM is a new method for bringing health back to the Pelvic Floor. It has been developed by Yoga Instructor, Author, former Playboy Bunny, and College Instructor, Jaki Nett. After five years of suffering the pain of incontinence and at times having to locate hygienically suitable restrooms within her daily commute, sometimes having to disregard bathroom gender, sometimes having to resort to use of the outdoors or an always handy cup, Jaki discovered her method for bringing health back to the Pelvic Floor and regained control over her bladder through self observation, study, introspection, yoga practice and teaching.

It is estimated that over 25 million men and women in the U.S. suffer from incontinence, the loss of bladder control. Incontinence can often be embarrassing and socially isolating. Up until now, ways of dealing with the results of incontinence have been wearing pads, undergoing surgery, taking dehydration medications, or using devices which are to be inserted into the vagina, some of which use electronic shocks to stimulate muscle response.

A “laxedPelvic Floor, often the cause of incontinence, may lead to the loss of interest in sex. A laxed Pelvic Floor can cause embarrassment to some women by bringing air into the vagina during intercourse, which makes an embarrassing flatulant sound. The embarrassment often leads to less fulfilling sexual intercourse. However, muscle health can be restored using The Felt Sense Method SM, relieving the embarrassment of incontinence and also providing increased orgasm intensity and frequency. Women, prior to becoming pregnant and especially while they are young, can be introduced to The Felt Sense Method SM as a preventative and wholistic health routine to maintain a healthy pelvic floor. Also, it is known that childbirth can result in some cases in laxed pelvic floor muscles. The Felt Sense Method SM addresses and can assist in correcting this condition.

Men can benefit from The Felt Sense Method SM by gaining control of the muscles that produce and sustain erections.

The following is a description of this method:

  • The Felt Sense Method SM is a strengthening of the pelvic floor to remedy incontinence, and to increase sexual pleasure.
  • The Felt Sense Method SM is a natural and healthy method. No drugs, surgery, or devices are necessary. Studies have shown surgery to have only a qualified success in treating incontinence, a condition which often leads to shame of one’s body lacking a healthy condition. The Felt Sense Method SM consists of combining yoga postures which exercise the pelvic floor, with the healing of a woman’s psyche. In The Felt Sense Method SM, Jaki openly presents her own personal experiences of having incontinence. Through Jaki discussing openly with other women the psyche of a woman with incontinence or a weakened pelvic floor, a connection is made with Jaki’s own personal experiences, resulting in the acceptance by other women of the condition of incontinence, without attaching shame to it.
  • Also studies indicate that Kegel exercises alone are not enough to eliminate incontinence. The Felt Sense Method SM can make a difference by combining three therapeutic components: an emphasis on conscious psychological acceptance, education about and discovery of functional pelvic floor anatomy, and visualization and yoga movement. All three components practiced in combination most often successfully lead to healing.
  • The first step in the process is to bring consciousness “down there” (as some of Jaki’s students refer to the pelvic area). Many females grow up with shame, fear and a general unfamiliarity of their own pelvic area. Taboos surrounding menstruation, the loss of virginity, sex, childbirth, hysterectomies, and menopause can result in women blocking the sensations of their own pelvic floors and ignoring a key to their own feminine energy. The essence of The Felt Sense Method SM is reconnection and empowerment with one’s feminine energy and the “seat of creation”, as Jaki calls it.
  • Contacting the muscles of the pelvic floor can be a mystery. The Felt Sense Method SM involves understanding the basic muscles that make up the pelvic floor: where they are located, what they look like, and how they work.
  • Next is the introduction of the main muscles of the pelvic floor. Invoking these muscles is unique to The Felt Sense Method SM. Most other methods for trying to control incontinence, focus exclusively on the instructions of squeezing and relaxing the muscles of the vaginal area or of trying to stop the flow of urine while at the toilet. Without women’s education in the anatomy of the pelvic floor leading to the ability to sense the muscles in this area, these simple instructions alone give minimal results. After identification of the muscle groups, the second step is to make contact with the muscles separately and then together. A form of visualization is used to direct the correct movements.
  • Practicing The Felt Sense Method SM, an individual achieves the first steps of pelvic floor consciousness, and then adds specifically designed yoga postures to tone and strengthen each muscle group.
  • By developing conscious pelvic floor control to manipulate the directional movements of these muscles via specifically designed yoga postures and movement, the laxed pelvic floor is strengthened and control over the bladder is regained.
  • The yoga postures incorporated in The Felt Sense Method SM are derived from Iyengar Yoga. Iyengar Yoga is learned through an in-depth study of asanas (postures) and pranayama (breath control). Classical yoga postures and yoga variations, from the simple to the more advanced, enable students of all levels of yoga experience to gain flexibility, strength and sensitivity in mind, body and spirit. Iyengar Yoga is best known for its precision of anatomical alignment in postures and in movements, asana sequencing and the strategic use of therapeutic props.
Jaki Nett teaches The Felt Sense Method SM in classes in San Francisco, Corte Madera, and St. Helena, California. (See Classes Menu.) See the Videos of The Felt Sense Method Convention; Warsaw, Poland – 2011.

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