Videos & CD-ROMs

We currently have the following two titles for sale:
"Beyond Ergonomics: Solutions to Cyberstress" 
& 
"Bodywork for Weavers and Fiber Artists"

 
Beyond Ergonomics: Solutions to Cyberstress
Stress Management for Mind & Body in our Computer Age

• Muscles aching?

• Eyes red?

• Nerves tight?

• Temper short?

Give yourself a relaxing break
Physician & Physical Therapist approved

By taking short breaks throughout your workday, you may prevent or alleviate repetitive strain injuries and increase productivity. Be guided through simple stretches and visualizations designed to balance and revitalize your body and mind.

"BEYOND ERGONOMICS: SOLUTIONS TO CYBERSTRESS is a creative way to get workers moving in non-stressful patterns. This program will help reconnect workers to their most important tool… their body. The daily tune-up will not only help to reduce the risk of cumulative strain disorders that are disabling our most important resource, but will also improve their quality of life."

Louise Lynch, Physical Therapist
Work Recovery Services, Inc., Colchester, Vermont

Computer-related health problems form an increasingly publicized issue, most notably repetitive strain injuries, including the notorious carpal tunnel syndrome. Tracy Penfield calls the overall condition "Cyber-stress" and points out that mental, physical and emotional layers of one's being are affected. Cyber-stress has many contributing factors. One of the most common is improper ergonomics, which refers to the physical arrangement of a workstation, in this case chair, desk, keyboard, monitor and lighting etc. However, even if ergonomic elements are ideal, Cyber-stress can occur.

With over twenty years experience teaching creative and therapeutic movement, Tracy Penfield believes that kinesthetic awareness is vital for everyone, and crucial for people who spend hours each day at a computer. Kinaesthesis means motion sense, how one's body moves through space, performing both functional and expressive movement. Our minds and emotions are connected with our bodies, and their interactions keep us in-or out-of balance. This series of simple stretches and visualizations may be performed while sitting or standing at the workstation, providing the mind and body with short breaks. The idea is to maintain an awareness of the body and its connection with both the Earth and what the mind is doing in Cyberspace. Energy otherwise being sapped by computer time may be replenished in a continuous flow through the body.

The 43-minute program is divided into four "journeys" - to a clearing, a stream, a mountain, and outer space, each ranging from seven to eleven minutes in length. An appendix describes the basics of proper computer ergonomics. The video comes with a printed guide for use in recalling movements at the workstation. The CD-ROM may be followed at the workstation, from both seated and standing positions. Original music by Wyoming composer Terry Yazzolino creates a relaxing aural environment.

Click here to order your VHS tape or CD-ROM for $29.95 
plus $5 shipping and handling.

Bodywork for Weavers & Fiber Artists

A gentle program of stretching and visualizations to integrate body, mind & spirit for enhanced creativity, energy & a balanced wellness.

• Does your back, neck, shoulders, or whole body ache after hours at the loom?
• Do you lose circulation in some part of your body while weaving?
• Does warp tension seem to transfer itself to you-and then snap like a thread?

Despite the prevalent notion that weaving is an easy, gentle activity, these are common weaver's woes. Learn relaxing yet invigorating ways to avoid them by practicing the stretching and visualization program demonstrated on Tracy's hour-long video or CD-ROM, BODYWORK FOR WEAVERS & FIBER ARTISTS.

Before becoming a dancer and movement educator, Tracy Penfield worked as a fiber artist and weaver. In search of relief from many sedentary hours on the loom, she began to explore expressive motion in 1977. Discovering a personal gift and a new galaxy of creative possibilities, she dove headlong into dance. Today, Tracy continues to balance her fiber work and dance by creating sets and costumes for her performances.

In her effort to relieve warp tension, she developed breathing, centering, stretching and strengthening methods that she integrates with imagery for the mind and spirit to create a "whole being" approach to muscle tension and stress relief. The result-- tools and exercises that can be practiced right at the loom bench. In her video, BODYWORK FOR WEAVERS & FIBER ARTISTS, Tracy gives an hour-long demonstration of the basic practice at an easy-to-follow pace.

Creativity is stimulated via kinesthetic awareness-playing with generators like "weaving in space" and "moving your ideas". These are fun explorations, not tedious exercises!

By no means exclusively for weavers, this material is relevant to anyone who spends sedentary hours doing any fiber work at a loom or a sewing machine or seated at a computer.

Click here to order your VHS tape or CD-ROM for $29.95 
plus $5 shipping and handling.