THE LINK BETWEEN ARGENTINE TANGO AND ORGANIC STRETCHINGTM

 
CELEBRATING WITH DONNA LANGE…SHE DID IT!

by Pat Henry

PUERTO VALLARTA, MEXICO…Eighteen months ago Donna Lange left Bristol, RI, alone on her 28-ft boat to sail around the world in search of inner peace. She has returned with all that she sought and more.

You may ask how this relates to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. In November, 2005, as Donna was preparing her boat Inspired Insanity for the ultimate test—a two-stop around the world voyage via the Southern Oceans (Roaring 40s) and below the major capes…Good Hope, Australia, and The Horn, the builder of her boat, Clark Ryder, suggested that she call me in Puerto Vallarta to discuss her plans and the boat refit. Clark had built both of our boats in Bristol as part of the Southern Cross series. Donna called, and a friendship was born.

We emailed. She sent me a CD of her original music, Alone at Sea, and I sent her a copy of my book, By the Grace of the Sea. I followed updates on her website www.donnalange.com as she struggled toward New Zealand in rough conditions for much of the way. In April, 2006, as I sat at anchor off La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, enjoying after-dinner conversation with Heather Cairnie and Carol Dutcheshen, students at Coming About Sailing School, my cell phone rang. It was Donna calling from the Bass Straits (a nasty stretch of water between Tasmania and Australia)…exhausted, completely spent by huge, tumultuous, chaotic seas. She had 30 cans of beans left for food and 30 days to sail to New Zealand. We talked, I encouraged, and my two minutes of time—at satellite phone rates—ran out. She needed more, but there was no way to call back…I had no number.

My students knew this was an incredible moment for both of us. Without a word I sat down, and we joined hands bowing our heads, sending energy and love and our prayers to Donna. Two days later, I read her online log…I went up on deck after talking with Pat Henry. The seas immediately began to steady. The back of my neck prickled with the connection we had made halfway around the world.

Her 168-day passage complete, in New Zealand, Donna spent months rebuilding and refitting her boat and entertaining the locals with her music. She composes, sings, and plays guitar, steel drums, Irish drum, whistle, and harmonica. Last November, she set out once again for the final leg home. Caught in the same storm as Ken Barnes off the Horn, she offered to divert for a rescue when his boat lost its mast, leaving him floundering in huge seas. Another boat made the rescue while Donna handled message relay between Ken and his family.

This well publicized rescue and Donna’s role put her in the international public eye, sending her website into overload with 10,000 hits a day. Donna still had a long way to go and many challenges including a near swamping, a close call with rocks near St. Thomas, and finally the monumental, 20-year storm off the East Coast in mid-April as she was just one week from the end.

With public celebrations already planned for April 25 and 28 and more storms due in a few days, chilled to the bone when she was submerged in a knockdown, and with no engine, a broken self-steering system, and other damage, Donna agreed at last to divert to Bermuda and fly north to accept her accolades. She had already completed a full circumnavigation in the Virgin Islands and long ago crossed her outbound track.

We finally met in person and what a glorious moment…just minutes before she marched barefoot to the front of the Rhode Island State House to accept their Proclamation of Donna Lange Day on April 25, 2007. On the 28th, at the Herreshoff Museum in Bristol, she celebrated with friends, family, and supporters with Halsey Herreshoff opening an awards ceremony that left a pile of citations, certificates, burgees, and plaques, including the prestigious Joshua Slocum Society’s Golden Circle Award. As Donna offered her appreciation and a powerful call for all of us to join our personal commitment and energy to heal our world and our oceans, she paused and began singing a cappela a piece she wrote at sea.

The audience rose in a standing ovation for this awesome, courageous woman.

Plans are underway to bring Donna Lange to Puerto Vallarta this winter…watch for news and don’t miss meeting a very special person!

 

 
HEATHER WALLACE TO PRESENT WORKSHOP
ON HER PAIN MANAGEMENT SYSTEM…THE WALLACE METHOD

by Pat Henry

PUERTO VALLARTA, MEXICO…Heather Wallace has returned to Puerto Vallarta with her pain management system, The Wallace Method, and will present a practitioners’ 5-day workshop in February.

When I met Heather in January, 2006, I was intrigued with her unique program and its potential. After working with Heather for almost three months, I could see and feel amazing changes in my body…an absence of pain from old shoulder injuries and extended movement and flexibility in my neck, back and hips. It was encouraging enough for me to continue on my own with solo work and with a friend, doing partner work, while waiting for Heather’s return. I not only maintained the improvements Heather had brought about in one-on-one work, but had continued to progress on my own.

Other clients of The Wallace Method have been equally pleased in their results:

“After years of chronic migraine pain, I am so grateful to Heather for giving me back my life.”—Elizabeth Streeter

“When I came I was wearing a wrist brace several nights per week; always traveled with one—had a spare in the car— was contemplating wrist surgery.. Heather has tried to educate me as to the causes and sources of the pain...given me a few exercises I can do on my own ... but mostly (99%) of the time—there is no pain. I have not worn a wrist brace in years ... and the left arm has never developed the full-blown symptoms that were on my right side.”—Evy Sussman

“I was a candidate for knee replacement and I said, "No way." I had had several knee surgeries already. The more I continued with Heather, the more my body called for me to stretch by myself daily. I even told myself that I could skip this, but my body spoke for me, and I did it and it paid off.”—Sister Bernadine Frischmon, OSB

Heather is now in town to work with Puerto Vallarta clients for the next 3 months and to teach her program to other practitioners in a Wallace Workshop from February 8 – 12. She will present background on the program’s development and the factors which make it successful where other approaches have failed. She will share the methods that have given her success in correcting a wide range of conditions. Students will observe demonstrations and then practice the subtle movements which gradually reshape the body’s structural system.

Workshop classes will meet from 9:30 am to 2:30 pm each day with snacks and beverages provided. A celebratory dinner at El Arrayan will close the final day. The cost of the class including the closing dinner is $251USD. For additional information or to register contact Heather Wallace at 221-5742. Class size will be limited.

 

 
CHRONIC PAIN MANAGEMENT THROUGH THE WALLACE METHOD

by Pat Henry   (part 1 of 3)

It began with the usual Art Walk chit chat…”how long have you been coming to PV?”….”where are you from?”…”what do you do?” The diminutive woman in front of me matched her studied response with a half smile topped by intense, twinkling blue eyes. “I sculpt bodies.”

My friend Carol Anne, an artist herself, followed with a logical question, “What’s your medium?”

“Human bodies.”

She had my attention as I envisioned being turned into the svelte form I had always longed for. The curiosity she piqued that night has led me into the fascinating practice of the Wallace Method developed by Heather Wallace over the past 25 years. But her interest is not to produce cleft, sculpted bodies for the pages of fashion magazines. Heather’s goal is to relieve pain, improve the quality of life, and restore health to her clients by subtle, progressive changes in the alignment of the muscular-skeletal system.

In the early 1980s, with twenty years background as a yoga and meditation instructor, Heather was offered a position creating and implementing an exercise program at Fairview Hospital Pain Clinic. Heather understood the mission was to cure her patients, so she explored every avenue even when the medical professionals said they could not be cured.

At the clinic Heather was introduced to cranial sacral work, an approach which encourages and enhances one’s ability to follow the body’s own rhythms. She also studied the Barnes Method of Myofascial Release Work through the mastery level. She saw that this work defines the “how to” of perfecting the body’s muscular capacities, while yoga demonstrates the end result. Heather integrated these two systems, discovering that when she applied the resulting new method in her work, the muscular balance achieved resulted in the alleviation of pain for her clients. The Wallace Method was born.

As Heather explains, a great deal of pain is caused by the pressure of bones against soft tissue, blood supply, other bones and/or nerves. That pain is related to the muscular-skeletal system and can be cured.

Catherine Mora Cleary, a Wallace practitioner, had known Heather through yoga when she became unable to work, disabled by pain in her arm. X-rays showed a bone spur on her elbow. Heather dismissed the diagnosis, explaining that what appeared to be a spur was instead the end of a bone which had shifted out of alignment through repeated actions and misuse. Using her system of stretching, rotation, and release, Heather gradually moved the bone back into its proper place, and the pain disappeared.

Another client, Sister B, arrived ten years ago confined to a wheelchair following back and knee surgery at 55, certain that she would never be able to bend her knee past 90º again. Today she maintains a full work load, walking with the aid of a cane. Pain is no longer an issue for Sister B as she follows the Wallace Method to maintain her well being.

Heather will be offering an evening introductory session and demonstration on March 10th. For more information on the Wallace Method or the evening meeting call 221-5742 or 222-4119 in Puerto Vallarta of email Pat.

Heather Wallace lives three months of the year in her home in Puerto Vallarta. She maintains a practice, teaches, and trains in Minneapolis, MN.

Pat Henry is a Puerto Vallarta resident, author, artist, and director of Coming About Women’s Sailing School.

This article appeared in the PV Tribune. Parts 2 and 3 of this series should be available on line after March 21st. Click on “Healthy Living” issues #464 and 465.

 

 
World-sailor Pat Henry’s navigation tip:
Look for the silver lining!

by Daniel Grippo

PUERTO VALLARTA, MEXICO...

When I walked out on the pier at the Marina to meet Pat Henry at her dock, she was on her hands and knees, sanding and staining a new seat for her sailboat’s dingy. As I approached, several passers-by stopped to greet her and ask about sailing classes. One person wanted to know more about Pat’s book, By the Grace of the Sea.

Pat stowed her tools and paint and we headed for a nearby outdoor café to do the interview. Pat excused herself to wash her hands, and while she was gone, her cell phone rang. The call was from Alizé, expert sailing instructor for Pat’s sailing school, Coming About. Next thing I knew we were hustling back to the pier as students in the class brought the sailboat in for a docking. But first we had to move a fishing boat that had been left in Pat’s slip out of the way….

You get the picture. Spend five minutes with Pat Henry and you’ll understand how this dynamo of energy could have sailed around the world by herself. She is a woman in constant motion, like the sea itself. Yet despite all that is going on, Pat remains attentive to the people she is with, greeting everyone with a smile as wide as the horizon.

It is this energetic nature that has driven Pat on so many journeys in her life, from riding a motorcycle across the U.S. and living off the land for two months in 1970 (“It was the Easy Rider days,” says Pat with a smile), to starting an international import-export business with a sales force of a hundred and 2,000 clients worldwide.

But when her business ventures ended in ruin and left her self esteem in the gutter, Pat decided in the spring of 1988 that it was time for a dramatic change of life. A sailing buff for many years, with 40,000 sea miles already under her belt, she decided to sell her home and buy a boat she could live on. By October, 1988, she was heading south, Mexico way.

Once underway, Pat was encouraged by others to ask herself, Why stop now? So after wintering in Mexico, she set sail from Acapulco Bay on May 4, 1989 aboard the 31-foot Southern Cross. Her destination: the Marquesas Islands, part of French Polynesia, 3,000 miles away and first leg on her solo trip around the world.

“I had completely identified with my business,” says Pat. “When it failed, I felt like my identity was collapsing. The sense of personal failure was just huge. I needed something very physical to do, to get outside of myself and to heal the grief.”

Pat left Acapulco with only $300 to her name. By the time she reached New Zealand, she was down to $3.00. What now? “As a kid I loved to draw. I used to ride my bike on Saturday mornings to a great mansion outside of town and draw sketches of it.” Years later, after an early marriage and motherhood, Pat decided to be an architect and ended up on the faculty at San Jose State University.

She specialized in pen and ink illustrations, then learned watercolors. Her artwork ended up being her economic lifeline as she continued around the world. She had a show in Singapore where she managed to clear $10,000 in 10 hours.

One challenge met, more to come. She had to battle violent storms at sea and damaged equipment. Wasn’t she afraid? “There’s no time to be afraid during a storm. It’s survival, and you’re in constant motion,” says Pat. “Storms were not the scary part of being at sea. It was the large ships that could do you in, especially at night.”

“I’ve always had a rule: Never enter a harbor you don’t know at night,” says Pat. “But when I pulled into Singapore Harbor, after seven days of hard sailing from Bali on a total of maybe eight hours of sleep, I was exhausted and I just wanted to drop anchor. So I took a chance and entered the harbor at midnight. I broke my rule, and it almost cost me my life.”

A tug boat pulling a barge with a huge dredging crane nearly ran Pat over. “I saw this huge crane towering over me in the dark, it must have been 10 stories high, and I felt like there was ice water in my knees. I only had a split second to put my engine in gear and turn the boat out of the way. I’ll never break that rule again!”

Pat was not out to set any speed records with her circumnavigation, so she took her time, making stops along the way, spending up to a year in some ports. Eight years after leaving, almost to the day, she pulled into Acapulco Bay once again, on May 5, 1997.

She decided that Puerto Vallarta had everything she wanted in a community—Mexico’s safest harbor, a thriving arts community, the physical beauty, and the warm and wonderful Mexican community. “It may be a city of 350,000, but it still has that small-town feel and friendliness,” says Pat.

After painting for awhile, Pat landed a book contract with McGraw Hill for her sailing story, and By the Grace of the Sea was published in 2002. Ever the go-getter, Pat organized her own 10-week book tour with 40 events. It was a great success, and her book even made the San Francisco Chronicle best-seller list, but there was one more setback awaiting Pat at the end of her tour.

“While I was in the Los Angeles airport, trying to get back to Puerto Vallarta, Hurricane Kenna hit. My apartment was flooded and I lost everything — photos and charts from my trip, $30,000 in artwork, everything but the boat,” says Pat.

But if Pat had learned anything at sea, it was resilience. She soon had another dream, to open a sailing school for women, to encourage them to believe in themselves. “Over and over, women will talk about this nagging little voice inside that says, ‘When is the world going to figure out I don’t know what I’m doing?’

“I want women to know—whatever it is that you dream of doing, you can do it! That’s what the sailing school is all about. No matter what has happened to you, you can set a new course, you can change the direction of your life. That’s why the school is called Coming About.”

“One day while I was in Singapore, I passed a newsstand and saw a quote from Malcom Forbes: ‘I’d never hire anyone who hadn’t failed.’ I thought, ‘Right on, Malcom.’ The thing is, you have to risk in order to grow. Risking, even if it means failing sometimes, teaches us so much about who we are and what is really important in life.

“Adversity and setback always bring a lesson, they teach us something. They contain a gift. It’s like Grandma always used to say—there really is a silver lining out there, if you look for it!”


To learn more about Coming About sailing school and other Pat Henry productions, also visit www.coming-about.com.
You can reach Pat at 222.4119 or 044.322.111.8329.
Daniel Grippo can be reached at 222.7819 or dangrippo@yahoo.com.
Photo by Carol Anne Anderson.

This profile originally ran in the Vallarta Tribune, www.vallartatribune.com

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