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Kinesthetic dystonia: the contribution of bodywork to somatic education
Ki nes th et "c dy stonla: " th e contribution o f b o d y w o r k to s o m a t i c e d u c a t i o n Part 3B of this article will be published in the next issue, J B M T 3:2 April 1999
o o e o o o o o o o o
T. W. Myers
Introduction
Thomas W. Myers 20 Roundabout Dr, Scarborough ME 04 074, USA Correspondence to: T. W. Myers Tel./Fax: +1 207 883 2756; E-rnail: [email protected] Received June 1998 Accepted July 1998
Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies(1999) 3(1), 36-43 © Harcourt Brace & Co. Ltd 1999
In Part 1 of this series, (Myers 1998a), we gave the name 'kinesthetic dystonia' to the ubiquitous loss of kinesthetic sensitivity and somatic connection we find on our tables and plinths throughout industrialized cultures. We explored aspects of the bodyworker's role as a kinesthetic educator, and posited that eventually the discoveries made by oneon-one healing would need to be applied in an educational setting if we wish to effect change in the abysmal universality of somatic alienation. In Part 2 (Myers 1998b), we sketched a line through the history of physical education (PE), the traditional teachers of the kinesthetic sense, exploring the 'fit' between cultures and their approach to PE, with an eye to the needs of the coming century. We also expanded the scope of PE toward 'somatization' -- the process of becoming embodied in any culture, which allowed us to look beyond traditional schooling to include both early familial and general social effects on this process of embodiment (Cohen 1993). In Parts 3A and 3B (to be published in the next issue, vol. 3(2) April
1999), we complete our discussion by initiating a conversation within our profession: what are the shared values about the kind of body and movement we are trying to create? Put more simply: if bodyworkers had the power to implement a PE agenda for the 21 st century, what forms would that programme take, and what values would it hold? The burgeoning varietal forms of bodywork and movement therapy are all sprouting from the same soil whose origins we have outlined in Parts 1 and 2 (Myers 1998a, b). Individual practitioners of these modem methods are often inspired by an innovative originator, and climb onto that particular bandwagon, often quite ignorant of and even hostile to, in the author's experience, the overlap with other similar methods. On the other end of the spectrum, enthusiastic practitioners attempt mastery of a melange of manual approaches, and unfortunately end up making dishwater as often as soup. We can afford neither luxury: inward-looking provincialism nor indiscriminate acceptance. Let us instead actively seek out common ground and general principles, and welcome research into
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synthetic forms that 'stand on the shoulders' of the pioneers who have gone before. Fortunately, this 'genetic recombination' of hands-on and movement forms is taking place with increasing speed and efficiency, in part due to fora like this journal. • If we look through the handbook of the current offerings of bodywork (Claire 1995), what can we find of value to the next century's PE challenges, something that goes beyond the current emphases on repetition, competition, strength, and effort? To get an idea of the results of such a programme, let us follow a day in the life of Nate, an imaginary 15year-old American suburbanite who, for the past 9 years of his schooling, has participated daily in an hour-long experimental class called 'kinesthetic literacy' (KL), which takes the place of the school's regular physical education classes. The following outline is intended as a starting point for a more comprehensive programme. It is biased toward the personal experience of the author in the field of bodywork and movement, who begs forgiveness for methods that are slighted or left out of this section, and welcomes further communication on that score.
A kinesthetic literacy programme The history of innovation teaches us nothing more definitely than that we shall be surprised by the forms the future takes. The principles inherent in the renaissance of hands-on healing may work their way into our culture in an as-yet-undreamed-of fashion. There is no harm, however, in anticipating the opportunities and possibilities. With this caveat, the physical education - or somatic education, or embodiment process, or whatever it comes to be called - of the 21st century may well partake of the following: We have organized the programme under four interdependent and
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overlapping categories: total movement, acture (posture in action), organismic response, and kinesthetic sensitivity.
Total m o v e m e n t Although total movement is the birthright of every human, personal events - such as injury and trauma, familial imitation and proscriptions, and cultural norms - can and do impinge on the possibilities of total movement. The major goal of a revised PE program is to support and maintain as much of total movement for as much of each person's body, for as long a duration as possible.
Total body image A very basic goal of PE, taken from so many forms of bodywork that to ascribe it to any one would slight others (though yoga, Rolfing, and Trager spring immediately to mind), is to develop and maintain as complete a body image as possible (Juhan 1987, Iyengar 1995, Rolf 1977). A filled-in body image is not only necessary for dancers and actors, but brings possibilities for greater health to every child and every adult. Each cubic millimetre of the human structure is infused with nerves, including muscle spindles and a wide variety of stretch receptors. These sensory endings are found in both voluntary and involuntary portions of the soma. The signals from these endings are assembled and constantly reassembled into a map of the body, which happens in several different areas of the brain. This assemblage, along with the ideas about ourselves that our mind and social situation engender, constitutes our body image. The author has known Englishmen whose subtlety in detecting the provenance of a particular accent is nothing short of amazing, but whose body image is limited to those muscles necessary to walk to work and hold up The Times. As well, one finds wildly active Americans, who participate in
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sport after sport, who, if asked' How do you feel?', invariably answer 'I dunno.' Individual, social and cultural variations in body image will keep the hematic educator fascinated for a lifetime period. If nerve endings from the skin, movement apparatus, or organs are not stimulated for a long time, that area, or that connection, becomes part of a forgotten area of the body, which then becomes a stagnant breeding ground for pathology (Hanna 1988). Just as often sustained lack of movement in one area simply sets us up for pain, physical or emotional, somewhere else in the soma that is forced to compensate for the lack of function in the still area. A bodyworker uses stretch, assisted stretch, touch, and guided imagery to induce motion in forgotten areas of the soma. This idea can easily be applied to group situations, e.g., in a morning 'warm-up' that brings in yoga, partner stretches, deep breathing, or dance to induce feeling in little-moved parts of the body. With children, for instance, it can be turned into a game -- 'Who can put his armpit on the floor?', 'Who can put her elbow in her ear?', or 'Roll very slowly from one side to the other side, feeling all your chest and ribs as you roll.' Feldenkrais classes could be adapted to school situations, simplified as necessary for a young audience (Feldenkrais 1972, ATM). Graduates of such a school would be more prepared for learning whatever task they are drawn toward, and would likely be less prone to disease (though no study, of which the author is aware, has been done in this direction).
Total range of movement If the entire body is to be a lively taster of the universe, then it must be able to respond with a wide range of moves. Although the idea of total range of movement has been around in PE for some time, it is usually applied only selectively to the movements necessary for the specific sport or
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Waking, Hate lies in bed for a few minutes, reviewing his dream. Lying on his back, he lengthens his heels and wrists away from his spine, yawning in a deep breath or two, bringing his body back into motion from the congealed state of sleep. He gets up, does a few stretches, looks in the mirror, and beats a staccato tattoo on his stomach Slipping into his clothes, he kicks his skateboard deftly into his hand, and goes down to breakfast. His mother clucks her tongue at his clothes, but without conviction. 'Here'is Something new for you for brealdast', she says, 'Tofu-De-Lite.' Hate obligingly slips it into his mouth, but, Wise to his mother's buying enthusiasms lets it sit on his tongue for a moment. He scans his body for reactions to the food, and finds a retracting feeling around his middle, probably , :he expectS, his liver or hi s pancreas. 'No, thanks', he says, grabbing an apple and some yoghurt from the fridge, 'see ya later? : : :. . . . 'Give me a hug', says his mother. Lately, Hate has been:feeling a little:estranged from his mother as his interest in girls has developed, but he lets himself yield into the hug, inhibiting his muscles ~:retraction knowing how much it means tO her and how little it requires of him. Outside, Hate drops the board and rides down his driveway to the bus st0p, Waiting for the bus, h e grounds himself with a few Qi Gong exercises, feeling energy free up in his belly and beginning to course through his limbs( He Checks his balance by standing with closed eyes on each leg in turn as the bus pulls up. Mounting the bus Hate lopes dow n the aisle and pl0ps:into tha Seat :beSide his best friend Sarah, bracing his knees against the back of the seat in front. After a couple of minutes of talking about a history project he realizes that sitting this way is freezing the movement of his tailbone. He sits up in the seat, finding his pelvis and centering his back over it He stops talking long enough to follow a few breath waves through his body, letting the connection through his spine reassert itself. Sarah is a fellow kinesthetic literary (KL) classmate, so shel does not disturb him for the few seconds he i: :i :: is inside himself. : ii : : = .... The bus gets to school, and he and Sarah share :a bfie~b~t:ifuli: frontal hugi N~fe:~d :Sayethhave decided not tO sleep together, although they are certainly aware of how to go about it. Since they are abi:e t6 t0Udh,:ihug, wrestlei and explore with each:othar on other levels, the strong pressure to go on to a sexual relationship is not there. On the occasions When the~ :have gotten 0vertly sexual, She stopped them for a minute to ask, 'How do you feel?' Hate seldom takes this question lightly since his KL days, and stops tO c0nSideL going inside himself to really See how his whole body feels. Sensing the welter of feelings that are arising in his body cause s Hate to Say :'it's great, sure, fire in the belly, but further up my body it's more confused. I don't think I can really take this al! in yet; let's go a little slower.:' While they can handl e the physical side of relating, no class or training can plumb the mystery of relationship, and Hate andSaratl have their Share 0f the usual problems. : ' : Gordon is getting off. the bus behind them • 'Oh ni ht ÷ Natieg' . : :iook ==:= at :little Nathaniel::and bii = : wifey-pifey • D:'jag et laid]ast : g . Lookin g around , Hate sees Gordon, with his large chest and head and:pipe~tem legs; and immediately identifies Gordon as a 't0ugh/generous' body type, all bluster and no grounding. Measuring his response, he simply gives Gordon a i60k, and turns back io Sarah to give her'another moment of eye contact before kicking away on his skateboard. Gordon, deprived:ofa respofiSe,:deflatesl :: : := : :. . . . . : i: = : i :::: : : ::: i : : i: : : : : It is not until his trigonometry class starts thatNaie re~izGS:that:hehas forgGttent0:cdmpietean important assignment due today. Recognizing the :grip of fear on the back of his neck and the adrenalin'rush in:the:~it 6f his:'st0mach, Hate COntrols his breathing in such a way as to banish the effects : of the fear so that he can pay attention. In this way be does not adda missed lecture to: the already missed:h0mework, and approaches Ms Fisher with a fairly relaxed demeanor to tell her about his lapse. : : : : : ; : i: : : i .... After trig. comes Hate's biology class, and the effects: 0~ KL Canbe seen here alsd.::With so many: students s0 interested in their inner experience, the : teacher has begun several projects on the human bbdY:i Hate has already built all the musCleslin clay: 0ntda frame representing the bone and ligament i ' .. complex, With another student, he detailed the joints Of the body, dividing them 'up in terms of their degr'ees of freedom, and testing members of the i Class to see who had which movements available.::T0day; they learn about ~0nCentric eccentric and isometric contractions of the muscles, testing out each mode with each o t h e r . . ; ::::: . : ::: : : :::; : : : i::: : i .... :During the lunch break, Gordon,with a gang ofh[~ f r i e n d s ! : c o ~ up be~nd Na~ei:~}iii :ranlding from ifie mo~ning; Gordon picks a fight with him. ::Picking his moment with the slowed time sense qf the Nart!di ~:Sti Nate'nnbaiances Gordon with a siep backi at the same time grabbing Gordon's ....hand and twisting him down to the ground between hiNsei:f arid the bther member; of the: gang. A little pres:sure tO the wrist and Gordon cries 'uncle' immediately, defusing the situation, and leaving:him grumbling but unlikeiy to tadkleNate again.: : i :.: N o prude, Hate has tried cigarettes: drugs, and eve~ ~Gd~:pierci@i but W]ih his'b0dy feeling as his guide laG~ s quietly rejected all three as : ) nnnecessa r y or disruptive to his sense of himself. ::: =: ::=:=: ': . . . . : ::: = = = :.: .= .::. : . :: . . . :. ::. . .:. :. . .::. . .= = : The KL class is the last one of the afternoon .:T. . . o. . d ~ Hate ia~ep:gi~:, , :ii~e ~:i:c~id's p0se ~in 'oga ,:ietti~ghimself deePY1 relax into =: : :: = : begins ~=i ~= a :=: == :==: = ==Y: :::flexion, letting his buttocks settle between hi:S heelsi ~ d letting hi~'Spin~ dr6p i~t0 his body. The p0se b e ~ e s : : a meditati0n for him an island of safety ; and solitude in the rush of school, and he stays there Ibm:s0me ~im~i:Eve~0ne elge in the Classrespects his ~ffort and leaves him in peace. When he is done, he counteracts the flexion by [ying over th~ 6 a ~ ~ a t ~ e physid:hali, gi~ng ]n }6 the Spinal exte~i0ni and le~ng the front of his body open. ,=,
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rehabilitative goal being developed. Facilitated stretching (PNF), yoga, all sorts of dance techniques and warmups and other manual release techniques serve the goal of total range of movement (McAtee 1993, Mehta 1990, Stirk 1988).
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The articular ranges of the hip and spine are especially important to a sedentary culture, and would require fairly constant work and evaluation. The subtle range of motions available in breathing come up for discussion below (under organisrnlc response),
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but are worth a mention here. Also, in temperate and colder climates, where feet are forced into leather coffins every day, the small gliding motions of the inter-tarsal joints can often lose their motion, with stultifying longterm effects.
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On a dare, he spends a few minutes practicing standing on top of the physioball. He can already stand on the big ball for some time; now he is working on being able to stand and keep his balance on the smaller diameter versions. Ellen, his teacher, watches him for bit. Having known all year that Nate had an 'up' tendency in his body, she approaches to urge him down into his center of gravity with a quiet, authoritative voice. Nate drops his awareness from his chest and shoulders, where he has been trying to balance, down into his 'hara' and finds he can stay longer on the ball without falling. : Ellen, noticing that Nate is nnusttally restricting his :breathing in the lower ribs, asks him if anything is wrong. Nate confesses that he has:been :: ; : : feeling fight around Iris chest Since the enc0unter with Gordon. He won, but he still feels residual anger and would like to really pound Gordon• Ellen ; takes him Over to a:P Unching bag ~ and gets him to punch the bag in coordination with his breathing imagining that the bag is Gordon. Nate puts his : • all into the exercise, :and Soon. With Ellen's coaching, is using his ribs fully in punching and breathing. He finishes the exercise smiling, mad tells ::i: : Ellen that he has been reminded of when his older brother used to hold him down to tickle and torture him, and that probably the feelings are left . :i :::over from that. Nate leaves:the class feeling relaxed:and freer. : .... i .... : :i' .1 AJth0ugh his KL class ~kes the place Of PE,: N&e sfi]i:Chooses tO gO OUt for a sport, soccer, which meets after Schooll Nate gOes d0Wn to:the gym : 11 : and changes into his :sports gear. Out on the fieid, he joins the rest of the team in some stretches to warm up and lengthen the muscles of his legs. He:: :1 ::lets all his limbs jiggle Until they feel t0ng and:alive, and snakes his spine through its ranges of motion till he feels at his tallest. The gam e is With a: : : : :1 : close . . . rival . and is.played fuil-throtfle.Nate m0nitfrs:his, breathing to keep his cool. Late in the game, seeing a chance for a sc0re, Nate makes a long :. :1 : : ::reach for a kick:; but an Opponent is g0ing for the game ball, and Nate feels something give way as the other fellow lands on the outside of his foot.: : :: N a t e immediately rem0veS::hissho~: ~ d assesses fl~ d ~ a g e . He kn0ws he has had a real injury, andhe takes his foot gingerly' thr0U'gh ks range 0f ~ o t i 0 n s ; checking out where :the :limitations are. His COach gives him some hOm0eopathic arnica pills, and he cheers his teammates on for the rest o f the game with his ankle either wrapped in ice 0r held in his own hands~ gently massaging the bones, and tissues back into place. By the time the : fellow from the :0ther team comes 0ver to Say he [g S6rry, Natei:s:barely limping, and is able to shoW how his foot is still able t0 functi0n. : :"'l After a shower',::Nate wraps:his:fo~t ~ d goes for a snort waik, monitoring how the rest of his body is responding to the injury. HenfteS:fiow his :] ~eight has Shifted away from:the hurt foot, ~ d :hfw that has made mnscular changes in his hips and back. He makes a mental note to watch himseif : i~ver the coming days, to make Sure th:at he returns i0 a balanced place as the injury heals. : : ..... : : ::: : :1 : ~is fliend Will pulls Up in his car h~ Nate firfisfies 5i~ ~ k , 'Want a ride}:dude?' asks Will 'and Nate thrdws his skateboard in ~e badk.:The :mfiil lie~ : :.between the Sch0ol and their h0me~ and theY:s:tbp:atthe-video arcade. Naie Chooses a machine that allows: him to Sit (Usually he practi:c:, . . . . . ::' S n the slal0m machine),:and drops in the m0n~i He:enters the virtual world Of the game; jamming the :ievers and buttons at hyperspeei [ make it from level to level Although not a:ganie:~tiNate is fam{iiar with computerS and their ways, and his reflexes and hand-eye co, ] ~ e quicker for it, : :: : :i:: : ;. :i :' ::: :: :: :: .... : : i: .::' : : : : ::
11
[ : =~ack at home, Nate:dr@k:la{g:god~:aJpstNz'~ and~then:~e~rs::his:father calling from the basement db0r: Nai~:/oiis his:eyes a~:;:hekn0~s I: ;~0minm but he Can sense the need for c0ntact ~nhis father:'g voicei and he limps d0wnstairs. His father ii keen:on power tools, :and has / i
Author Leon Chaitow recalls seeing the tall Zulu miners, setting out for very rare leaves to their homelands, loping to the train station with shoes tied around their necks, intending to put them on before they reached their kraals to show how 'civilized' they had become during their absence in the big city. For the
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rest of us, bound in shoes and cars and telephones most of the time, being 'civilized' is often linked with being 'stuck' in movement. In considering the use of early childhood education to inculcate full ranges of expressive movement, we include not only stretching for physiologic range of movement in all
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the joints, but also exposure to fuller ranges of movement in terms of effortshape - timing, dynamics, and flow (Laban 1971). Thus children would be 'tested' not only to see if they could achieve full flexion of the shoulder without shoving the lower ribs forward, for example, but also exposed to legato, staccato,
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Myers supporting, yielding, aerobic, and tai chi movements, to name a few of many possibilities (Roth 1998). Expectations concerning range of motion must be adjusted for the different ages with their different proportions and bone lengths, but in general it is so much easier to maintain a total range of movement than it is to regain it once it has been lost for some time. Differently-abled children would need special assessment and treatment, of course, but should be strongly encouraged to partake of as much of total movement as they possibly can. The documented work of Emilie Conrad with spinal cord injuries and the Bobaths in England with damaged babies both show the value of persistence in developing new pathways to movement (Hunt 1996, Crickmay 1966).
Total relative movement: differentiation The most basic posit of the new PE, also brought in from manual practice, notably osteopathy, is that everything moves relative to everything else. 'There is but one disease', says Paracelsus, 'and its name is congestion' (Sutcliffe 1992). When all the discrete parts of the body are able to move relative to every other discrete part, then congestion cannot happen, for every part is flushed by physiologic or voluntary motion. Each rib, for example, must be able to move relative to the spine, the sternum, the pleura underneath, relative to the muscles between it and the next rib, between it and the muscles that overly it. Any place that there is stasis, the body can forget the movement and lose it, providing the roadbed for the trip to pain. Pain, when it does occur, is a very good teacher in this regard: often when there is chronic pain, it is caused by stasis in the affected part or in a part connected to the painful area. Helping students to become selfreferential with the pain, finding it,
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moving it, making it part of the self, would augment self-responsibility and increase the ability to differentiate each body part, as well as speeding healing (Benjamin 1984). The inner world of the soma is so vast and variable that a lifetime of and facilitation is needed to bring the entire inner world to consciousness. Like painting for the eye or poetry for the ear, kinesthetic work is an endless well of valuable expression, whose surface is only scratched by the contemporarily open avenues of sport and dance. Just having the idea of relative movement in mind would help students to maintain it. Movement work with dreams, with animal and biomorphic types of movement, and deep inner sensing are helpful to fill in the body image fully and achieve total relative movement (Cohen 1993, Brooks 1974). Aside from using pain and visual analysis, there is no substitute for the knowing hand in detecting areas of stasis within the body. It is one of the major, if not the major, fashion in which one person can help another (Barral 1996). There will never be a lack of work for the sensitive hand who can detect and mobilize these stuck places, and self-knowledge and self-treatment will always be limited in this domain, for we cannot self-treat what we cannot feel, and what does not move is not felt. Nevertheless, some basic skills in recognizing and releasing these fixations could be spread in schools (see section below on Vocabulary of Touch, to be published in Part 3B, JBMT 3:2 April 1999).
Total pulsation At the very deepest level of relative movement is the physiologic pulsation of cells. Every one of our trillions of little cells should be free to pulsate at the many natural rhythms of expansion and contraction that course through its fluid chemistry, its membrane, and its nuclear proteins. This most basic and primitive pulsation plays itself out at larger and larger coordinations of cellular
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rhythms, some with the steadiness of 1950's rock music, others with the syncopation of jazz. Some are obvious, like the drumbeat of the heart, the rise and fall of the breath, the grumble of peristalsis, and the moon-tide of the menstrual cycle. Some have yielded to scientific inquiry, like the brain waves or the cyclic changes in blood sugar levels. Other pulsations speak to the hand of the healer, but have yet to be defined by consensus science: the craniosacral rhythm, the so-called 'inspir' and 'expir' of the organs, and the 2-hour cycles of organ-dominance used in Chinese medicine (Upledger 1983, Barral 1988, Tzu-Yin 1996). One senses without knowing that other asyet-undiscovered rhythms will emerge into consciousness, pulled from intuition to practice to proof. With deeper meditative states induced through micromovements, or free movement stemming from organismic responses, greater awareness can be generated for these deeper needs of the soma to express themselves. While getting total relative movement for the locomotor system is relatively easy, using the methods described above, it is harder for this writer to imagine a group interaction that could lead to improved cranial or visceral physiologic motion. Perhaps with sufficient stillness and sufficient skill in the teacher-guide, these motions can be brought to consciousness and augmented. Some cognitive knowledge of inner biology is also recommended here, to bring students' awareness to the ceaseless exchange of metabolism, growth, and senescence that is going on within them all the time. A simple device such as a stethoscope brings the inner world to the ear of the user, and has been used by the author to impress school-age children with their lively inner world of pulsation.
Reversible movement One important quality of voluntary movement, brought to light by Moshe
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Feldenkrais, is reversibility (Feldenkrais 1972). Daily motions should be, whenever possible, reversible at any given movement, from any given position. Leaping off a high stone wall cannot be easily reversed, of course, but falling into a chair, or rolling from one's side onto
the back, or sitting up from lying down, are everyday motions that are often not done reversibly, but should be. (See Box 2 for an application of this concept.) The consequences of irreversible motion is that extra stress and strain is introduced into the body that tightens and sets muscles, which
does damage to joint tissues in the long run. Pulling oneself upstairs by the railing, or launching oneself out of a chair by means of pushing on one's arms or hands, violates the spirit if not the letter of the reversibility law. If the qualities of reversible motion
t Although this exercise is presented here as employed in the author's practice, his debt to Feldenkrais (Feldenkrais:1972 ) :iSfreely::acknOwledged,: :i :] : : ::: i : ::: : : : . : i :: : i:[ andFeldenkrais'sdebt io Alexander (Alexander 1989) is also presumably freely ac£~owledged For many of our clients:brought up in the Western world where chairs are everywhere, the act of sitting down may have:d~gefieeatedinto:a:barea'y:: I controlled fall into the chair: This results in muscle weakness a feeling of helplessness, and the necessity of 'vaulting; Up Out :of the chair when one / wants to stand again :The faulty action leads to the inability to get in and out of chairs in the event of any disability or advancing age through : i : ::::: : [ weakening of the hip joint:and musculature. : : = :: : =.:. =i ::;:: : : =i:i I
The:basic question 0f thiS exercise is: :are you able: to stay in Control of yourself during the entire process of sittifig :dow~ in a: chair:and si~din~ np: :] again? What it" someone suddenly pulled the chair out from:under you as you sat down, could you change your mind and stand UP again, Or are You [ irreversibly: 'committed' to go where the chair had been? The test for whether you have this control over your own movement is:very simple: sitl : : : :[ down Very slowly, testing whether you Can stop and return tO standing at any given point. : :: : :: :: :::: = : : :~ :: :] Most Will find the beginning0f this motion very easy, but some will get to a certain place, when their behind is: within: a foo~ an~ an i~ch:of flae~h~iii where they 'fall', either gracefully or gratefully, the rest of the way into the chair: When we see this happening, we call attention tO the loss 6f ' : : control (or lack of grace or autonomy, Or whatever will excite the client's interest in getting better), and take them:hack tO the:plaCe where sitting:: was easy, and proceed from:there. : : :: : : :: : : :: : ::: =: = :
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The perception that makes reversible sitting:easy is to notice Where your weight falls. In preparing to sit, your Weight ~s ~ver::y~rfedt in siMa~itff~hips :::::1 and knees fold :into flexion; and it is possible to hold the weight over the feet for that entire process of folding. S0m~, :especially those who :have:vi:si~ed :: ] the East for some time, can fold all the way down in!o a squatting positionl Such total balance and opeanes: minimal amounts are certainly helpful. The problem for the irreversible sitters is simply that the weight mo the ends of the heels, and at that point they fall into the chair~'and must vault or push their weight back ontc
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If yOU compel the attention of your client to the weight on his feet as her folds at the knees and hips, he can keep their weight over his feet until his behind is touching the chair, at which point he can unfold into sitting. In extreme cases, it is necessary to have the client fold very far over, so that the chest is near the knees, before the pelvis can get 10w enough to find the chair seat. Letting the neck go, letting the head hang forward a little, rather than staying hyperextended in horizontal eye contact with the room, will help release the back and counterbalance the pelvis. Letting the head go forward into flexion is very necessary for the reverse process - regaining standing from sitting. Have your client sit forward in the chair to start with, and in more extreme cases it will help to have one foot a little: back from the other, closer to the chair (Fig. 2). Again, it may be necessary to have the client fold quite deeply in the hips to bring the weight out over the feet. A small amount of judicious help from your hand to his belt may be necessary to give him the feel o f 'pouring' the weight from his pelvis to his feet. As soon as the weight shift is accomplished, all but the most disabled will be able to easily attain standing. A few times through this transition point - shifting the weight from feet to pelvis on the chair and back again - will usually suffice tO give the client the autonomy tO do this for himself. Ahl but will he do it as he sits down that night for dinner or to watch the telly or wilI he revert to his old ways? The dynamics of habit change ar e passing strange.
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The author had occasion to watch Dr Feldenkrais practice what he preached. During my time in London, I was working with a classical pianist, doing Rolfing soft-tissue release. He also was in contact with the world of Feldenkrais, a method ! had heard praised by Dr Rolf, but with which I had little experience. The pianist exercised an option for which I will forever miss London: he invited to dinner his Rolfer, a Feldenkrais practitioner, and two psychologists from the famous Tavistock Clinic, and set an intellectual hare for us all to chase. 'Do we learn more through pleasure or through pain?', he asked. He expected, he told me later, for the two psychologists and the Feldenkrais practitioner t° be arrayed on one side of the issue, and me, the Roller, alone on the other side. Given the nature of my treatments in those early years of my practice, he had some reason for this assumption. To his surprise, and to mine, the Rolfer and the Feldenkrais practitioner argued that we learn far more through pleasure than pain, and the two psychologists argued, reluctantly, for pain over pleasure. The Feldenkrais practitioner was apparently also surprised, and as Dr Feldenkxais himself was arriving back from a training in America the next day, we agreed to meet (without the psychologists) at the pianist's fiat. I was mightily impressed by this rotund man in his 70s when, in full spate on the superiority of his itheories to any others (a subject of which, in my presence at least, he never tired), he sat on the end of the pianist's coffee table, a rickety contraption not made for sitting. The table immediately upended like a see-saw, and Feldenkrais, though fully seated or nearly so, simply rose to his feet again without even breaking the flow of his tirade on Ida Roll's inadequacies, and sought another, more stable seat. In spite of any misgivings I might have had, this was a man who lived what he wrote, and I went on to study with him.
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Kinesthetic dystonia part 3A
were brought to the populace, applied to chairs, beds, wheelchairs, getting up and down from the floor, much would be accomplished toward total movement, as well as allowing a longer duration of autonomous movement for the elderly. Nowhere in the author's basic education was even lip service paid to this highly useful, easily teachable concept. This completes the section on Total Movement. The remainder of the kinesthetic literacy programme acture, organismic response and kinesthetic sensitivity - will appear in the following issue.
REFERENCES Alexander FM 1989 The Alexander technique. Lyle Stuart Alexander M 1992 The use of the self. Gollancz, London
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Barral J 1988 Visceral manipulation, Eastland Press, Seattle Barral J-P 1996 Manual thermal diagnosis. Eastland Press, Seattle Benjamin B 1984 Listen to your pain. Penguin, New York Brooks C 1974 Sensory awareness. Viking, New York Claire T 1995 Bodywork. William Morrow, New York Cohen B 1993 Sensing, feeling and action. Contact Editions, Northampton, MA Crickmay M 1966 Speech therapy and the Bobath approach to cerebral palsy. Charles C. Thomas Ltd Feldenkrais 1972 Awareness through movement. Penguin, New York Hanna T 1988 Somatics. Addison Wesley, New York Hunt V 1996 Infinite mind - the science of human vibrations of consciousness. Malibu Publications Iyengar BKS Light on yoga. Schocken Books Juhan D 1987 Job's body. Station Hill Press, Barrytown, VT Laban R 1971 The mastery of movement, 3rd edn. Plays Inc, Boston
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McAtee R 1993 Facilitated stretching. Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL Mehta S 1990 Yoga the Lyengar way. Dorling Kindersley, London Myers T 1997 The anatomy trains. Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies 1( ): Myers T 1998a Kinesthetic dystonia, part 1. Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies 2(3): Myers T 1998b Kinesthetic dystonia, part 2. Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies 2( ): Rolf I 1997 Rolfing. Healing Arts Press, Rochester, VT Roth G 1998 Sweat your prayers. JP Tarcher Stirk J 1988 Structural Fitness. Elm Tree Books, p5 London Sutcliffe J 1992 Barnes and Noble Books, New York Tzu-Yin S 1996 The basis of traditional Chinese medicine. Shambala Publications. Upledger J 1983 Craniosacral therapy. Eastland Press, Chicacp, IL
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o o e o o o o o o o o
T. W. Myers
Introduction
Thomas W. Myers 20 Roundabout Dr, Scarborough ME 04 074, USA Correspondence to: T. W. Myers Tel./Fax: +1 207 883 2756; E-rnail: [email protected] Received June 1998 Accepted July 1998
Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies(1999) 3(1), 36-43 © Harcourt Brace & Co. Ltd 1999
In Part 1 of this series, (Myers 1998a), we gave the name 'kinesthetic dystonia' to the ubiquitous loss of kinesthetic sensitivity and somatic connection we find on our tables and plinths throughout industrialized cultures. We explored aspects of the bodyworker's role as a kinesthetic educator, and posited that eventually the discoveries made by oneon-one healing would need to be applied in an educational setting if we wish to effect change in the abysmal universality of somatic alienation. In Part 2 (Myers 1998b), we sketched a line through the history of physical education (PE), the traditional teachers of the kinesthetic sense, exploring the 'fit' between cultures and their approach to PE, with an eye to the needs of the coming century. We also expanded the scope of PE toward 'somatization' -- the process of becoming embodied in any culture, which allowed us to look beyond traditional schooling to include both early familial and general social effects on this process of embodiment (Cohen 1993). In Parts 3A and 3B (to be published in the next issue, vol. 3(2) April
1999), we complete our discussion by initiating a conversation within our profession: what are the shared values about the kind of body and movement we are trying to create? Put more simply: if bodyworkers had the power to implement a PE agenda for the 21 st century, what forms would that programme take, and what values would it hold? The burgeoning varietal forms of bodywork and movement therapy are all sprouting from the same soil whose origins we have outlined in Parts 1 and 2 (Myers 1998a, b). Individual practitioners of these modem methods are often inspired by an innovative originator, and climb onto that particular bandwagon, often quite ignorant of and even hostile to, in the author's experience, the overlap with other similar methods. On the other end of the spectrum, enthusiastic practitioners attempt mastery of a melange of manual approaches, and unfortunately end up making dishwater as often as soup. We can afford neither luxury: inward-looking provincialism nor indiscriminate acceptance. Let us instead actively seek out common ground and general principles, and welcome research into
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synthetic forms that 'stand on the shoulders' of the pioneers who have gone before. Fortunately, this 'genetic recombination' of hands-on and movement forms is taking place with increasing speed and efficiency, in part due to fora like this journal. • If we look through the handbook of the current offerings of bodywork (Claire 1995), what can we find of value to the next century's PE challenges, something that goes beyond the current emphases on repetition, competition, strength, and effort? To get an idea of the results of such a programme, let us follow a day in the life of Nate, an imaginary 15year-old American suburbanite who, for the past 9 years of his schooling, has participated daily in an hour-long experimental class called 'kinesthetic literacy' (KL), which takes the place of the school's regular physical education classes. The following outline is intended as a starting point for a more comprehensive programme. It is biased toward the personal experience of the author in the field of bodywork and movement, who begs forgiveness for methods that are slighted or left out of this section, and welcomes further communication on that score.
A kinesthetic literacy programme The history of innovation teaches us nothing more definitely than that we shall be surprised by the forms the future takes. The principles inherent in the renaissance of hands-on healing may work their way into our culture in an as-yet-undreamed-of fashion. There is no harm, however, in anticipating the opportunities and possibilities. With this caveat, the physical education - or somatic education, or embodiment process, or whatever it comes to be called - of the 21st century may well partake of the following: We have organized the programme under four interdependent and
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overlapping categories: total movement, acture (posture in action), organismic response, and kinesthetic sensitivity.
Total m o v e m e n t Although total movement is the birthright of every human, personal events - such as injury and trauma, familial imitation and proscriptions, and cultural norms - can and do impinge on the possibilities of total movement. The major goal of a revised PE program is to support and maintain as much of total movement for as much of each person's body, for as long a duration as possible.
Total body image A very basic goal of PE, taken from so many forms of bodywork that to ascribe it to any one would slight others (though yoga, Rolfing, and Trager spring immediately to mind), is to develop and maintain as complete a body image as possible (Juhan 1987, Iyengar 1995, Rolf 1977). A filled-in body image is not only necessary for dancers and actors, but brings possibilities for greater health to every child and every adult. Each cubic millimetre of the human structure is infused with nerves, including muscle spindles and a wide variety of stretch receptors. These sensory endings are found in both voluntary and involuntary portions of the soma. The signals from these endings are assembled and constantly reassembled into a map of the body, which happens in several different areas of the brain. This assemblage, along with the ideas about ourselves that our mind and social situation engender, constitutes our body image. The author has known Englishmen whose subtlety in detecting the provenance of a particular accent is nothing short of amazing, but whose body image is limited to those muscles necessary to walk to work and hold up The Times. As well, one finds wildly active Americans, who participate in
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sport after sport, who, if asked' How do you feel?', invariably answer 'I dunno.' Individual, social and cultural variations in body image will keep the hematic educator fascinated for a lifetime period. If nerve endings from the skin, movement apparatus, or organs are not stimulated for a long time, that area, or that connection, becomes part of a forgotten area of the body, which then becomes a stagnant breeding ground for pathology (Hanna 1988). Just as often sustained lack of movement in one area simply sets us up for pain, physical or emotional, somewhere else in the soma that is forced to compensate for the lack of function in the still area. A bodyworker uses stretch, assisted stretch, touch, and guided imagery to induce motion in forgotten areas of the soma. This idea can easily be applied to group situations, e.g., in a morning 'warm-up' that brings in yoga, partner stretches, deep breathing, or dance to induce feeling in little-moved parts of the body. With children, for instance, it can be turned into a game -- 'Who can put his armpit on the floor?', 'Who can put her elbow in her ear?', or 'Roll very slowly from one side to the other side, feeling all your chest and ribs as you roll.' Feldenkrais classes could be adapted to school situations, simplified as necessary for a young audience (Feldenkrais 1972, ATM). Graduates of such a school would be more prepared for learning whatever task they are drawn toward, and would likely be less prone to disease (though no study, of which the author is aware, has been done in this direction).
Total range of movement If the entire body is to be a lively taster of the universe, then it must be able to respond with a wide range of moves. Although the idea of total range of movement has been around in PE for some time, it is usually applied only selectively to the movements necessary for the specific sport or
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Myers
Waking, Hate lies in bed for a few minutes, reviewing his dream. Lying on his back, he lengthens his heels and wrists away from his spine, yawning in a deep breath or two, bringing his body back into motion from the congealed state of sleep. He gets up, does a few stretches, looks in the mirror, and beats a staccato tattoo on his stomach Slipping into his clothes, he kicks his skateboard deftly into his hand, and goes down to breakfast. His mother clucks her tongue at his clothes, but without conviction. 'Here'is Something new for you for brealdast', she says, 'Tofu-De-Lite.' Hate obligingly slips it into his mouth, but, Wise to his mother's buying enthusiasms lets it sit on his tongue for a moment. He scans his body for reactions to the food, and finds a retracting feeling around his middle, probably , :he expectS, his liver or hi s pancreas. 'No, thanks', he says, grabbing an apple and some yoghurt from the fridge, 'see ya later? : : :. . . . 'Give me a hug', says his mother. Lately, Hate has been:feeling a little:estranged from his mother as his interest in girls has developed, but he lets himself yield into the hug, inhibiting his muscles ~:retraction knowing how much it means tO her and how little it requires of him. Outside, Hate drops the board and rides down his driveway to the bus st0p, Waiting for the bus, h e grounds himself with a few Qi Gong exercises, feeling energy free up in his belly and beginning to course through his limbs( He Checks his balance by standing with closed eyes on each leg in turn as the bus pulls up. Mounting the bus Hate lopes dow n the aisle and pl0ps:into tha Seat :beSide his best friend Sarah, bracing his knees against the back of the seat in front. After a couple of minutes of talking about a history project he realizes that sitting this way is freezing the movement of his tailbone. He sits up in the seat, finding his pelvis and centering his back over it He stops talking long enough to follow a few breath waves through his body, letting the connection through his spine reassert itself. Sarah is a fellow kinesthetic literary (KL) classmate, so shel does not disturb him for the few seconds he i: :i :: is inside himself. : ii : : = .... The bus gets to school, and he and Sarah share :a bfie~b~t:ifuli: frontal hugi N~fe:~d :Sayethhave decided not tO sleep together, although they are certainly aware of how to go about it. Since they are abi:e t6 t0Udh,:ihug, wrestlei and explore with each:othar on other levels, the strong pressure to go on to a sexual relationship is not there. On the occasions When the~ :have gotten 0vertly sexual, She stopped them for a minute to ask, 'How do you feel?' Hate seldom takes this question lightly since his KL days, and stops tO c0nSideL going inside himself to really See how his whole body feels. Sensing the welter of feelings that are arising in his body cause s Hate to Say :'it's great, sure, fire in the belly, but further up my body it's more confused. I don't think I can really take this al! in yet; let's go a little slower.:' While they can handl e the physical side of relating, no class or training can plumb the mystery of relationship, and Hate andSaratl have their Share 0f the usual problems. : ' : Gordon is getting off. the bus behind them • 'Oh ni ht ÷ Natieg' . : :iook ==:= at :little Nathaniel::and bii = : wifey-pifey • D:'jag et laid]ast : g . Lookin g around , Hate sees Gordon, with his large chest and head and:pipe~tem legs; and immediately identifies Gordon as a 't0ugh/generous' body type, all bluster and no grounding. Measuring his response, he simply gives Gordon a i60k, and turns back io Sarah to give her'another moment of eye contact before kicking away on his skateboard. Gordon, deprived:ofa respofiSe,:deflatesl :: : := : :. . . . . : i: = : i :::: : : ::: i : : i: : : : : It is not until his trigonometry class starts thatNaie re~izGS:that:hehas forgGttent0:cdmpietean important assignment due today. Recognizing the :grip of fear on the back of his neck and the adrenalin'rush in:the:~it 6f his:'st0mach, Hate COntrols his breathing in such a way as to banish the effects : of the fear so that he can pay attention. In this way be does not adda missed lecture to: the already missed:h0mework, and approaches Ms Fisher with a fairly relaxed demeanor to tell her about his lapse. : : : : : ; : i: : : i .... After trig. comes Hate's biology class, and the effects: 0~ KL Canbe seen here alsd.::With so many: students s0 interested in their inner experience, the : teacher has begun several projects on the human bbdY:i Hate has already built all the musCleslin clay: 0ntda frame representing the bone and ligament i ' .. complex, With another student, he detailed the joints Of the body, dividing them 'up in terms of their degr'ees of freedom, and testing members of the i Class to see who had which movements available.::T0day; they learn about ~0nCentric eccentric and isometric contractions of the muscles, testing out each mode with each o t h e r . . ; ::::: . : ::: : : :::; : : : i::: : i .... :During the lunch break, Gordon,with a gang ofh[~ f r i e n d s ! : c o ~ up be~nd Na~ei:~}iii :ranlding from ifie mo~ning; Gordon picks a fight with him. ::Picking his moment with the slowed time sense qf the Nart!di ~:Sti Nate'nnbaiances Gordon with a siep backi at the same time grabbing Gordon's ....hand and twisting him down to the ground between hiNsei:f arid the bther member; of the: gang. A little pres:sure tO the wrist and Gordon cries 'uncle' immediately, defusing the situation, and leaving:him grumbling but unlikeiy to tadkleNate again.: : i :.: N o prude, Hate has tried cigarettes: drugs, and eve~ ~Gd~:pierci@i but W]ih his'b0dy feeling as his guide laG~ s quietly rejected all three as : ) nnnecessa r y or disruptive to his sense of himself. ::: =: ::=:=: ': . . . . : ::: = = = :.: .= .::. : . :: . . . :. ::. . .:. :. . .::. . .= = : The KL class is the last one of the afternoon .:T. . . o. . d ~ Hate ia~ep:gi~:, , :ii~e ~:i:c~id's p0se ~in 'oga ,:ietti~ghimself deePY1 relax into =: : :: = : begins ~=i ~= a :=: == :==: = ==Y: :::flexion, letting his buttocks settle between hi:S heelsi ~ d letting hi~'Spin~ dr6p i~t0 his body. The p0se b e ~ e s : : a meditati0n for him an island of safety ; and solitude in the rush of school, and he stays there Ibm:s0me ~im~i:Eve~0ne elge in the Classrespects his ~ffort and leaves him in peace. When he is done, he counteracts the flexion by [ying over th~ 6 a ~ ~ a t ~ e physid:hali, gi~ng ]n }6 the Spinal exte~i0ni and le~ng the front of his body open. ,=,
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rehabilitative goal being developed. Facilitated stretching (PNF), yoga, all sorts of dance techniques and warmups and other manual release techniques serve the goal of total range of movement (McAtee 1993, Mehta 1990, Stirk 1988).
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ii=" :i~ "' ;i
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The articular ranges of the hip and spine are especially important to a sedentary culture, and would require fairly constant work and evaluation. The subtle range of motions available in breathing come up for discussion below (under organisrnlc response),
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, : ,, = ==
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but are worth a mention here. Also, in temperate and colder climates, where feet are forced into leather coffins every day, the small gliding motions of the inter-tarsal joints can often lose their motion, with stultifying longterm effects.
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On a dare, he spends a few minutes practicing standing on top of the physioball. He can already stand on the big ball for some time; now he is working on being able to stand and keep his balance on the smaller diameter versions. Ellen, his teacher, watches him for bit. Having known all year that Nate had an 'up' tendency in his body, she approaches to urge him down into his center of gravity with a quiet, authoritative voice. Nate drops his awareness from his chest and shoulders, where he has been trying to balance, down into his 'hara' and finds he can stay longer on the ball without falling. : Ellen, noticing that Nate is nnusttally restricting his :breathing in the lower ribs, asks him if anything is wrong. Nate confesses that he has:been :: ; : : feeling fight around Iris chest Since the enc0unter with Gordon. He won, but he still feels residual anger and would like to really pound Gordon• Ellen ; takes him Over to a:P Unching bag ~ and gets him to punch the bag in coordination with his breathing imagining that the bag is Gordon. Nate puts his : • all into the exercise, :and Soon. With Ellen's coaching, is using his ribs fully in punching and breathing. He finishes the exercise smiling, mad tells ::i: : Ellen that he has been reminded of when his older brother used to hold him down to tickle and torture him, and that probably the feelings are left . :i :::over from that. Nate leaves:the class feeling relaxed:and freer. : .... i .... : :i' .1 AJth0ugh his KL class ~kes the place Of PE,: N&e sfi]i:Chooses tO gO OUt for a sport, soccer, which meets after Schooll Nate gOes d0Wn to:the gym : 11 : and changes into his :sports gear. Out on the fieid, he joins the rest of the team in some stretches to warm up and lengthen the muscles of his legs. He:: :1 ::lets all his limbs jiggle Until they feel t0ng and:alive, and snakes his spine through its ranges of motion till he feels at his tallest. The gam e is With a: : : : :1 : close . . . rival . and is.played fuil-throtfle.Nate m0nitfrs:his, breathing to keep his cool. Late in the game, seeing a chance for a sc0re, Nate makes a long :. :1 : : ::reach for a kick:; but an Opponent is g0ing for the game ball, and Nate feels something give way as the other fellow lands on the outside of his foot.: : :: N a t e immediately rem0veS::hissho~: ~ d assesses fl~ d ~ a g e . He kn0ws he has had a real injury, andhe takes his foot gingerly' thr0U'gh ks range 0f ~ o t i 0 n s ; checking out where :the :limitations are. His COach gives him some hOm0eopathic arnica pills, and he cheers his teammates on for the rest o f the game with his ankle either wrapped in ice 0r held in his own hands~ gently massaging the bones, and tissues back into place. By the time the : fellow from the :0ther team comes 0ver to Say he [g S6rry, Natei:s:barely limping, and is able to shoW how his foot is still able t0 functi0n. : :"'l After a shower',::Nate wraps:his:fo~t ~ d goes for a snort waik, monitoring how the rest of his body is responding to the injury. HenfteS:fiow his :] ~eight has Shifted away from:the hurt foot, ~ d :hfw that has made mnscular changes in his hips and back. He makes a mental note to watch himseif : i~ver the coming days, to make Sure th:at he returns i0 a balanced place as the injury heals. : : ..... : : ::: : :1 : ~is fliend Will pulls Up in his car h~ Nate firfisfies 5i~ ~ k , 'Want a ride}:dude?' asks Will 'and Nate thrdws his skateboard in ~e badk.:The :mfiil lie~ : :.between the Sch0ol and their h0me~ and theY:s:tbp:atthe-video arcade. Naie Chooses a machine that allows: him to Sit (Usually he practi:c:, . . . . . ::' S n the slal0m machine),:and drops in the m0n~i He:enters the virtual world Of the game; jamming the :ievers and buttons at hyperspeei [ make it from level to level Although not a:ganie:~tiNate is fam{iiar with computerS and their ways, and his reflexes and hand-eye co, ] ~ e quicker for it, : :: : :i:: : ;. :i :' ::: :: :: :: .... : : i: .::' : : : : ::
11
[ : =~ack at home, Nate:dr@k:la{g:god~:aJpstNz'~ and~then:~e~rs::his:father calling from the basement db0r: Nai~:/oiis his:eyes a~:;:hekn0~s I: ;~0minm but he Can sense the need for c0ntact ~nhis father:'g voicei and he limps d0wnstairs. His father ii keen:on power tools, :and has / i
Author Leon Chaitow recalls seeing the tall Zulu miners, setting out for very rare leaves to their homelands, loping to the train station with shoes tied around their necks, intending to put them on before they reached their kraals to show how 'civilized' they had become during their absence in the big city. For the
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rest of us, bound in shoes and cars and telephones most of the time, being 'civilized' is often linked with being 'stuck' in movement. In considering the use of early childhood education to inculcate full ranges of expressive movement, we include not only stretching for physiologic range of movement in all
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the joints, but also exposure to fuller ranges of movement in terms of effortshape - timing, dynamics, and flow (Laban 1971). Thus children would be 'tested' not only to see if they could achieve full flexion of the shoulder without shoving the lower ribs forward, for example, but also exposed to legato, staccato,
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Myers supporting, yielding, aerobic, and tai chi movements, to name a few of many possibilities (Roth 1998). Expectations concerning range of motion must be adjusted for the different ages with their different proportions and bone lengths, but in general it is so much easier to maintain a total range of movement than it is to regain it once it has been lost for some time. Differently-abled children would need special assessment and treatment, of course, but should be strongly encouraged to partake of as much of total movement as they possibly can. The documented work of Emilie Conrad with spinal cord injuries and the Bobaths in England with damaged babies both show the value of persistence in developing new pathways to movement (Hunt 1996, Crickmay 1966).
Total relative movement: differentiation The most basic posit of the new PE, also brought in from manual practice, notably osteopathy, is that everything moves relative to everything else. 'There is but one disease', says Paracelsus, 'and its name is congestion' (Sutcliffe 1992). When all the discrete parts of the body are able to move relative to every other discrete part, then congestion cannot happen, for every part is flushed by physiologic or voluntary motion. Each rib, for example, must be able to move relative to the spine, the sternum, the pleura underneath, relative to the muscles between it and the next rib, between it and the muscles that overly it. Any place that there is stasis, the body can forget the movement and lose it, providing the roadbed for the trip to pain. Pain, when it does occur, is a very good teacher in this regard: often when there is chronic pain, it is caused by stasis in the affected part or in a part connected to the painful area. Helping students to become selfreferential with the pain, finding it,
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moving it, making it part of the self, would augment self-responsibility and increase the ability to differentiate each body part, as well as speeding healing (Benjamin 1984). The inner world of the soma is so vast and variable that a lifetime of and facilitation is needed to bring the entire inner world to consciousness. Like painting for the eye or poetry for the ear, kinesthetic work is an endless well of valuable expression, whose surface is only scratched by the contemporarily open avenues of sport and dance. Just having the idea of relative movement in mind would help students to maintain it. Movement work with dreams, with animal and biomorphic types of movement, and deep inner sensing are helpful to fill in the body image fully and achieve total relative movement (Cohen 1993, Brooks 1974). Aside from using pain and visual analysis, there is no substitute for the knowing hand in detecting areas of stasis within the body. It is one of the major, if not the major, fashion in which one person can help another (Barral 1996). There will never be a lack of work for the sensitive hand who can detect and mobilize these stuck places, and self-knowledge and self-treatment will always be limited in this domain, for we cannot self-treat what we cannot feel, and what does not move is not felt. Nevertheless, some basic skills in recognizing and releasing these fixations could be spread in schools (see section below on Vocabulary of Touch, to be published in Part 3B, JBMT 3:2 April 1999).
Total pulsation At the very deepest level of relative movement is the physiologic pulsation of cells. Every one of our trillions of little cells should be free to pulsate at the many natural rhythms of expansion and contraction that course through its fluid chemistry, its membrane, and its nuclear proteins. This most basic and primitive pulsation plays itself out at larger and larger coordinations of cellular
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rhythms, some with the steadiness of 1950's rock music, others with the syncopation of jazz. Some are obvious, like the drumbeat of the heart, the rise and fall of the breath, the grumble of peristalsis, and the moon-tide of the menstrual cycle. Some have yielded to scientific inquiry, like the brain waves or the cyclic changes in blood sugar levels. Other pulsations speak to the hand of the healer, but have yet to be defined by consensus science: the craniosacral rhythm, the so-called 'inspir' and 'expir' of the organs, and the 2-hour cycles of organ-dominance used in Chinese medicine (Upledger 1983, Barral 1988, Tzu-Yin 1996). One senses without knowing that other asyet-undiscovered rhythms will emerge into consciousness, pulled from intuition to practice to proof. With deeper meditative states induced through micromovements, or free movement stemming from organismic responses, greater awareness can be generated for these deeper needs of the soma to express themselves. While getting total relative movement for the locomotor system is relatively easy, using the methods described above, it is harder for this writer to imagine a group interaction that could lead to improved cranial or visceral physiologic motion. Perhaps with sufficient stillness and sufficient skill in the teacher-guide, these motions can be brought to consciousness and augmented. Some cognitive knowledge of inner biology is also recommended here, to bring students' awareness to the ceaseless exchange of metabolism, growth, and senescence that is going on within them all the time. A simple device such as a stethoscope brings the inner world to the ear of the user, and has been used by the author to impress school-age children with their lively inner world of pulsation.
Reversible movement One important quality of voluntary movement, brought to light by Moshe
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Feldenkrais, is reversibility (Feldenkrais 1972). Daily motions should be, whenever possible, reversible at any given movement, from any given position. Leaping off a high stone wall cannot be easily reversed, of course, but falling into a chair, or rolling from one's side onto
the back, or sitting up from lying down, are everyday motions that are often not done reversibly, but should be. (See Box 2 for an application of this concept.) The consequences of irreversible motion is that extra stress and strain is introduced into the body that tightens and sets muscles, which
does damage to joint tissues in the long run. Pulling oneself upstairs by the railing, or launching oneself out of a chair by means of pushing on one's arms or hands, violates the spirit if not the letter of the reversibility law. If the qualities of reversible motion
t Although this exercise is presented here as employed in the author's practice, his debt to Feldenkrais (Feldenkrais:1972 ) :iSfreely::acknOwledged,: :i :] : : ::: i : ::: : : : . : i :: : i:[ andFeldenkrais'sdebt io Alexander (Alexander 1989) is also presumably freely ac£~owledged For many of our clients:brought up in the Western world where chairs are everywhere, the act of sitting down may have:d~gefieeatedinto:a:barea'y:: I controlled fall into the chair: This results in muscle weakness a feeling of helplessness, and the necessity of 'vaulting; Up Out :of the chair when one / wants to stand again :The faulty action leads to the inability to get in and out of chairs in the event of any disability or advancing age through : i : ::::: : [ weakening of the hip joint:and musculature. : : = :: : =.:. =i ::;:: : : =i:i I
The:basic question 0f thiS exercise is: :are you able: to stay in Control of yourself during the entire process of sittifig :dow~ in a: chair:and si~din~ np: :] again? What it" someone suddenly pulled the chair out from:under you as you sat down, could you change your mind and stand UP again, Or are You [ irreversibly: 'committed' to go where the chair had been? The test for whether you have this control over your own movement is:very simple: sitl : : : :[ down Very slowly, testing whether you Can stop and return tO standing at any given point. : :: : :: :: :::: = : : :~ :: :] Most Will find the beginning0f this motion very easy, but some will get to a certain place, when their behind is: within: a foo~ an~ an i~ch:of flae~h~iii where they 'fall', either gracefully or gratefully, the rest of the way into the chair: When we see this happening, we call attention tO the loss 6f ' : : control (or lack of grace or autonomy, Or whatever will excite the client's interest in getting better), and take them:hack tO the:plaCe where sitting:: was easy, and proceed from:there. : : :: : : :: : : :: : ::: =: = :
: ':] :1 ::: ] ]
The perception that makes reversible sitting:easy is to notice Where your weight falls. In preparing to sit, your Weight ~s ~ver::y~rfedt in siMa~itff~hips :::::1 and knees fold :into flexion; and it is possible to hold the weight over the feet for that entire process of folding. S0m~, :especially those who :have:vi:si~ed :: ] the East for some time, can fold all the way down in!o a squatting positionl Such total balance and opeanes: minimal amounts are certainly helpful. The problem for the irreversible sitters is simply that the weight mo the ends of the heels, and at that point they fall into the chair~'and must vault or push their weight back ontc
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J O U R N A L OF B O D Y W O R K A N D M O V E M E N T T H E R A P I E S
J A N U A R Y 1999
Myers
If yOU compel the attention of your client to the weight on his feet as her folds at the knees and hips, he can keep their weight over his feet until his behind is touching the chair, at which point he can unfold into sitting. In extreme cases, it is necessary to have the client fold very far over, so that the chest is near the knees, before the pelvis can get 10w enough to find the chair seat. Letting the neck go, letting the head hang forward a little, rather than staying hyperextended in horizontal eye contact with the room, will help release the back and counterbalance the pelvis. Letting the head go forward into flexion is very necessary for the reverse process - regaining standing from sitting. Have your client sit forward in the chair to start with, and in more extreme cases it will help to have one foot a little: back from the other, closer to the chair (Fig. 2). Again, it may be necessary to have the client fold quite deeply in the hips to bring the weight out over the feet. A small amount of judicious help from your hand to his belt may be necessary to give him the feel o f 'pouring' the weight from his pelvis to his feet. As soon as the weight shift is accomplished, all but the most disabled will be able to easily attain standing. A few times through this transition point - shifting the weight from feet to pelvis on the chair and back again - will usually suffice tO give the client the autonomy tO do this for himself. Ahl but will he do it as he sits down that night for dinner or to watch the telly or wilI he revert to his old ways? The dynamics of habit change ar e passing strange.
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The author had occasion to watch Dr Feldenkrais practice what he preached. During my time in London, I was working with a classical pianist, doing Rolfing soft-tissue release. He also was in contact with the world of Feldenkrais, a method ! had heard praised by Dr Rolf, but with which I had little experience. The pianist exercised an option for which I will forever miss London: he invited to dinner his Rolfer, a Feldenkrais practitioner, and two psychologists from the famous Tavistock Clinic, and set an intellectual hare for us all to chase. 'Do we learn more through pleasure or through pain?', he asked. He expected, he told me later, for the two psychologists and the Feldenkrais practitioner t° be arrayed on one side of the issue, and me, the Roller, alone on the other side. Given the nature of my treatments in those early years of my practice, he had some reason for this assumption. To his surprise, and to mine, the Rolfer and the Feldenkrais practitioner argued that we learn far more through pleasure than pain, and the two psychologists argued, reluctantly, for pain over pleasure. The Feldenkrais practitioner was apparently also surprised, and as Dr Feldenkxais himself was arriving back from a training in America the next day, we agreed to meet (without the psychologists) at the pianist's fiat. I was mightily impressed by this rotund man in his 70s when, in full spate on the superiority of his itheories to any others (a subject of which, in my presence at least, he never tired), he sat on the end of the pianist's coffee table, a rickety contraption not made for sitting. The table immediately upended like a see-saw, and Feldenkrais, though fully seated or nearly so, simply rose to his feet again without even breaking the flow of his tirade on Ida Roll's inadequacies, and sought another, more stable seat. In spite of any misgivings I might have had, this was a man who lived what he wrote, and I went on to study with him.
JOURNAL
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JANUARY 1999
Kinesthetic dystonia part 3A
were brought to the populace, applied to chairs, beds, wheelchairs, getting up and down from the floor, much would be accomplished toward total movement, as well as allowing a longer duration of autonomous movement for the elderly. Nowhere in the author's basic education was even lip service paid to this highly useful, easily teachable concept. This completes the section on Total Movement. The remainder of the kinesthetic literacy programme acture, organismic response and kinesthetic sensitivity - will appear in the following issue.
REFERENCES Alexander FM 1989 The Alexander technique. Lyle Stuart Alexander M 1992 The use of the self. Gollancz, London
JOURNAL
Barral J 1988 Visceral manipulation, Eastland Press, Seattle Barral J-P 1996 Manual thermal diagnosis. Eastland Press, Seattle Benjamin B 1984 Listen to your pain. Penguin, New York Brooks C 1974 Sensory awareness. Viking, New York Claire T 1995 Bodywork. William Morrow, New York Cohen B 1993 Sensing, feeling and action. Contact Editions, Northampton, MA Crickmay M 1966 Speech therapy and the Bobath approach to cerebral palsy. Charles C. Thomas Ltd Feldenkrais 1972 Awareness through movement. Penguin, New York Hanna T 1988 Somatics. Addison Wesley, New York Hunt V 1996 Infinite mind - the science of human vibrations of consciousness. Malibu Publications Iyengar BKS Light on yoga. Schocken Books Juhan D 1987 Job's body. Station Hill Press, Barrytown, VT Laban R 1971 The mastery of movement, 3rd edn. Plays Inc, Boston
OF BODYWORK
AND MOVEMENT
THERAPIES
McAtee R 1993 Facilitated stretching. Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL Mehta S 1990 Yoga the Lyengar way. Dorling Kindersley, London Myers T 1997 The anatomy trains. Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies 1( ): Myers T 1998a Kinesthetic dystonia, part 1. Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies 2(3): Myers T 1998b Kinesthetic dystonia, part 2. Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies 2( ): Rolf I 1997 Rolfing. Healing Arts Press, Rochester, VT Roth G 1998 Sweat your prayers. JP Tarcher Stirk J 1988 Structural Fitness. Elm Tree Books, p5 London Sutcliffe J 1992 Barnes and Noble Books, New York Tzu-Yin S 1996 The basis of traditional Chinese medicine. Shambala Publications. Upledger J 1983 Craniosacral therapy. Eastland Press, Chicacp, IL
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