What I tried before Functional Patterns, and why none of it held
2 min read
I have had scoliosis since I was 12. By the time I found Functional Patterns I had worked through a long list: yoga, pilates, Schroth, massage, acupuncture. I want to be fair to all of it, because every one of those things helped me at some point. None of them was ever a solution. They were band-aids.
For a long time I assumed that was just how it went. You find something that takes the edge off, you keep doing it, and you accept that the edge comes back.
The part that kept getting missed
What none of it changed was how I moved for the rest of the day.
An hour of corrective work is an hour. The other fifteen hours you are awake, your body is repeating whatever patterns it already has: how you stand while you wait for something, how you carry your weight when you walk, how you breathe without thinking about it. Those repeat thousands of times. An hour does not outvote them.
So the relief was real, and it was temporary, and I did not understand why until I came across an approach that treated those background patterns as the thing worth working on.
What changed
In my first week working with a Functional Patterns practitioner my pain was significantly decreased. That got my attention, but the reason I went and got certified in 2023 was not the first week. It was that for the first time the work was aimed at the cause rather than the location.
That is the difference I would point to if you are weighing up whether to try something else. Not that it is faster, because it is not. It is gradual, and I tell every client that before we start. The difference is what you are training.
If you are somewhere in that list
If you are working through your own version of yoga, pilates, Schroth, massage, acupuncture, you are not doing anything wrong. I did the same. It is worth asking what each one is actually changing, and whether anything is addressing the patterns running in the background all day.
That question is most of what an assessment is for. If you want to talk it through, you can book a session, in Calgary or online.