I consider myself fortunate that Karen has been my Pilates instructor for the past twenty years. I sought her out when I needed help for an unusable left hand and arm and neck and spine problems after a highway traffic accident that the orthopedists and physical therapists couldn’t solve. Her unique knowledge set combined with being a pioneer in Pilates training (her teacher studied with Joseph Pilates) make her fluent in anatomy, biomechanics, and kinesiology including her use of “Butler techniques” for gentle un-entrapping of nerves, reducing pain and maintaining or increasing function.
Having been a modern dance performer earlier in her life, Karen understands the ways that dancers and musicians and artistic or emotional people in general need to use their bodies for expression and the subtleties and nuance involved when the body movement is involved in self-expression. This applies not only to dancers but to artists, musicians and other creative people as well. Consequently, with her background, movement intuition and Pilates training, she is able to take an approach to rehabilitation of injuries that addresses this very vibrant and expressive function of the body while addressing the reduction of pain, and increasing function.
When I met Karen I had little control over the fingers of my left hand, they hardly moved voluntarily and had tremors all the time, and thanks to my work with Karen, my hand is almost completely back to normal for most purposes. I remember how patiently she worked with me, explained all the exercises and stretches, and how watershed a moment it was when I was able to touch each fingertip to my thumb.
For anyone who wants to restore or maintain function and reduce pain to the highest degree possible, I cannot recommend Karen Carlson more highly. For anyone wanting to learn how to help people, especially artistic, musical and creative people to regain expressive and artistic body movement or expression playing of their instruments after an injury, or to maintain expressive bodily movement as we age, Karen is an encyclopedia of methods for helping you help others.