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Developed since 1997 in Switzerland by Benita Cantieni
CANTIENICA® Body in Evolution was developed by the Swiss Benita Cantieni. She was a highly successful journalist before devoting herself to researching the sophisticated human powerhouse. In 1997 she founded the CANTIENICA® method under the name “CANTIENICA® – Method for Body Shape & Posture”, which she constantly develops and not only describes in numerous books, but also passes on in online courses and demanding training programs. A pioneer in the study of the pelvic floor, Cantieni recognized theoretically and practically that carefree movement ability depends on the integration of the pelvic floor, pelvic and hip muscles into all movement patterns.
Developed since 1997 in Switzerland by Benita Cantieni
The CANTIENICA® method is based on completely new premises from which the logical, evolutionary body concept is derived. Cantieni’s research initially stems from her own perception of the body. Her body experiences are reproducible for everyone, and her findings are confirmed daily by thousands of users. Through health, well-being and radiance.
The CANTIENICA® concept does away with old habits, it heralds a paradigm shift. While the established anatomy in medical textbooks starts from deceased, mostly old people, Cantieni bases her theses on the living, measurable and perceptible use of the body. If a person moves consciously and well, curvatures, subsidence, deformations, wear and degeneration can be avoided – like a complex machine, the life of joints, organs, muscles, tendons, fasciae, ligaments, nerves depends on careful use. The CANTIENICA® method teaches the adequate use of the body’s assets. With this instruction manual, the body works better, longer, more supple.
Who is Benita Cantieni?
“What if you don’t have the scoliosis, but you do?” This sentence was spoken by a doctor to Benita Cantieni in 1993. And that hit her like a lightning bolt: my crooked body is not an unchangeable fate, I can make it straight! This realization spurred her on to her own path: to decipher the logic of the masterpiece that is the body itself and to develop a kind of instruction manual for laypeople that – without physiotherapeutic treatment – can be applied independently from “within”. Which makes each person a conscious authority over their own body, giving them the unlimited autonomy to conquer it and truly live in it.
Plagued from childhood by scoliosis and its persistently painful sequelae, Benita Cantieni lived locked in the prison of her body, as she herself describes it. She stumbled upon her talent as an empirical body researcher, developer and trainer rather by accident in her early 40s. Since then she has been exploring, feeling out, testing, questioning and refining her own method ceaselessly and with ever new inspiration.
Benita Cantieni embodies the principle she discovered and decoded in the flesh, because today she lives pain-free in a “straight body”. In her book “Catpower” she describes her own path to this conscious life, to her growing and becoming in a very personal, humorous and encouraging way.
Those who shrink just because a few years of life come together are not stretched. If you hump, you are not stretched. Those who have become accustomed to crooked legs are not stretched. Those who have damage to the intervertebral discs. Who has osteoarthritis. Who has flat feet. Is. Not. Really. Stretched. Even the fat belly and double chin and sagging breasts very often have a lot to do with a lack of tension.
Because this is so, the method begins in and with the bones. First, the bones are always aligned as perfectly as possible. This means that deformed bones are stretched back into the ideal that is intended for them in your unique blueprint.
As the bones come into optimal alignment, so do all the joints, giving them their natural protective “airbags,” as one of my regular clients calls it.
With this alignment of bones and joints, all fascia, tendons, ligaments and muscles automatically get their ideal networking and stretching.
Relaxed stretched bodies are graceful, and grace is lived beauty. Other people perceive this lived beauty as charisma. So here we go, enter into dialogue with your body!”
Do you have any questions for Benita Cantieni? In the forum Benita Cantieni gives answers and tips about CANTIENICA® Body in Evolution.
What can the CANTIENICA® method do?
HOW DOES THE METHOD WORK?
From the extensive CANTIENICA® repertoire of exercises, each lesson is individually adapted to the participants. Varied choreographies stimulate the body and the mind.
Want to enjoy a live class with Benita?
Here is a challenging 60 minute Workout with focus on breathing in the most efficient manner during exercising. Happiness guaranteed.
Enjoy a free trial class with Benita Cantieni. Experience the feeling of an “all inclusive”-Workout. Aligning all bones and all joints first brings an extra quality into stretches – and into strength training.
® Copyrights with Benita Cantieni and CANTIENICA® AG 2024. Any illegal reproduction of this content will result in legal action.
A class with Benita: Every Wednesday.
Benita teaches a live class every Wednesday. It takes place at 8 a.m. Central European Time. You can join us live via video stream. There are currently only a few participants and Benita can even coach you. That might change soon.
Tensioning the spine
If the spine is consistently stretched, its oscillation, its curve, is optimized. Hollow back, round back, hunchback, spinal curvature, pelvic obliquity can be sustainably eliminated in a gentle, simple way.
Alignment of the chest and shoulders
If the pelvis is straightened and the spine is tense, the chest can also be aligned with the trunk in a simple way. The shoulders are placed vivatomically correctly, the head supports itself, virtually floating on the atlas with its own muscles.
Long live gravity
Gravity is the main organizing principle for clamping. Without gravity, we would not have bones as we know them, and muscles would not be able to bear weight. We have evolved explicitly into and within gravity, into (more or less) upright biped humans.
Deep muscles and power pool
CANTIENICA® Body in Evolution works consistently from the inside out, and is therefore, to use a popular catchphrase, core training in the true sense of the word. The entire axial skeleton is optimally stretched and then “fixed” in the muscles that hold it.
Networking of the levator ani with the hip and leg muscles
The power pool is connected down and up through the deep muscles. What the foot does affects the pelvis. What the head does affects the pelvis. The cross-linking from the feet to the crown point brings the legs into the ideal axis, the thigh muscles into the perfect external rotation. It corrects bow legs as well as knock-knees, inwardly rotated thighs, malpositions of the knees, ankles and feet.
The pelvis in the center - power from the center
The power pool is connected down and up through the deep muscles. What the foot does affects the pelvis. What the head does affects the pelvis. The cross-linking from the feet to the crown point brings the legs into the ideal axis, the thigh muscles into the perfect external rotation. It corrects bow legs as well as knock-knees, inwardly rotated thighs, malpositions of the knees, ankles and feet.
What are the advantages
of the method?
Better posture and charisma
A complete uprightness and alignment has a positive influence on your mood. Your charisma grows.
Less pain
Muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints, bones and all organs are used properly again. Pain disappears, instantly and eventually permanently.
Increase performance
Your fundamentals for all other sports improve. You build up strength more efficiently and can swim, cycle, hike or jog more easily.
Better body feeling
You learn to perceive your body in a completely new way and to use it consciously. You will see positive effects already with the first lesson.
60 minutes lessons
You train efficiently and yet gently. In one of over 400 studios or via video at home, in the office or outside.
Mini groups
In the studio with a maximum of participants so that you are ideally accompanied.
Day & Night
You can train at any time. The better you master the method, the more intuitively you will use it in all your movements: walking, sitting, running, standing, etc.
With coaching
400 certified trainers guide you competently and empathetically through the process of alignment and uprighting.
Comprehensive
Each lesson trains your body from sole to crown, from the deepest inside to the fingertips.
Only for you
Find your flow for more inner peace and contentment. Your vegetative nervous system comes into balance
Finding the source of strength
The pelvic floor and deep muscles strengthen your body from the inside – figuratively and literally. This gives you self-confidence that carries you in all situations.
Sound introduction
Our instructors accompany you competently from the first contact – for as long as your journey with us lasts.
What do our customers say about us?
18 Cantienica in the media
19 Shop
- 01
Start your own body evolution?
Your body must be used as it is designed to be used. We are the maintenance program for your body.
- 02
You need more?
We can help you not only with prevention, but also with building, rehabilitation, alignment, regression.
- 03
Become an instructor?
The CANTIENICA® Instructor:in training enables you to apply and teach the method professionally.
What does the method do?
CANTIENICA® body in evolution is a training concept based on experiential anatomy. Initiated 1997 by Benita Cantieni, it is continuously being developed to integrate new insights and experiences. Throughout Europe, approximately 2,000 therapists and body workers are currently working with this concept to correct all kinds of postural problems. The “instructions for self-healing” explain in laymen’s terms how the human body functions, what the skeletal locomotion system needs, and what makes it ill. Understanding these processes sharpens the awareness for them in your own body, for your own posture, and your everyday movements. As you experience, feel, and understand how your body works, you are able to counteract pain in your joints or problems with your sinews, muscles, or fascia through conscious posture adjustments or invisible movement, making the pain disappear right away. Living with the CANTIENICA® Method, you understand pain as your body’s way of telling you: “I don’t like what you’re doing there!” And this means that you can take immediate corrective action and right the wrongs done by an awkward movement or a sloppy posture. Here are the basic principles that will help you understand the logic behind CANTIENICA® exercises.
Pelvis
An anatomically sane and sanely used pelvis is requirement for sane joints of the hips, a sanely straightened spine and the optimally aligned thorax. The mobile and flexible pelvis supports and unburdens all major joints of the lower body, the ankle joints, the knees, the hips, the joints of the Sacrum, the lumbar vertebrae. The human pelvis consists of two identical halves, which can be moved and mobilized individually to the best abilities. Most deformations of the pelvis are based on the fact that this symmetrical motion withered. The perfect human pelvis is V-shaped: wide at the top, narrow at the bottom, like a fennel. This leaves enough room for the organs of the abdomen. Through the years in bad posture and bad motion pattern the pelvis loses this form and widens at the bottom, gets narrower at the top, fennel upside-down, in severe cases old people’s pelvis forms an A instead of a V, thus creating a rat-tail of health problems like hemorrhoids, incontinence, arthrosis of joints, descent of organs, fractures of the thighs et cetera. Cause for these deformations is nearly always the atrophy of the pelvic floor muscle system.
Pelvic Bones
The bones of the pelvis are not one solid piece but three individual parts: the two hip bones form the “side boards”, at the back they are joined by the Sacrum with two adjoining joints. In the front the hipbones are adherent with the so-called symphysis, a colloidal compound enabling the great range of motion of the pelvis.
Sitting bones
The darker tinted bones indicate the sitting bones. The lower rim of the pelvis minor forms two hunches called „sit bones“, as we are supposed to sit on them, situated exactly in the middle of the horizontal skin fold of the buttocks. The CANTIENICA® – Method for Bodyshape and Posture uses this two sit bones as navigation points in order to activate the proper innermost layer of the pelvic floor muscles (see pelvic floor muscle layers). Whenever the instruction states “pull the sit bones together” or “pull the right sit bone towards the Perineum, i.e. the center of the pelvic floor, the biggest and most potential part of the pelvic muscle carpet is being contracted.
Pubic bone
The front part of the pelvis shapes the pubic bone. It’s easy to find and feel as it lies directly under the pubic hair. The pubic bone is the third (of four) vertices to indicate the perfect upright alignment of the human pelvis.
Tailbone
The Tailbone is the rudimentary tail, in the course of evolution and the human gait on two legs, five tiny vertebrae grew together to form the Coccyx. This provides the fourth marker for the aligned and straightened pelvis. Between tailbone and Sacrum is a mobile little joint, which allows motion and stretch between the two bones, small, but enough to make the difference between pain and no-pain.
Sacrum, Joints of the Sacrum
The Sacrum stands between the last lumbar vertebra and the Coccyx, a broad bone built of five grown-together vertebrae. At each side-rim of this bone are 5 openings for nerves feeding hips, joins, legs, feet. Two loose joints (Amphiarthrosis) held only by ligaments connect the Sacrum with the big hipbones. This makes the pelvis a very supple and flexible symmetrical structure. The two halves of this bone structure can be moved deliberately using the pelvic floor muscles accurately.
Pelvic floor
The pelvic floor is trampoline-like muscle carpet. When the human race decided to get up on two legs the wall of the abdomens had to become a sustainable base, floor, holding the weight of the torso. Nature solved this challenge brilliantly, weaving a thumb-thick carpet of at least three layers of muscle. Center of the several layers is the Perineum, on the female body located between vagina and anus, on the male body between the end of the scrotum and the anus.
First layer
The first layer forms a double loop like a figure eight around the orifices, vagina, urethra, anus on women; spermatic duct, urethra, anus on men. The widely spread Kegel-exercises aim on strengthening this layer. Applied in burlesque the Kegels can actually do harm to the pelvic floor and the abdominal organs. In the search for results women tend to pull the perineum into the vagina. Instead of strengthening the spread of muscles the vagina tissue hardens, thus complicating childbirth and making sexual intercourse a painful undertaking. The CANTIENICA® Pelvic Floor Training leaves this layer supple and sensitive, the concentration is on the deepest layers which actually form the floor for the pelvis, not just a loop.
The middle layer
This second layer spreads from one hip joint to the other, from pubic bone to perineum, like a triangular. This layer plays an important role in the gait appropriate to mankind. Reticulating with the hip muscles (Musculi Piriformis, Gemelli Quadratus Femoris) thus enabling the rotation of the pelvis halves, protecting the hip joints from abrasion. Accounts for the Vshape of the pelvis.
Levator ani
The deepest layer is the actual pelvic floor, as it forms a solid bowl holding up the organs and protecting the pelvic joints. This is the main aim of the CANTIENICA®-Power Pelvis Training. The layer spreads fan-like from pubic bone to coccyx, from hip joint to hip joint. At the perineum it connects with the other two layers, making this a power spot. This layer is the most powerful part of the pelvic floor – and the most important in the CANTIENICA® – pelvic floor training system. Every time the description instructs you to pull the sitting bones together or closer to the middle you activate this big and potent membrane. “Like an in-between story in a building”, says Cantieni, “it’s an extra-support, a backup in the human tower block.”
All layers in the pelvis
The levator ani is the strongest part of the pelvic floor – and the most important in the CANTIENICA® training concept. Every time the description instructs you to pull your sit bones together or closer to center, you activate this large and strong internal muscle layer. “Like a mezzanine in a skyscraper,” Cantieni says, “it is the central support in the human skyscraper.
Stretching the Spine
The Power Pelvis is a solid foundation for the stretching and aligning of the spine. This Spine Stretch is a basic in all CANTIENICA® exercises and makes room for the vertebrae, the intervertebral discs, the openings for the nerves and the spinal cord. This Spine-stretch has the power to change and reprogram the whole posture. Beware of the risk: This can make you grow an inch or more, depending on your “old” posture. The Spine-Stretch together with the Power Pelvis is your insurance against posture deformities and joint harms!
Crown up
The Power Pelvis is a solid foundation for the stretching and aligning of the spine. This Spine Stretch is a basic in all CANTIENICA® exercises and makes room for the vertebrae, the intervertebral discs, the openings for the nerves and the spinal cord. This Spine-stretch has the power to change and reprogram the whole posture. Beware of the risk: This can make you grow an inch or more, depending on your “old” posture. The Spine-Stretch together with the Power Pelvis is your insurance against posture deformities and joint harms!
Skeletal interconnections
CANTIENICA® body in evolution interconnects the skeletal muscles to a sensitive, strong, flexible, protective network for bones, fascia, muscles, tendons and ligaments. A major role in this physical universe play the so-called autochthonous muscles, approximately 200 little muscles connecting the vertebrae with one each other and with the more superficial muscles of the spine and the back. This autochthonous musculature usually uncared-for can be trained to function automatically thus protecting the spine in every-day life. This interconnecting of the skeletal muscles offers a cure for Scoliosis, scoliotic pelvis and other popular postural deformities.
Thorax and Sternum
Pelvis and Thorax interact. If the one is tilted, the other will counteract accordingly. A tilt forward in the Pelvis provokes a backward-tilt in the Thorax or Chest, which rounds the back. Contrariwise a tilting back or the Pelvis causes the Chest to tilt forward, resulting in a sway-back. The CANTIENICA® Method teaches the ideal positioning of Pelvis and Thorax: one on top of the other. The architecture of the bones is ensured by the skeletal musculature. A sure sign for anatomically inapt posture is chronic pain in the neck, in the shoulders, chronic headaches and migraines.
Diaphragm
The diaphragm as important as the levator ani: It is the second important interstice in the body. It forms the closure of the rib cage, cushions the pressure when coughing, laughing and sneezing, and thus protects against incontinence. Crucially, the diaphragm expands radially upward and elliptically to all sides like a dome with each inhalation. This pulls in the lowest, flying ribs, increases the interior space for the upper ribs, creates enormous volume by expanding to the sides. The organs above and below the diaphragm receive a “breathing massage” from the tense, stretched torso muscles, which contract and relax slightly with the rhythm of the breath.
Setting Shoulders where they belong
Some exercises invite you to pull the elbows to the side or downward, before you start with the actual strengthening or stretching of the muscles. The purpose of this instruction is the liberation of the shoulder-joint, creating a leeway between the ball of the upper arm and the shoulder roof. This adjustment of posture offers relief of many chronic pains and ailments – Tinnitus, Tennis arm, Frozen Shoulder Syndrome, Carpal tunnel Syndrome etc.
Flex
In order to train the muscles in the ideal proportions according to the bones and their setting the exercises invite you to pay attention to the axis of your legs: feet, knees and hip-joints are always in a anatomically sensible line. The feet are mostly flexed: lower leg to foot in a 90°-angle. In this position the interconnection between feet, heel and Pelvic floor muscles are activated, all muscles of the legs work together, you get the power but not the mass. Toes pointed cuts this connection and puts the emphasis of the training on the front of the thighs, building-up bulky muscles.
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