Pelvic Power: Mind/Body Exercises for Strength, Flexibility, Posture, and Balance for Men and Women Paperback – November 1, 2003

This book is a gem, though I agree with several reviewers that the cover illustration is a poor choice. Luckily, it was one of the few poor choices that the author allowed into this book. The sequence of exercises, the illustrations and the well constructed mental imagery make a topic that is very difficult to "wrap you head around", feel accessible. This is a difficult task because few persons that have any grasp of the material covered in this book would even attempt to teach it without a hands-on face-to-face access to a student. Teaching this material is made even more difficult since our culture imparts many social difficulties in even speaking about this portion of the anatomy.I teach taiji and various moving meditations and have some knowledge of numerous martial arts and meditative body works that all consider subtle control of the pelvic floor muscles to be a critical step in internal energy work. Teaching or coaching a person to mentally discover, and then actively work with these muscles can be very difficult, for all the reasons Eric Franklin outlines in this book. If the only thing that I got from this book was improving my repertoire of images for working with students it would have been a great find. However, the most important aspect of this book was that I found his exercises helped me to improve my own connection with, and sensation into, these important integrators of my internal somantic space. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the author for this book, the gratitude that a student feels towards a teacher when new learning blossoms. Thank you

I highly recommend this book to whoever wants to understand the mechanics of the pelvis, and identify pelvic imbalances and increase awareness of the pelvis to the rest of the body, especially for physical therapists, structural bodyworkers, and movement re-educators. The author guides the reader through step by step instruction to increase awareness of body landmarks, movement, breath, and holding patterns with well-described sentences and lots of helpful illustrations.By understanding the relationship between sitz-bones, tail bone, pubes, anterior iliac spine, femur, spine, organ, and breath, the application of this book is tremendous.My "seeing" skill (structural assessment) is significantly enhanced and identifying muscular and movement imbalances have become much clearer and easier.I am grateful that Eric Franklin wrote this book because I am able to help my clients with leg length discrepancy, lower back pain, foot pain, knee pain, hip pain, poor posture with a clearer understanding of mechanics, structure and movement.

full of wonderful images, exercises, etc. to deepen understanding and heal of this inner part of our body that has so much impact on quality of life, esp. when not working correctly. helps me understand why most exercises do not help this area of our body. and what to do to improve health and wellness of pelvis. Invaluable guidance, highly recommend. more effective and much more fun than kegel type exercises. partly because exercises are more fun. is rewarding to explore this neglected area through the helpful, healing, enjoyable exercises.

Good intro into giving attention to the pelvic floor. Could be too heady for some, but I think the visualizations are great entry point into the nervous system's control of the muscle system.

I am a Pilates Studio owner and instructor, and a lot of my female clients who have had children, suffer from incontinence. It's just something they cannot control. It is very embarrassing. Every time they sneeze or cough they lose control of their bladder. This book helps them to understand how to work the muscles of the pelvic floor to stop incontinence. It is very informative. It has also given me other ideas for exercises specifically for this problem. I would recommend anyone with this problem to get this particular book.

With book prices increasing, this is THE PLACE to purchase used books and save a few dollars. My local library didn't have the book, even for inter-library loan. Fast shipping, too!

I have pelvic floor dysfunction, and this book came highly recommended by my physical therapist. I didn't love it. It could stand a good copyedit for one thing, and the illustrations, while plentiful, are amateurish B&W line drawings that aren't helpful. I found myself googling the images throughout. There's an Eastern medicine influence, in that it talks about chakras and chi; I don't really have a problem with that because I think Western medicine, in some ways, has failed when it comes to movement and flexibility. The Anatomy Trains book by Tom Myers, for me, was a much more helpful book.

Very informative.