FRANCHE WI: So who knows the relationship between a piece of string and a belly button? Sharon Evans our speaker for July gave us the answer. Sharon, as a young woman, trained as a classical ballet dancer; this gave her the knowledge and insight into the need to strengthen core muscles, in order to support the skeleton. She now works in partnership with physiotherapists to aid rehabilitation after sports injuries and post –operative problems. Sharon also takes classes in Pilates where, among other things, people can improve and strengthen their posture

Sharon explained how essential, for our future health, it was to build up core muscles. In simple but effective terms she demonstrated how to imagine rods placed down our backbone (no slouching) and rods across our shoulders (open up the chest, and bosoms to the fore), finally the answer to the string and belly button conundrum, we needed to imagine a piece of string pulling our belly button through to our backbone in order to strengthen our abdominal muscles

As Sharon pointed out this simple routine needed no equipment, no fancy clothes, no designated time in the day but what was needed was a commitment retrain our bodies by using these ideas. After following her instructions we walked taller, looked more alert and felt better than before. Thank you Sharon!

Competition for figurine: 1st Anne Evans, 2nd Dorothy Hadwell 3rd Kath Vaux.