Reflections on 2011

Here's a review of some highlights from the last year of blogging at Better Movement.

Some stats

About a year ago, Better Movement averaged about 4,500 page views per month. It looks like the year will end with an average of about 16,000 page views per month.

There are now more than 1,000 subscribers of various kinds and my Facebook page went from non-existent to 330 fans in the last six months.

Overall, I'm pleased with the progress.

Products

In July 2011 I released my first product, an e-book along with four Feldenkrais lessons called Better Core Movement. I've received a lot of positive feedback which is very nice to hear. In the next six months I hope to finish two new similar products: Better Movement for the Hips and Better Movement for the Shoulders.

Social Life

The most exciting thing about 2011 was getting to interact with several other excellent blogs and sources of online info.

In April, Mark Sisson of Mark's Daily Apple listed Better Movement as one of 18 Underrated Blogs You Should Be Reading. That was quite an honor, because MDA is one of the top fitness/health blogs in the world. And, I was in very good company - all the other blogs on the list are really top notch.

Paul Ingraham of SaveYourself did a few excellent guest posts, and I did some mediocre posts at his site. Paul is one of the best sources of evidence based information on the internet concerning treatment of musculoskeletal pain.

Chris Highcock at Conditioning Research did several posts pointing to my articles. Chris' blog was just deservedly named one of the top ten best by Outside magazine.

I also got to do a guest post at the Perfect Health Diet blog, run by Paul Jaminet. This was especially pleasing because I am a huge fan of Paul's writing and ideas.

Diane Jacobs was kind enough to reference many of my posts at her amazingly useful Facebook page: Neuroscience and Pain Science for Manual Physical Therapists.

Finally, I was privileged to interact with many intelligent, well informed people in the comments section of this blog and on Facebook and other places. Thanks everyone for your contributions.

Plans for 2012

My main goal with this blog is to be part of helping to affect a paradigm shift in the manual therapy and fitness world away from treating the body like a mindless piece of meat and towards an approach that is more consistent with what we know from evolutionary biology, neuroscience and pain science. This shift is a long time coming and has many years to go, but I see lots of progress in the last year or two. Check out my blogroll to find the sites that I think are at the forefront in this regard.

It's exciting and meaningful to be part of a community that is passing around useful information and generating new ideas through research, experimentation, debate, and just plain old shootin' the shit. I look forward to more of the same next year.

Happy New Year, good luck with your movement in 2012, and thanks for reading and sharing!