The Vertical Animal

Blog Sabbatical...

2012-01-25T18:22:00.000-08:00

Being that I'm teaching a DIY acupressure class over the next month, and completely booked in my bodywork sessions, I'm going to be taking a break from blogging for a while. Please check back in March!

Be well.

Lengthening

2012-01-05T15:11:00.000-08:00

Here's a little experiment to try right now: tilt your head back as far as you can comfortably, and see how far it goes. Return to neutral, and now tilt your head back by lengthening the front of your neck. Did you get any more tilt out of it? You can also imagine the back of your neck lengthening along with the front (obviously not as much), and see if that makes tilting any easier.

This illustrates the idea of lengthening, as developed in Rolfing Structural Integration. Basically, any movement which allows the body to lengthen rather than contract will be more expansive, easy, and effective, because it involves the cooperation of the body as a whole. It's not just "range-of-motion," it's "range of capability." A Structural Integration practitioner looks for this lengthening in movement, showing that the body is well-organized and unrestricted.

Sometimes getting more length is just a matter of learning how to relax. In our example, the muscles of your neck did not overly contract, and so could allow a greater degree of motion. Many times, this learning to relax involves having a certain mental image to cue your body's movement system.

Other times, it takes some serious time and work to get lengthening to fully occur. In Structural Integration work, we try to release restrictions in the connective tissue of the body, tissue which is not as easy to control with the conscious mind. These restrictions put a limit on how much length our movements can create.

Most people seem to benefit from a combination of bodywork and movement explorations in order to understand and use length in movement. It's something we can all work more on, but something that is endlessly rewarding as well.

Why Scarves are so Good

2012-01-02T09:07:00.000-08:00

With the cold wind blowing in Madison as I write this, it's a fitting time to bring up the topic of scarves. Seen by many as a dainty fashion accessory (as worn by British pop stars and TV icons), the scarf provides a warming function far beyond the surface area it covers.

I recently learned from my wife, a certified holistic nutritionist, that the back of the neck contains a high level of "brown fat," a highly metabolic type of fat that is common in newborns and cold-weather animals like bears. Brown fat burns energy quickly to raise body temperature, but this can mean heat loss through the neck and upper chest. While it's certainly a myth that 90% of your body heat escapes via your head, it also looks like there's good reason to keeping your upper parts covered.

Of course, if anyone's ever touched the back of your neck with a cold hand, you know the instinctive protectiveness you have for this area. The ancient Chinese thought that energies of cold and wind could invade this area (referred to as GV 14), causing infections as well as stiff necks and other joint problems. Recently, science has begun to link cold temperatures with decreased immune function, reversing previous scientific thinking on the issue, and indicating once again that there's a lot of wisdom in the Chinese way of thinking.

Looks like I should start accessorizing.

Momentary Awareness

2011-12-30T11:53:00.000-08:00

Try this for a minute: Notice how your body feels. More specifically, notice how it feels to have a body- sensations of clothing, pressure from furniture, your skin, your breathing, the sense of the volume inside you, the sense of the space around you. Not looking for any "problems," not judging, just being in your physical presence.

Much of the time we are mostly unaware of our physical nature, caught up in our thoughts of past and future, worrying, trying to figure things out. It is of course necessary to have these abstract thoughts, but we are seriously lacking a sense of embodiment in our culture, as if our bodies were machines to be tuned up through exercise once in a while (while we listen to an iPod), and then ignored the rest of the day while we live in our little worlds of thought. You see the results of this in the rigidity of our walks, in the awkwardness of our movements. We are tuned out.

It is my belief that much of the neurosis of modern life relates to this tuning out, to a weird abstract detachment from our physical being. Modern cures for our psychological ailments often look to a simpler, older way of life as an example- barefoot running, manual labor, etc. Getting in tune with your body gets you in tune with the mind, and it relates you to the simple pleasures of being- feet on the grass, air on the skin, the sweet tiredness after a workout. Just exercising while distracted is not enough to return us to this; it takes real awareness and a willingness to stop multitasking for a little while.

You can put tiny little moments of awareness into your day by just stopping once in a while to notice the basic fact that you have a body. In time, maybe this awareness can start to co-exist with your activities, so that even when you are doing math problems or surfing the web, you can stay grounded in yourself.

Holy Days and Generosity

2011-12-20T13:17:00.000-08:00

As thankfulness is to Thanksgiving, so is generosity to Christmas/Kwanzaa/The Solstice/etc. Winter, with its darkness and cold, seems an ideal time for meditating on and practicing generosity, since the weather makes us want to draw into ourselves at the same time that many are the most needy. This is as good a reason as any for gift-giving, or donating to charity during this time of year- as we need to work harder to have loose muscles when the cold and ice cause us to tighten up, we also need to keep our sense of generosity in shape.

Interestingly, a recent study indicates that generous behavior may have physical health benefits! Behaving generously reduced cortisol levels in the study, indicating reduced stress levels. This wouldn't surprise me all that much; generosity connects us to others, and reduces the stress of feeling isolated, while greed does the opposite.

It's also no surprise that religions of various strips all advocate giving as a way of life; besides spiritual benefits, it encourages a decent society and personal health. From my perspective, it also encourages one to focus more on well-being and less on external accoutrements; having loosened our grip on materialism, we are reminded of what matters to us the most.

The Curious Case of My Breathing

2011-11-30T09:20:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago, I had a revelatory experience with my breath. Suddenly my body just started breathing from my belly, gently and deeply, without any effort or intention. I was "being breathed" by the air, and the walls of my ego seemed like open windows, connected with everything around. I felt massive relaxation spread through my body. When I walked around afterward, I felt much more grounded.

These experiences are not uncommon when one studies mind-body healing for a period of time. They can also encourage us to keep up our training! The interesting thing is that while you can get closer to these moments through practice, there is a whole different quality to them that is not about effort or techniques- it's like everything gives way into a natural flow, much better than what we could contrive.

Unfortunately, in my case, I promptly spent the next week trying hard to re-create the same natural experience. It led to all sorts of problems with my breathing, even though I was trying to do everything "correctly." I was blocking myself, of course, and creating more tension in my body.

Then night an odd thing happened. Again out of nowhere, the voice of some vaguely Greek sounding man popped into my head, saying in broken English, "You think too much! Just take nice big baby breath! Happy fat baby breathing!" And lo, my happy belly breathing returned just like that. Now, I just have to invite that voice in order to get it back.

Why on Earth would this be the way my body and mind would choose to signal me how to get back to this easy breath? No idea. Maybe the randomness of this voice was important in bypassing my controlled ideas of what to do, I don't know. The important thing is that everyone has their own ways of finding naturalness! It's important to let whatever quirky or strange process happen that needs to happen. The wisdom of the body, simply doing what it does, is beyond our ability to think things through. This was an important lesson for me, once again.

So may you all have happy fat baby breathing!

Self-Acupressure: Joining the Valley

2011-11-18T15:53:00.001-08:00

So I've ventured into the world of video blogging, with this little number on a point called Colon 4, or "Joining the Valley" in Chinese medicine.

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In order to use acupressure most effectively, you will want to read Acupressure's Potent Points, by Michael Reed Gach, or check back for my upcoming blog post on self-acupressure. Enjoy!

DIY Sports - Tricking

2011-11-14T13:05:00.001-08:00

Roller derby, parkour, tricking, freerunning... the past years have seen homespun athleticism vault to prominence in myriad, often breathtaking forms. These athletic styles emerge from subcultures and spread virally via social media. Practitioners maintain a do-it-yourself ethic, often actively trying to prevent their sport from becoming a paid profession. Like any artist, they do what they do for it's own sake, and maybe for whatever limited fame it may bring them. And like breakdancing (properly called "breaking"), whole cultures have grown up around these activities. For some practitioners, they are a way of life.

I find this all really cool to watch, so I think I'll share a few examples of what I'm talking about. Recently, a client introduced me to the amazing sport of tricking, and sent me the following video:

To me, watching this borders on a spiritual experience. This despite the fact that cartwheels are the height of my gymnastic achievement. The sheer joy of it is contagious. So I spent several days browsing the Web for other examples, of which there are thousands. Indeed, tricking as a sport developed largely through the Internet, with many practitioners being largely self-taught, relying on YouTube for help. (This is obviously a Generation Y phenomenon.) However, it's roots also come from the martial arts such as Capoeira, which was developed by Brazilian slaves during Portuguese colonialization, and from traditional gymnastics. This is part of the fun of DIY sports- blending influences and creating new styles.

Despite the fact that many of us are never going to amount to much as "tricksters," we can still gain something from watching these feats. There is an expanded and enriched view of what our body is, and what it can do. Based on recent studies of mirror neurons, it is possible that we can raise our physical intelligence just by watching a well-performed activity. We are inspired to take joy and pleasure in our own bodies moving through space, bringing us back to our lives in real-time. I believe that any exercise benefits us more when we enjoy it, and at least we're inspired to continue with it!

On Gratitude

2011-11-09T09:00:00.000-08:00

Greetings from Wisconsin, land of the wintry mix! (For those less familiar with the phrase, this "wintry mix" currently includes rain, ice, snow, wind, and power outages.) I feel fortunate to be typing this entry accompanied by a cup of licorice tea and the music of Radiohead. We certainly have our share of luxury to be thankful for.

Heading into Thanksgiving, we are as usual seeing signs of early Christmas sales and shopping mania. Wouldn't it be nice if we had an extended Thanksgiving season instead? We could have little rituals every day to maintain our observance of life's wonders and gifts. Instead of giving and getting more, we could more gracefully receive what we already have.

If this sounds too New Age-ist, consider the health benefits associated with gratitude according to WebMD, including reduced stress, improved immunity, and better outcomes from surgery. They recommend the common method of keeping a daily gratitude journal, a notebook where you write down five things you are grateful for every day to exercise your gratitudinal muscles. This regular, simple practice helps you to maintain positive states of mind through the day. It can also carry you through harder times when there doesn't seem to be much to be thankful for. For this reason, it's good to start practicing gratitude before the wintry mix of emotions sets in.

Bodywork and Emotional Release

2011-11-01T08:48:00.000-07:00

"If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."
-The Gnostic Gospels

It happens all the time in bodywork: someone comes in with back pain or a shoulder injury, and while getting it worked on suddenly feels a flood of emotion that seems to well up from their tissues into their mind. Sometimes there is a great outpouring of emotion, requiring a box of Kleenexes, and sometimes there is just a watering of the eyes or a lump in the throat.

What is happening here? Bodyworkers used to say that emotions got "trapped in the cells." This idea was ridiculed by professional skeptics, who dismissed it as unscientific. But in practice, that's what it feels like- something has been locked in the body and gets released. My opinion is that strong emotions get shunted from the brain and into the peripheral backwaters of the nervous system, where they are held as tension. It seems like this overflow happens when an emotional experience seems too powerful (as in trauma), the expression of that emotion is not socially acceptable, or the emotional state is repeated often over time. The body then becomes a container for it, allowing the energy of the emotion to express itself inwardly instead of outwardly.

This containment of the emotion serves a purpose in the short-term, but in the long-term it can interfere with the body's functions, in terms of movement, circulation, digestion, pain, and so on. It also can become a habit to "stuff" emotions in our physical suitcase rather than letting them be expressed, which can stunt one's emotional and social growth.

When a bodywork therapist touches into areas affected by these emotional holding patterns, it causes you to re-experience the emotions linked with these areas. In the safe environment of therapy, these can then be expressed with tears, trembling, or laughter. The body can relax, and the energy that was spent on maintaining this pattern can be used in other ways. Often you feel "cleaned out" and more energized after such a release. Your emotional states can become more appropriate, responsive to situations as they arise rather than always being stuck in a holding pattern from long ago. Physical function becomes easier and less painful.

The power released by these experiences can be intense. It's important that a bodyworker not push you too hard to have a release. For one thing, too much too soon can be disorienting. Also, because of the mind's inability to deal with them, the emotional energy can cycle back into your tissue, setting you up to need more "release" experiences in the future in an way that resembles addiction. So a skillful bodyworker will allow the release to occur but will not charge ahead faster than you are ready.

On the other hand, if you are not at all inwardly ready or open for an emotional release, your body probably won't let it happen, and this sometimes can prevent a bodyworker from being able to help you as much. In these cases, it may be better to first seek psychological or spiritual counseling, so that your mind can handle what comes up from your body.

Asian Bodywork Therapy

2011-10-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

As I recently got re-licensed in Asian bodywork therapy, I thought I'd take some time to explain to you all what it is.

Asia is a big place, so the term "Asian bodywork" is really way too general. Taken literally, it would encompass the style I practice, AMMA Therapy which originated from Korea, as well as Thai massage, Ayurvedic massage from India, Tuina from China, and Shiatsu from Japan. There are doubtless thousands of other styles I have never even heard of that these words could apply to!

That being the case, "Asian bodywork" usually refers to the systems of bodywork which are related to Chinese medical philosophy. The national accrediting organization which I am certified by uses this definition, since Chinese thought spread to other countries such as Korea and Japan long ago, and was adopted and altered by them.

Anyway, there are some differences between Asian bodywork and Western massage. First off, oils are not usually used. Light clothing may often be worn by the patient. Your therapist will focus on acupressure points as well as on relaxing muscles and moving fluids, to affect both the surface of the body and the internal organs.

AMMA Therapy, like many styles of Asian bodywork, is designed to ground and center the patient. The general idea is that the centering of vital energy, or Qi, will help heal the whole body. Therefore, it is useful not only for muscle aches and tension, but for conditions like colds, flus, headaches, menstrual problems, constipation, and so on. Certain acupressure points and other techniques are used depending on the condition.

Traditionally, Asian bodywork was a comprehensive healing system, and is useful today as an adjunct to medical care, but also to create deep states of healing and peace in body and mind!

Shifting with the Seasons

2011-10-18T09:53:00.000-07:00

Here in Wisconsin, "seasonal shift" is usually a euphemism for "it's about to get really cold and dark for a long time." Like the squirrels, we scramble through fall to prepare for this inexorable reality. Here are some ways to help keep your mind and body well into the winter:

• Get your Vitamin D. Either through natural sunlight, or through vitamin D-3 supplements (I suggest D-3 rather than the vegetarian D-2 because it is considered to be more easily used by our bodies.) We don't get as much sun in the winter, and some groups, such as the elderly or people with dark skin, are especially at risk for deficiency since their bodies aren't as efficient at producing D from sunlight. Many doctors are now recommending very high doses for those who are already deficient, and lower doses for those who want to prevent deficiency. If you think that you may be deficient, you can get a blood test done.

• Layer up. A drop in temperature can be harder for the body to deal with than ongoing cold weather. Be prepared with extra layers, gloves, etc. Don't forget to keep your neck and head covered- although the saying that 90% of your heat escapes through your head is not true, keeping covered will help you stay warm and protected from colds or flus.

• Stay active physically. If you don't let cold weather stop you from exercising, you'll feel less sluggish. If you don't like being outside in winter, try something indoors. I'd recommend not skimping on the aerobic stuff either.

• Prepare for yard work or shoveling. Do a little loosening up beforehand, and don't jump in too quickly if you aren't in shape (also, stay in shape!). When lifting bags of leaves or heavy snow, don't rise and turn at the same time, and bend from the hips. Snow shoveling in particular can trigger heart attacks, which is very good reason to keep up the aerobics through winter.

• Prepare your hibernation space. Clean, bright, comfortable- a good space to enjoy the company of friends and loved ones.

• Get enough sleep. I am a firm believer in adapting to changes in light. Being more active in the summer, and less in the winter, seems only natural and less stressful. You can embark on a "winter cleaning" to rid your schedule of extra activities, which is in itself stress-reducing. Winter is also a great season for meditation and contemplation to rid your mind of its debris!

By living sensibly, you can stay well and active during the winter months, and be ready for the return of spring, which must also come...

Back to Nature, Again

2011-10-12T15:08:00.000-07:00

Spending much of last week in Wisconsin's beautiful Driftless Area, I once again realized the same thing I always realize when I'm out in nature: I need to do this more often. I'm sure many people have the same experience. It's not just a matter of having better scenery or fewer leafblowers to annoy you. It's restorative. It connects you back in to the larger scheme of things. It lets you breathe deep of the vastness and the sheer oldness of the world. You leave with an inner poetry, vowing to return again soon. If you're lucky, you remember that vow before the memory becomes faded and small.

There is now a whole field of psychology which studies our healing connection with nature. Called ecopsychology, or ecotherapy, it puts into academic terms what many of us know instinctively- our minds are better off when we are in full contact with nature from time to time. Ecopsychology terms the "call of the wild" our biophilic instinct. These psychologists hope to heal both us and the natural world by reconnecting the two.

Beyond the sheer beauty of it, there is something refreshing and humbling about being in a wide world which is totally unconcerned with our own little plans and goals. Tai chi teacher Bob Klein called this the "devil-may-care" attitude of nature. As every poet since papyrus has noted, there is something very spiritual about being immersed in it. I believe it's this mysteriousness which draws us back even when we know it might be storming or mosquito-filled, or the leaves might have all fallen already.

So don't forget to take the time to get back out there! The experience is worth it.

The Econ of not Getting Conned

2011-09-27T08:08:00.000-07:00

I've been occasionally writing articles on not getting hoodwinked by alternative health practitioners, including the pseudo-guru. Alas, there is enough slimy behavior and hype in alternative (or mainstream) medicine that it's worth going back to a previous point I made:

A lot of alternative medicine practitioners will set their prices high simply to increase their business. If you don't know how to compare practitioners, it's natural to assume that expensive=good, and that's what these people bet on. This would be a bad business strategy for selling gasoline or salt, but it's good for some things like gourmet food and wellness services. In econ-speak, it's "creating a demand."

How do I know this is true? It was recommended as a business strategy by one of my teachers at a bodywork school! This person said that when they went into business, they set their prices higher than other, more experienced practitioners, and got more business because people assumed they were better. This unethical behavior happens all the time in my line of work, sorry to say. It's encouraged. It also keeps many people who could benefit from such services scared away due to high prices.

What to do as a consumer? Simply be aware of this tendency. Also notice any tendency in yourself to value the effects of highly-priced work more highly, which is a way we rationalize paying so much. A high price doesn't always mean a scammy practitioner, obviously, but some of the best work I've personally gotten was for low rates, because the practitioner cared enough about their community to try and be affordable to a larger number of people.

It is important for your healing process to give something in exchange for healing, so this is not to say that really cheap or free services are going to be better, either. I personally try to stay affordable and reasonable, providing a work-exchange option for people who don't have as much money. These kinds of options do exist in many places, so don't be shy about using them!

You Say Tai Chi, I Say Taiji

2011-09-20T08:45:00.000-07:00

What is it about tai chi that I love so much? This ancient art which is commonly perceived as a slow dance for elderly people is a powerful exercise, and potentially a powerful martial art when used correctly. In this fitness era of CrossFit/Pilates/Zumba/every type of yoga imaginable/etc., tai chi, or as my school calls it, "taiji," has much to offer our society.

To begin with, it's very relaxing. Not in the sense of going to a spa, but learning to stay loose and calm in action. This type of relaxation is especially powerful because you can learn to keep it with you through in other activities. The Mayo Clinic recommends taiji for stress, anxiety, and tension reduction, as well as other benefits such as reducing falls, lowering blood pressure, and relieving chronic pain. The relaxed action of taiji endows it with much of the martial arts power seen in the above video. It is also sometimes said that stress is a factor in up to 80% of diseases, making taiji a defense against a variety of assaults!

Along with relaxation, it teaches economy of movement, using as little energy as possible to accomplish a task. This adds to the power of one's actions; normally, much of our energy is dissipated by "fighting ourselves" and using too much force, which actually weakens us. One major difference between taiji and yoga is that yoga challenges us beyond our normal limits, while taiji often makes us more effective within our limits.

Another major benefit is the uber-popular "core strength," in this case power which flows from the legs and lower body and into the arms. If taiji seems easy, attend a few classes and see how tired your legs get! Many people find it to be one of the more difficult endurance exercises for their legs.

Then there's the mind-body aspect, where you learn to use more of your mind and less body strength to perform actions. Learning to relax also gives you greater awareness of your own body and emotional states. At a certain point, taiji lends itself toward spiritual development, as your mind and body meld together, and you learn to face confrontations with an inner attitude of non-violence and calm. I recommend finding a taiji school which teaches the martial aspects, such as push hands (tuishou), because without them, the taiji experience is not as powerful, even in terms of health benefits. I'll leave you with another video of a taiji teacher demonstrating how harmonious action is necessary for taiji development:

Body Ecology

2011-09-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

So the wise soul
watches with the inner
not the outward eye,
letting that go,
keeping this.
-Tao Te Ching, trans. Ursula K. Le Guin

"All is well." The thought rang through my mind and body like a meditation bell. I had just received one of my first sessions of bodywork therapy, and I felt as if the whole world had transformed into a peaceful, perfect place. The tension, the angst, the feverish grasping of my young and restless mind- all of these melted within me. I knew I had found something very real, something important for me and the restless, suffering world. Since then, this "something" has changed the course of my life.

All is certainly not well in our world. Depending on who you ask, our entire race may be running toward self-destruction, taking uncounted other species with us. As awareness of this grows, we try to
respond by recycling, buying hybrids, and creating green power alternatives, all of which are wonderful steps. Unfortunately, it seems that our greed, hatred, and self-importance may be more than a match for our technological advances.

What to do? My friends Ryan and Mandy, creators of the Within Reach movie about environmentally conscious living, have a simple and elegant slogan: "Sustainability is within reach, if we reach within." We find that if we honor and attend to our inner worlds, we sometimes unearth resources we never knew about, and we suddenly need fewer physical resources to keep us contented. In turn this gives us time and energy to help others.

The bodywork and movement disciplines, such as tai chi, yoga, massage, Feldenkrais, and Rolfing®Structural Integration, offer one path to this self-discovery. Collectively, these are called "somatic"disciplines, meaning that they are largely based on a deep experience of one's own body, or "soma." It is this experience that teaches us about who we are, both in body and mind, and helps us to respectfully let go of tendencies which no longer serve us, such as excess muscle tension or repressed emotions. It shows us clearly how our body and mind are interwoven, thus returning our unhappy, detached minds back to a meaningful life in the real world.

This makes it more possible for us to realize how we are connected to everyone around us- we share the same air, the same soil, the same sunlight. And we know that we need to care for these things. At
the same time, this caring becomes easier, because we experience greater contentment within, and no longer need to spend so much of our lives accumulating material things in search of happiness.

Acupressure and Science

2011-09-02T15:10:00.000-07:00

When science subjects traditional Asian medicine to rigorous analysis, it usually picks acupuncture as its test subject. This is not surprising, because MDs are more likely to send patients to acupuncturists than other alternative/natural/what-have-you practitioners. Acupuncture also has a dramatic image going for it- sticking needles into people, burning weird herbs over the skin- which invites curiosity. The scientific debate continues on, with one study finding benefits and the next finding nothing.

Meanwhile, the art of acupressure has been left out of the drama almost entirely. I find this curious and disappointing, because acupressure is to me a great tool for mind-body healing. So, I set out on a brief webquest to find out what evidence there may be for or against it. I mostly ignored sites that were obvious lovers or haters of alternative medicine, and here's what I came up with from the rest (the vast majority are from National Institute of Health publications):

-Acupressure has strong evidence for pain reduction.
-It also has pretty strong evidence for nausea.
-It has preliminary evidence for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) relief.
-It may increase alertness.
-It may be better for back pain than physical therapy.
-It may promote recovery from stroke.
-It may reduce anxiety during ambulance trips.
-It may decrease agitated behavior during dementia.
-It may reduce fatigue.
-It seems helpful for insomnia, neurological disorders, and general symptoms.

So, that's a random pile of things pulled from the 'webs. As usual, evidence is conflicting when it comes to medical studies, so it's hard to tell thus far where acupressure will shine in the light of science. It is nice to see the research being done, but I also hope that the lens being used is not too narrowly focused- acupressure emerged from a very different way of understanding the body than Western medicine did, and that should be taken into account!

Again With the Low Back

2011-08-14T08:56:00.000-07:00

I've done a couple of posts about back health, but I'd like to go over a few basic self-care tips for the low back again, to put them in one place. Low back pain can be located anywhere from the bottom of your rib cage to your butt, and has many possible causes, so if you have serious low-back pain or involve shooting or tingling sensations or numbness, it might be best to have it looked at! Ok, here we go:

1) An easy low-back self-massage is the "kidney rub" from tai chi. Basically, you make loose fists with both hands, then rub up and down along your lower spine, a couple of inches out from the center. You can focus the pressure a few inches above your waist, or spread it around. Rub vigorously enough to create some warmth (you can rub your hands together beforehand to warm them up). If you have serious problems, such as degeneration of the spinal discs, you want to avoid this one. The Chinese traditionally do this in multiples of 6, especially 36, but you can probably do any number.

2) Gentle abdominal breathing can actually help the back quite a bit, by reducing muscle tension opposite the spine. It is important for your core muscles to support the back, but carrying a lot of tension tends to put a lot of unbalancing pressure on it. To begin with, just allow your belly to gently expand when you inhale, then deflate when you exhale, without much effort. You can put your palms on your belly, below your navel, to see if it's moving. Then, you can bring awareness to the sides of your abdomen, allowing them to move, and then to the back. If you find any tension in those areas, see if you can let it go. It's important to breathe slowly, without a lot of force. You can also imagine your belly expanding slightly downward as well, towards your pelvis. It might help to visualize your abdomen expanding in all directions like a beach ball inflating, then shrinking as the air gets let out. This is another one you can do pretty much all the time.

3) Here's a nice gentle twist, also from tai chi: Stand with your feet flat, about shoulder width or a little farther apart. Let your arms relax and hang down. Imagine the top of your head being pulled up toward the sky with an imaginary rope, and the rest of your body, especially your spine, hanging from it in a relaxed way (chest and shoulders also relaxed), with feet sinking into the ground. Rotate your waist, so your arms flop around- when you rotate right, your right arm will flop behind you, and your left will cross in front of you. The hand that goes behind you can slap alongside your spine, to give that area a little stimulating massage. Your head and neck just go in the direction of your waist passively, but if you want to you can turn them a little bit extra. This should feel a little bit like you're wringing your spine out like a towel. It should be loosening, and not straining! Traditionally, the Chinese would do exercises like this in multiples of six, but you can do any number.

4) Watch the amount of stress, both work-related and emotional, in your life. Your back may actually be telling you something about your mind as well as your body!

Pain, No Gain

2011-08-01T15:23:00.001-07:00

Recently I heard a story which disturbed me. A friend of mine went to a massage therapist after a foot race, to unwind some muscle tension. This therapist (I use the term loosely) proceeded to use a ton of pressure, causing bruising. When asked to stop, the therapist simply replied that deep work was necessary. The client feel much more tense afterwards, needless to say, and was unable to go to work the next day due to the severity of problems that arose.

Later, my friend said that they had asked for deep work before the session started, and so should be held in part to blame for the situation. I disagree strongly. "Deep work" can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, and so a therapist needs to be able to vary pressure accordingly. My friend is no stranger to deep work, and is quite an athlete as well, which all makes the story more unsettling.

There is a serious breach of trust and ethical boundaries when a bodywork practitioner behaves in this way! Besides the obvious physical problems that can arise, taking advantage of the power difference in a therapeutic situation is emotionally unhealthy to the recipient. If an intense amount of pressure is called for, and the client says "No," there should be a reasonable conversation between therapist and client, during which the therapist explains specifically why the work needs to be done- and there should be permission given to continue. Ideally , this conversation should happen before the client is lying face-down and unclothed, because assertive decision-making can be more difficult under these circumstances. (Sometimes that's not possible, because a therapist may discover a problem while working, but you can be aware of any added psychological tendency to "give in" while in a vulnerable position.)

So, please, do not return to see a body therapist who ignores your plea to work more lightly- you will be doing yourself a favor.

Be well!

The Holiest Holism

2011-07-26T10:35:00.000-07:00

This word "holism" has gotten really irritating in recent years. Sometimes it seems to be a synonym for "new-age," and other times it seems like a fancy jargon word with no real meaning.

But holism does have a real meaning. In its strongest sense, it refers to the intriguing idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This means that in a complex working system such as a person, you can't explain every aspect of the system by breaking it down into smaller pieces (tissues, cells, atoms, etc.). There is something about the nature of a whole person that just can't be found in those little pieces.

Healing arts that use holism in this sense look at something beyond specific diseases or problems, and into the patterns that run through a person. For example, in Rolfing® Structural Integration, we examine how the whole body sits, stands, and walks in the gravity field around it. Because we're trying to balance the body in gravity, we can't just look at one or two (or twelve) parts that need changing, and then put them where we think they should be according to the latest scientific data. We have to balance every part with respect to everything else! This means that there is no one best place for everyone's left shin, but each individual's shin needs to find a happy balance with the rest of their unique body structure. Body parts get shifted, and then re-shifted as the overall balance changes.

In a weaker sense, "holism" refers to the fact that all kinds of factors lead to your level of health, and you should look at diet, exercise, and spiritual well-being as some of the many facets of your life that can be adjusted to make yourself healthier. This is also a good idea, but doesn't have quite the punch of the strong version of holism, which I hope is obvious. True holism is on a different wavelength from conventional medicine, but the two can interact quite well with each other.

Hopefully this little vocabulary lesson comes in handy!

(For an interesting, much more philosophical discussion, check out this blog post.)

Using Chiropractic for Mind-Body Health

2011-07-24T11:15:00.000-07:00

Chiropractic is a sweepingly popular approach to health, and every two-dog town in the country seems to have at least one back doc with a shingle out. Like any healing art that has been around for a while, it comes in all kinds of flavors for you to choose from. So what criteria should you look for? I have a couple of suggestions from the mind-body perspective to help you decide when in doubt.

First, the chiropractic I've received has been the most beneficial for my mind-body sense when it isn't done with a great deal of force. Heavy force may be necessary for some spinal situations, but it is easier for me to actually learn from a treatment when my body isn't bombarded. So look for a practitioner who isn't always pounding away on you, but is trying to work with your body rather than against it. (It also feels better.) If you walk away feeling more aware and alive in your body, your mind-body connection is being benefited. If you feel physically "out of it," or awkward, you probably didn't get benefit in that way, although it might be a necessary side-effect of a strong treatment which benefited you in other ways.

Secondly, a chiropractor with mind-body savvy will invite you to experience for yourself how your body feels, instead of just telling you how things are, or saying "Feel how messed up that is?" Curiosity, awareness, and exploration are parts of mind-body healing (and the somatic arts).

Thirdly, adding some massage, myofascial, or body movement techniques to the treatment can help your body process the changes from a treatment better, and also help the joints to "hold" the changes longer according to many chiropractors. If your chiropractor does something along these lines, that's a good sign. If they team up with a soft tissue therapist (bodywork or massage therapist), that's also a good sign.

Be well!

Bodywork and Spirituality

2011-07-21T07:51:00.000-07:00

I hesitated to write an article about the spiritual side of bodywork, because it's hard to define "spiritual" in the first place, and I don't want to say that bodywork is inherently more spiritual than doing laundry or something. But somehow, the experience of getting bodywork often seems spiritual to me and to other people. Why is that?

Mainly, getting bodywork or movement therapy brings us into more contact with our actual physical experience. It takes us out of our heads, where we can spin so many little mental webs that keep us isolated from the rest of the world. When we get bodywork, it draws our attention out of our personal dramas and into sensations, which at least interrupts our thoughts long enough to remember to experience the ongoing richness of life. This way, it can bring us out of our little worlds and into the World-at-Large, connecting us to the things around us. (That's my loose definition for "spiritual-" connecting to the world as a whole, beyond our personal agendas.)

Through these sensations, we start to notice an amazing and beautiful complexity at work within us. In experiencing the rich and seemingly infinite world beneath the skin, we feel a sense of wonder that is akin to looking at the starry night sky. This sense of wonder also reduces our preoccupations with our personal dramas.

We discover that these dramas often go far beyond our "minds," and get lodged in our bodies as tension and postural changes, which then negatively impact our moods and behaviors. When a massage therapist presses on a tight muscle, you release how much tension you're holding, and you start to notice a connection between mental stress, emotions, and physical tensions. Your daily life becomes easier, as you become less likely to "hold on" to negative emotion and stress.

I don't think that bodywork is always a spiritual experience, or that it needs to be. I do think that it can be a useful adjunct to a religious or spiritual practice. Sometimes bodywork even becomes a formal part of a religion, used to develop spiritual understanding. At the very least, it can improve our emotional states and make life easier!

Swinging Arms

2011-07-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed how awkward it feels to walk with the same arm and leg swinging forward at the same time? If you carry a bag over one shoulder so that your arm can't swing, do you notice how your other arm swings more? Have you tried holding your arms at your sides when walking, and felt how different it is from letting your arms swing?

From common experience, it's obvious that arm swinging is an important part of walking. I've been thinking a bit lately about what it is that makes it so important, and I'll share some ideas from my own study and experience.

Being able to walk smoothly and efficiently, as opposed to marching around, means that your spine and your legs have to move in coordination. Your spine twists and untwists, storing and releasing energy in a rhythmic pattern. Your arms can help this, by moving in the opposite directions as your legs to increase the twist. They also help your body stay balanced in gravity by partly counterbalancing your legs' weight. Additionally, they channel the energy of your feet impacting the ground and your spine twisting into a forward direction, helping to keep you moving easily in a straight line, instead of off to the side.

All of this depends on your body being relatively relaxed and "natural" when walking. Your arms have to swing easily, not held stiff or pushing with a lot of effort (these things will tighten up your upper spine). When you move fast, like in running, it is more important to hold your arms up and use effort to propel them.

You can play with this when strolling around. Just observe your arms swinging, letting go of the need to hold on to them with tension or push them around or anything (imagining your hands being soft can help). Imagine your spine being pliable and able to move- you don't have to control this movement consciously, just stay kind of loose. If you do this for a while, you may find your walk becoming easier and more enjoyable. If doing this is difficult, getting good bodywork or movement education can get you to a point where you can explore on your own.

The Secret Life of the Foot

2011-07-03T08:05:00.000-07:00

Last time, I talked about your hands, and how important they are for your mind-body connection. Today I'll talk a little about your feet, which play a different but very powerful role.

(photo by Mattes at WikiMedia, under Creative Commons license)

Each foot actually contains 26 bones, many joints and muscles, and numerous nerve endings. Between them, your feet contain a quarter of your bones! These bones are designed to move in a variety of ways, combining flexibility with strength. If they can wiggle, then your balance is easier, because your feet can naturally adapt to the surface they're standing on. If they're stuck, then the rest of your body needs to work harder to achieve balance.

Your ankles also play a huge role in balance, whether standing or walking. They contain numerous specialized nerves, which aid in your body's ability to figure out how it is positioned (an ability called "proprioception"). Your brain checks the read-out from these nerves to determine which muscles need to fire to keep you upright. There seems to be a strong connection from the nerves of your soles and ankles into the "core" muscles of your abdomen and spine that stabilize your upper body.

In somatic arts, the soles of the feet are often focused on to create better balance and support for your body. Becoming more aware of your foot's contact with the ground (even through a shoe) can refine your whole-body coordination. You can do this simply by noticing which parts of your feet touch the ground, where the pressure is heaviest, and how the pressure changes as you move. Sometimes it helps to imagine the bottoms of your feet being soft, and your weight being able to sink through them into the ground. For some people, it works better to imagine roots extending from your feet into the Earth, or an eye on the bottom of your foot seeing the ground beneath it. You can tell if an approach is working because there will be a shift through your body, allowing excess tension to relax. Being barefoot can help you get a better feel for it.

My dad, an avid walker and hunter, mentioned recently that "looking" at the ground with your feet helps you walk through the woods without falling over. This advice comes not out of the Eastern martial arts, but out of the Wisconsin hunting tradition, showing how universally applicable it is! So make sure that your feet are an active part of your body.

Hands, So Soft

2011-06-24T08:36:00.000-07:00

A huge amount of our brain is devoted to awareness and control of our hands. If you made a picture of your body, where each body part was sized according to how much sensory awareness your brain gets from it, it would look something like this:

(Image provided by Btarski at en.wikipedia, subject to Creative Commons license.)

Pretty crazy, right? Your thumb alone is bigger than the rest of your arm! This has important implications for your mind-body health.

To put this knowledge to use, you can practice relaxing or "softening" your hands and fingers while you use them at the computer, smartphone, etc. It's interesting how much extra tension we put into our hands while doing these activities. Learning to relax some of this tension can reduce strain on our hands, but also send messages to the rest of the body to relax. In tai chi, it's a place we focus on to aid general relaxation.

How do you "soften?" You can imagine your hands being made out of a soft material, like cotton, or flowing water. You can also think about your hands having no muscles, only bones. Different things work for different people. Often just becoming aware of excess tension helps defuse it.

Be well!

Gravity and You

2011-06-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

Imagine you have a 150-lb pole balanced upright on the ground, and that you want to keep it that way. If it's perfectly balanced, your task is perfectly easy- the force of gravity goes straight down through the pole into the ground. But as soon as the pole starts to tilt a little bit, you have to find some way of keeping it from falling over. Even if the pole slants one degree, it now takes 2.6 pounds of resistance to hold it up, which you have to keep going constantly. At two degrees, the pressure is over 5 pounds. At five degrees, it's over 13 pounds! (The pressure increases faster than the tilt at these low angles.)

In my Rolfing® Structural Integration practice, I do commonly have clients who have several degrees of tilt, which is usually unknown to them. This means that their bodies are dealing with a lot of sideways pressure on an ongoing basis. It's harder to deal with than having a few extra pounds of body weight, just as someone pushing against you is harder to deal with than a weight pushing down on you.

Of course, people's bodies find ways to adapt to this, which often impair movement and cost more energy than having a more vertical body structure. Many times, our upper bodies will tilt forward in order to balance a backward tilt in our lower bodies (this is one factor when your shoulders and neck keep coming forward despite your best efforts). Unfortunately, this counterbalancing restricts easy movement in a variety of ways, and causes thickening in connective tissue, which leads to decreased circulation and flexibility. It is ideal, in a changing world, to be able to move in many directions easily, but this takes the ability to return to a balanced state between movements (think of our pole in the above example, and how if it is upright you can push it in any direction easily).

This is not meant to criticize anyone whose structure is tilted! Life deals us many twists and turns, so our bodies have to twist and turn to keep up. Sometimes we get stuck in those twists, and we need help getting out. This is why there are several somatic arts which focus on getting your body into a more vertical position- yoga, Structural Integration, tai chi, etc.

Does Qi Exist?

2011-06-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

Qi, the concept of universal energy, is now firmly a part of our Western culture. Fortunately, this means that you can use your "q" tiles in Scrabble more easily. So does qi really exist? This question was recently posed to me by a client, and I'll have a go at answering it.

A little background is in order: Qi, also spelled "chi" in English, is a huge part of the Chinese healing arts, including tai chi, qi gong, acupuncture, and Asian bodywork therapy. The goal of these arts, traditionally, was to develop and balance the qi of the body, to promote vitality and health, and gain harmony with the universe. The Japanese express a similar concept, "ki" which is part of the shiatsu bodywork and martial arts like Aikido. Energy development is inextricably part of these arts, and of the cultures they came from. They're so intertwined that it's almost irrelevant whether qi actually exists- it's such a convenient description for describing one's harmony, health, and state of mind, that even if you don't believe in it you can use it metaphorically or poetically. It's like saying "bad luck;" even if you don't believe in "luck" as a mysterious force, you still use the term out of convenience.

For example, karate students are often taught to concentrate their ki in their bellies. This often means something like, "focus your awareness, be centered, and breathe into your abdomen." So you can pretend that you have some kind of energy that you are concentrating in your belly, and in doing so you accomplish all of this more effectively. There's something about our mind-body coordination that responds really well to such imagery and metaphor. The results of this are often spectacular!

I'm personally skeptical about paranormal beliefs in general, but my own experience tells me that whether or not qi exists, the Asians are on to something. When I practice tai chi, I feel pleasant little tingling sensations in my body, quite different from the prickling when your foot falls asleep. Maybe it's increased blood flow through the tiny capillaries, maybe it's the network of nerves becoming more attuned, maybe it's my qi increasing. I feel better, and I function better, so there ya go.

On the other hand, I've heard about some pretty wild things that tai chi and qi gong masters can do, that if true are hard to explain using current scientific understanding. For instance, tai chi master Cheng man Ching was reported to focus his energy in his arm so well that if you touched it, your own arm would go numb for days. One of my own teachers personally watched a different master do the same thing. I have also witnessed some ridiculous feats based on qi development, such as being struck hard in vital areas without injury. These aren't ancient tales, but ones with living witnesses.

Some self-described "skeptics" are fond of dismissing everything qi-related outright. I feel that this is a somewhat unscientific and unsophisticated approach. Whether or not qi actually exists, the arts that evolved using this concept are capable of bringing great healing and understanding of our mind-body connection.

Be well!

Finding Your Seat

2011-06-09T15:25:00.000-07:00

Good posture shouldn't be painful or restrictive. Our culture has some weird ideas about "good posture" that are kind of hard on our bodies. Thankfully it's also hard to maintain these standards for long, so we usually don't hurt ourselves too much with them, unless we're very dedicated.

Many of us spend our days sitting, often in lousy chairs. Since we've largely lost the ability to squat all day like our ancestors, we'll just have to adapt to our modern lifestyles to maintain balanced posture. (Learning to squat flat-footed is also not a bad idea in itself.)

For good and easy sitting posture, here's a place to start: find the big bones of your butt, called the ischial tuberosities, or more commonly the "sit bones." These are rounded bumps, which you can find pretty easily with your hands, about halfway out toward your hips. As the name implies, these are also good things to sit on.

To practice sitting with these, a flat chair is best for starters. Try to get your weight centered over them, so that rocking back and forward on them is easy. For some people, this involves sticking your butt back farther than you're used to.

Most of us wind up sitting with our hips shoved forward, so our weight goes onto our sacrum, which is the end of our spine. This is made worse by the modern chair, which encourages slumpiness. The sacrum is not really ideal for taking your weight, and we want the joints around the sacrum to have a little mobility for things like walking and breathing. Keeping your sacrum healthy can save you a world of pain down the road!

With your sit bones firmly planted, you may find it's easier to maintain good posture without being rigid. This way you can slouch a bit, or lean back, and still have your alignment intact.

Be well!

Felden-Who?

2011-05-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been getting sessions of a therapy called the Feldenkrais Method®. Actually, it's more of a movement education system, except that it doesn't really teach you anything; instead, it helps you learn for yourself how to move more easily and effectively. The practitioner, or "teacher," just gives you a lot of verbal cues and light touches to help your body explore different possibilities of motion, and then your nervous system figures out which possibility it wants. This is dependent almost entirely on increased awareness. (Our bodies, however "wise," are remarkably unaware of what they're doing much of the time.) The focus on awareness makes Feldenkrais a somatic art.

For me personally, this leads to dramatic gains in flexibility in minutes without stretching. I stop fighting myself so much with extra tension, and my body feels fluid and supple, like I'm a kindergartener again. I often lose some of the ease after a lesson is over, but it gets easier to get "back there" each time, and more of it sticks with me. I think of it as my nervous system becoming more educated.

According to my teacher, Sandy River, Moshe Feldenkrais invented
his method, also called Functional Integration® (as opposed to Structural Integration), after rehabilitating his own knee injury. You hear this kind of story a lot in alternative medicine, where someone fixes themselves and learns to help others in the process. I guess there's a strong motivation for learning when you're in pain. Maybe it also helped that Feldenkrais was quite bright, a nuclear engineer and judo teacher who wrote several books on the martial arts as well.

(Feldenkrais working on a particularly tough case.)

You can take lessons individually or in groups, and I have personally found both to be useful. Of course, the individual version is tailored specifically to your body, so I recommend this the most. Either way, give it a try! You have nothing to lose but your self-restrictions.

Here's the Feldenkrais Method website, where you can find more info and a practitioner listing.

Be well!

To Know Squat

2011-05-27T07:48:00.000-07:00

Before there was the chair, there was the squat. In fact, many people around the world still "sit" by squatting low, in a relaxed pose, heels on the ground. It's unfortunate that we Westerners have scorned this posture, because it can be a quite healthy and natural way to sit when your body is accustomed to it.

This isn't something that takes strength, but flexibility. One friend of mine, returning from China, remarked that even old people squatted all the time there, on park benches and so on. She thought she didn't have the leg strength to do it, but a full squat is actually quite relaxed. Otherwise, elders wouldn't have the muscles to do it! The issue is that our lifestyles prevent us from being naturally able to squat.

So why is squatting so good? For one thing, it opens the groin muscles and stretches the quadriceps if they're over-tightened. For another, it's a good position to open the lower back (aka lumbar spine.) If you're used to it, it's more comfortable and healthier than bending over for long periods. Many tai chi and yoga classes include some form of flat-footed squat.

Getting back to this ability can be very difficult, and should be done carefully. Preferably, you would have some instruction, so you don't injure yourself if your body is not ready. At least be sure that your knees are out over your feet, and not collapsing inwards. You should be flat-footed. It may help to start wider, with your toes angling out, and elbows supporting the knees from the inside. After a while, a narrower squat becomes easier. But like I said, you really don't want to hurt yourself doing this- it may take some preparatory stretches to get into this one (i.e., groin stretches like the butterfly). For more information, check out this article and video.

Book Report: Acupressure's Potent Points

2011-05-18T14:53:00.000-07:00

This little book puts the art of self-acupressure directly in your hands. Author Michael Reed Gach, who has a whole school and all kinds of stuff over at his semi-cheesy website, covers a wide range of 40 health problems and their solutions with clarity and simplicity. He covers basic aches and pains, and conditions like colds, chronic fatigue, and insomnia. (Speaking of his website, check out the blog.)

Acupressure is what it sounds like: the art of putting pressure on little points all over your body to benefit your health. The points are the same as in acupuncture, and are considered to be places where the body's flows of energy can be accessed, like wells into underground rivers. (For the modern mind, Gach mentions some scientific theories about why it works. Take yer pick.)

Acupressure is largely based in Chinese medicine, which can be an unbelievably complex and convoluted subject. I show know- I just passed the certification exam for Asian bodywork therapists last fall. To be honest, I feel that there is a fair amount of superstition mixed into the theory. Fortunately, it's not necessary for you to know all of the intricacies of Chinese philosophy to use the practical healing power of acupressure for yourself!

Gach divides the book up into various symptoms/diseases, and then gives you some points and exercises you can do for each one. He starts off with a section on how not to hurt yourself, which is always nice, and then gets right to the action. The points are well illustrated, and pictures demonstrate the many techniques he recommends, which often include deep breathing and massage.

If you have an interest in Chinese medicine or self-healing, don't overlook this healing art. It may not get the publicity that acupuncture does, but it has a potency all its own.

Don't Straighten Up

2011-05-17T12:42:00.000-07:00

Remember all the times you were told to "Sit up straight?" Good, now forget that advice, and make your life easier.

I mentioned in my last article that the old advice of "straighten up" usually does more harm than good. How is this so? Let me count the ways.. Usually, it puts a lot of pressure on our low to mid backs, inhibits breathing, disconnects us from the stable support of our legs (or pelvis, if we're sitting), and generally makes it hard to move or do anything.

Fig. 1: What this posture does to you

You can test this for yourself- pay attention to the changes that happen in your entire body when you straighten up in standing. Go back and forth between your normal posture, and very straight posture. Sure, your shoulders might come back, and your chest might rise (ala the military pose), but you may notice, like I do, added tension along your spine, and a shift on your feet (mine is toward my toes), with less stability and ease of breath. This is not a very useful posture, and would take a great deal of energy to maintain all day!

There is one situation when straightening up can be helpful, and that's when you are actually hunching forward. To avoid doing this, just relax your shoulders and neck, and they will de-hunchify. This shouldn't take a lot of effort.

Some healing arts, like yoga or tai chi, do emphasize certain straight postures, but they are done in a special way so as not to disrupt your overall balance (at least if they're done well). I often recommend that my clients study such arts to enhance the postural progress they make with Rolfing Structural Integration. In fact, there are many non-stressful ways to engage your body to happily stand tall and at ease, and I'll be mentioning some tips in future articles.

So, don't straighten up! It's not worth the trouble.

Structural Integration!

2011-05-12T06:34:00.000-07:00

So I just realized that I haven't ever done a blog post exclusively about Structural Integration (SI), which is what I practice professionally. Well, specifically I practice a brand of SI called Rolfing® Structural Integration, and so I'm called a Certified Rolfer™. It's like Kleenex® tissues. But anyway...

To put it simply, Structural Integration "straightens you out, to get you out of pain and make it easier to move." What does it mean to "straighten you out?" It's not about having "good" posture, or forcing your body into a certain "correct" position- these ideas often cause you more trouble than they save. Instead, we work with your connective tissue, which holds your body together and decides what shape it will be, and with your unconscious patterns of movement. We use these approaches, among others, to help your body naturally realign itself towards greater balance. And we work with your whole body, because alignment depends on the whole body balancing together.

What does that mean? Here's an example:

This connective tissue I mentioned often becomes tight and dense due to injury or repetitive motion. Even something as simple as using a computer mouse all day, every day, can eventually cause your forearm to "stick" in a palm down position. The connective tissue becomes dense and holds your forearm in that position, so your muscles don't have to work to keep it that way. Because your arm is rotating, your shoulder starts to roll forward as well, and gets stuck in the same way, so now it pulls forward and doesn't swing as freely. Without your arm swinging freely, your body has to change the way it walks to a way that is less coordinated and takes more effort. This could lead to connective tissue restrictions in your back, your hip, or all the way down to your foot. Your body unconsciously adapts this new pattern of walking, so that even if you stop using the mouse all the time, you still walk with reduced smoothness, which sets you up for more problems. This is why straightening the body means working with your connective tissue as well as with your movement patterns!

To a Rolfer, your body is straightened, or integrated, when you can stand upright without effort. Why is that our goal? A body that stands easily can also sit, walk, run, play golf, or chop wood more easily, since we use less effort to hold ourselves up, and therefore put less strain on our joints as well. We are vertical animals, and we function best when it's easy for us to be vertical. Most of us unconsciously use quite a bit of effort just to stand, as my clients often discover once they feel the difference! Being integrated also means that your connective tissue doesn't have restrictions, so your circulation, metabolism, and movement become easier all the time, even when you're lying down. It's pretty awesome.

For more specifics on what a Rolfing® SI session is actually like, visit my website.

Be well!

The Ecology of the Guru Schmuru, or, Beware of "God"

2011-05-09T08:41:00.000-07:00

How do you choose from the vast number of healing arts/natural medicine/alternative medicine practitioners out there? If you just want to get well without a lifetime of research, this could seem difficult.

Part of the message of alternative medicine is that you have to take responsibility for your own health and healing, but on the other hand you do need some information and guidance. That's why I wrote a couple of entries a while back, one on finding a qualified practitioner, and another on practitioners who accumulate (or make up) a huge amount of credentials to make themselves seem highly qualified.

Today I'll add a warning about another type of practitioner, who I'll call Guru Schmuru (no offense to all the actual gurus out there). They make a living by making you feel inferior and bad about your body, and elevating themselves to a God(dess) like stature. This enables them to create a dependency in you, so that you see them as the sole key to your health. This creature has a few distinct identifying traits:

1) They make a lot of snap judgments about why you are having problems. It should make you at least a bit suspicious when someone always seems to have an instant answer about why you have a problem, without doing any testing, etc.

2) They make a lot of disparaging or negative comments about your health, like "Wow, you are really just a mess." If you are not in particularly bad shape as far as you know, take these comments with a grain of salt- sometimes they're just a way to make you feel like you're doomed without this person's help. Sometimes a Guru Schmuru will tell you that you will totally fall apart, or some such thing, if you don't continue to see them. The same grain of salt.

3) They make a lot of big promises, such as giving you a 100% chance of getting totally better if you work with them, or being able to treat an insane amount of conditions. These promises might also accompany warnings that other practitioners are not going to be able to help you. Their ads may claim that you will be completely free of pain, etc. if you use their services. It's important to remember that not every healing art, or practitioner, can help every single person completely.

4) They use a lot of guilt or shame. If you have a health problem, it's because you're a bad person in some way- that's the underlying message. This is another way that the Guru Schmuru gets you to buy into what they're selling. They prop themselves up as a great and noble healer, whose task it is to help wretches such as yourself learn the sinfulness of your ways. Everything bad that happens to your body is your fault, either because of your lifestyle or your emotional attitudes.
Side note: A dramatic example of this victim blaming is with cancer patients. For a long time it was thought by many, especially in the alternative health field, that cancer was caused by negative thoughts and emotions, and if you got it or died from it, you were guilty of harboring negativity, anger, etc. It turns out that cancer is one of the conditions that positive thinking doesn't have much direct effect on. Sadly, many people who died from cancer had to deal with the added burden of basically being called a bad person.

5) They have a zillion credentials.

Guru Schmuru behavior is quite common, so keep an eye out! If your practitioner exhibits 2 or more of the above signs, consider them a potential candidate, and look for a second opinion.

Bicycle Season, Part 3

2011-05-05T11:08:00.000-07:00

Still more tips on biking in structural style, this time focusing on awareness of your surroundings for safety:

1) Maintain a soft, wide visual field. I mentioned this in my driving series a while back, and the same is true for biking. Keeping a soft focus can allow you to take in more of your surroundings, including threats to your safety, while at the same time preventing your neck from craning too far forward (and bringing your shoulders along with it). There are some tricks which help with this- one is to pay extra attention to your peripheral vision, both at the sides and top/bottom, another is to imagine your eyes as ink blotters, soaking up all that you see. If you're doing this correctly, you might feel a subtle (or not subtle) softening along the back of your neck.

2) Along with point 1, pay attention to the back of your body, and be aware of the space behind you and to the sides, as if you could see in all directions. It's not important that you actually know the details of what's happening behind you, but this can help you avoid the common trap of ignoring what might be there. It also has a balancing effect on your body's structure. (It's also good to actually look behind you when passing someone on a bike trail or other crowded setting, to make sure someone else isn't already passing you!).

3) In dangerous situations, bring your internal awareness to your belly, just below the belly button and inside your body. This prepares you to act quickly and instinctively. It may help to push your breath gently into your belly so that you get a feel for this area (usually when you're biking, you don't have to push so much as notice the breath there). You can also imagine "yourself" or your consciousness residing there.

4) If you are definitely about to collide with something, relax your body. You'll be much better off than if you tense up. One of the basic teachings of tai chi is that "the hard and brittle are easily broken" (from a classic text, The Tao te Ching). Relax and be less injury prone!

Happy ridings,
Chris

The Skinny on Female Knees

2011-04-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

Why are the knees of female athletes more prone to injury than their male counterparts? This question was posed to me recently by a reader, and herein I will give a series of possible reasons which may or may not solve anything, as well as some practical advice.

The statistics are truly daunting for "she knees:"

~Depending on which website you ask, women suffer between 2 and 10 times as many injuries to their ACLs, important ligaments which stabilize the knee. At any rate, that's bad.

~Back in the 90s, the NCAA reported that the ratio of female to male ACL injuries was "nearly 4 times as often in basketball, 3 times as often in gymnastics, and nearly 2.5 times as often in soccer."

~Women are also more at risk for kneecap dislocation, according to "Clinically Oriented Anatomy," 5th ed. Usually this means the kneecap drifts to the outside, which can be quite painful in my experience.

Why is all this happening? The short answer is, as usual, "nobody is sure." The long answer is too long to blog about, but some theories include greater hip width exerting a stronger pull on the knee, less space in the knee joint itself causing ligament compression, less muscular strength, lower coordination, bad technique, poor footwear, and even estrogen levels causing laxity in the ligaments!

Now the good news: it seems that these injury rates can be significantly reduced. Many ACL injuries for females happen during pivoting or landing a jump, and proper jumping training can apparently help a great deal. Males tend to land with straighter (and therefore more stable) knees, and females can learn to reduce the bend in their knees, also counterbalancing the strain on their knees from their hip width.

Women are advised to stretch and strengthen leg muscles as well, and work on balance and agility training outside of competition (so you don't overdo it). Good advice, but general. I would add, work on dynamic stretching (in motion) more than static stretches, because you want your muscles to be responsive, and not too loose. Make sure you find a stretch for your outer hamstring (biceps femoris). Also, a good structural bodyworker (ahem) can help reduce the strain on your knees caused by hip width, and balance the different pulls of your muscles on your kneecap, among other things.

Be well.

Bicycle Season, Part Two

2011-04-15T12:05:00.001-07:00

Some further tips on biking with structural style:

1) Gear down. Oftentimes cyclists stay in high gear when climbing a steep hill or facing into a strong wind. Downshifting helps save on your knees, and is often better for your speed.

2) Think "light." This is a trick runners also use, imagining your body as light. It helps relax excess muscle tension, increasing your speed because you're not fighting yourself.

3) Along with keeping a long spine, look forward by keeping the front of your neck long, instead of crunching the back of your neck. You might be able to feel the difference on this if you try looking up right now, first by shortening the back of your neck, and then by lengthening the front. Keeping a "soft focus" in your vision can sometimes help decrease the tension in the space between your neck and the back of your head.

4) The structure of your head depends on not being crushed by high impact collisions. So use a helmet already! But beware- a recent study showed that car drivers were less careful around helmeted cyclists, so we still need to pay attention.

5) Take care of the bike. Keep tires inflated, use a lubricant for your chain that is specially design for bikes, and get a tune-up.

For further information on taking care of your bike, also visit Sheldon Brown's odd but useful site.

Bike Season! Part One

2011-04-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

Now that the bicycle season is gaining momentum in the Midwest, it's a good time to bring up a few tips on structurally sound biking:

1) Have your seat high enough. I am amazed at the amount of people I see cruising around Madison with their knees coming up well over their hips as they pedal. Usually, it's easy to raise your seat up. As a starting point, I recommend getting your seat high enough so that your leg is fully extended when the pedal is at the bottom of the cycle, and so your knees never come up above your hips. That way, you save your knees some trouble, and you bring your hip through its full range of motion, which is a really good thing.

2) Only lean as far forward as you have to. Many racing bikes are set up with very low handlebars, but this is not really necessary unless you want to be extremely aerodynamic, and can be a problem for causal cyclists, putting pressure on the wrists and impacting posture. Your structure will be in better shape if you adapt your bike to your own needs.

3) Imagine the weight of your knees pulling your legs downward through the downward part of the pedal cycle. This helps your body coordinate the muscle activity between the front and back of your legs- often we over-focus on the big front muscles, the quads, which makes the hamstrings underactive.

4) Let your spine stay "long." Don't hunch over too much, and let your spine move naturally with the motion of your legs (of course, not too loosely- there is a balance to be found here). Much of our legs' power actually comes from our spine, so we want to keep the flow going between these parts.

The Will to Feel

2011-03-31T06:27:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about bodywork is that it heightens your ability to feel what is happening in your body. Really, this is where a lot of the benefits from bodywork or any other somatic practice come from! People who formerly couldn't tell that their shoulders were being held up to their ears can start to feel the muscles relaxing during a session, and then later they can notice when they start to tense up at work. People who didn't notice themselves standing with their weight over their toes can now feel themselves being "too far forward," and automatically shift their bodies back so their weight is more evenly balanced. This makes the effects of bodywork not only long-term, but a way of life.
My new Rolfing® Structural Integration clients often want to know if I will be able to help them with their pain or discomfort. After a few years in practice, I have found that the people who improve the most are those who are willing to experience their bodies in a new way, and then take that experience into their daily lives. It is that willingness to feel that allows new possibilities to take root. Rolfing SI helps wake up parts of the body that had been partly or totally asleep, and creates new coordination patterns, but it doesn't force the new patterns on people- it gives you and your body the ability to choose, and you can only choose if you have enough information to make a choice. Life comes with so many situations that a single pattern could never work all the time anyway.
Most of us are cut off from parts of our bodies in one way or another, not feeling and utilizing them as fully as we could. This is often for a good reason, such as a past trauma or injury. A good bodyworker is careful not to rudely awaken those areas (which will likely knock them out again), but to invite your awareness to them to regain lost use. This can be painful or uncomfortable at times while it is happening, but rewards you with a more complete experience of yourself, and the power that comes from being fully integrated.
The Will to Feel is very different from tuning out during a bodywork session like your body is some dry cleaning that you will pick up in an hour. It's different from ignoring your body while pushing it, like in some athletic disciplines. Importantly, it is also not just feeling positive about your body, or pretending to feel good- what we want here is for you to experience what is really happening inside, not just a story you tell yourself. So it requires a degree of attention, gentleness, and patience, but mostly, it's just about being with where you are!

Be well.

A Basic Dance Meditation

2011-02-05T14:26:00.001-08:00

For these late winter days, as the itch to put a plow on the front of my bike and hit the state trail gets worse all the time, I came up with a simple plan for getting my aerobic exercise and liking it. (I'm a believer in finding enjoyable forms of exercise, so you're more involved with them and more likely to actually do them in the first place.) Basically, I dance freely around the living room for at least 1/2 hour to whatever music I fancy, usually good dance music, using a few guidelines to keep things interesting. If you don't feel too ridiculous doing this, you can try it out!

Here are some tips:

1) Be aware of your whole body. Head, torso, arms, pelvis, legs. Front, back, and sides. Hold your body in a "loose" awareness. I tend to ignore the back of my torso, along my spine, so I make sure I'm not leaving it out of the picture.

2) Let yourself go. Allow your body to spontaneously dance in whatever way it chooses. It's ok to have some idea of how you want to dance, but don't get too wrapped up in it. Basically, don't think too much. The idea is to bring out your natural physical intelligence. Also, you can dance with any part of your body- fingers, toes, eyebrows, etc. Sometimes your body will surprise you with what it comes up with! Occasionally I will find myself rolling around on the floor spontaneously, or jumping on my tiptoes.

3) Put your mind in your belly. This cue, adapted from tai chi, just means to be especially aware of the whole area above your pelvis and below your belly button. You can breath into your belly a little on purpose if it helps, but don't push too much. It also might help to imagine your consciousness being inside your belly instead of our head, where we normally sense it. Putting your mind in your belly can trigger more effective, instinctual movement patterns. You don't have to DO anything extra with your belly, just be aware of it.

4) Keep up a decent pace, but not so fast that you start panting. I find that tracking my heart rate too closely diminishes my enjoyment and focus, so I follow this one loosely.

And if you're feeling ambitious, you can also:

5) Pay special attention to the rhythm section of the music (i.e,. drums and bass). These parts of the music have the most kinetic energy to them, and outline the pace and structure of the music. You can try to dance in accordance with their rhythms, or just be aware of them and let your body move along with them. Of course, some music has no clearly defined rhythm section, in which case, you're on your own.

Using these tips should help you deepen your physical experience of dancing, bringing you "into the moment" in an enjoyable way. A recent study showed that the more time we spend in the moment, the happier we become, which can help with the late winter blahs. And for those engaged in slower somatic disciplines like yoga and tai chi, this can be a helpful aerobic companion.

Remember these tips, and you can have the time of your life, just like ABBA.

Be well!

The Body-Mind: Theory vs. Practice

2011-01-28T11:42:00.001-08:00

Tai chi master William Chen prepares to wake up Rodin's Thinker

Philosophers have long sought an answer to the "mind-body" question- are the mind and the body one thing or two? Is mind the underlying reality or is the body? Is consciousness real or an illusion?

In actual mind-body practices (aka somatic disciplines), the practical answer is "none of the above." As we learn to experience the inner connection between body and mind, we get to know the flow of the reality within us, and we stop worrying so much about these questions. Then we can use the body and mind together in a more efficient, easy way. We don't need to "know" this so much as experience it. We realize for ourselves that the artificial categories of "mind" and "body" don't really exist, and this helps us experience our being more deeply. Maybe the answer should be "Just use it!" instead of "none of the above," because only through experience can the real mind-body connection be developed.

I have nothing against philosophizing on these topics, and I'm in awe of the rational abilities of those who scale such cold, abstract heights. But rational thought can also get in the way, and most of our best moments in athletics or music happen when we don't overthink things.

It makes me wish that more of these philosophers took classes in tai chi or some such discipline, just to see if it helped them understand the issues. One renowned tai chi teacher, William C.C. Chen, actually went to a philosopher because he wanted to find ways to help his students "get" the mind-body connection. As you might guess, the philosopher couldn't help; in fact, Master Chen said later that the philosopher didn't even really understand what he was asking. Besides the possibility of a miscommunication, I think that the philosopher hadn't experienced the real mind-body connection that anyone who has watched (or felt) Master Chen in action can attest to, and without that experience, it would be difficult to help at all.

Be well!

The Core

2011-01-16T15:28:00.000-08:00

Core, core, core. Is there any buzzword more fashionable? It seems that every fitness program needs to have "core training," "core invigoration," "core awesomeness," or some such phrase attached to it these days in order to be considered authentic.

But what is the core? Is it abdominal muscles? Is it deep tissue? Is it more important than whatever is not the core? What does it do, other than create a massive tidal wave of marketing?

Fig.1: Not the core.

In Rolfing® Structural Integration (where the word "core" came from), we think of the core in several ways, but one of them is to me the most important: the core is what stabilizes your body for movement. In this definition, the core is not just one group of muscles, but a body-wide organizational effort.

Think about lifting your arm to point at something while you are standing. Before you even lift your arm, muscles in the backs of your calves fire to counterbalance the anticipated movement, so your body doesn't get pulled forward. In a highly organized body, deep abdominal and spinal muscles will activate as well, allowing the spine to be both stable and elongated during the movement, which provides support for the arm as well as balance and adaptability for the rest of the body.

There are muscles better equipped to take on this function than others, and some of these are what are referred to as the core muscles- the layers of abdominal muscle which provide support for the spine and inner organs. However, when the body is well organized, it can use a variety of muscles for its stability- this becomes necessary because we engage in such a variety of physical activities, requiring fluid transitions from one form of stability to another.

So getting good core function is not just a matter of training certain muscles, but developing overall body intelligence so that it can use its muscles in response to different situations. Just doing crunches won't necessarily help. I have found that training my clients to find their deep core muscles takes some time and development of awareness, not brute force. In fact, no hard workouts are necessary for learning to bring these muscles online, and usually, the basic problem is not core weakness but simply a body amnesia. When the deep core activates, movement instantly becomes much easier and more effective.

Be well!

Structure Tips for Winter

2011-01-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

In places like Wisconsin, winter itself can be a serious challenge to our body structure's integrity. We have to look down a lot when we're out walking to avoid slipping, which hampers the body's ability to orient ourselves in an upright position. Cold creates muscle tension (the body's space heater), which in turn inhibits free and easy movement. Snow shoveling is often hazardous for the back. Is it any wonder that Northern cultures do not exhibit the same bodily freedom as Brazilians?

Here are some quick tips to stay upright over the long haul of winter:

1) When you're not worried about slipping on the ice, let your head float back up to a level position. Sometimes looking downward becomes habitual, and this interferes with our spinal mobility as well as our awareness of the world, and ironically hampers our sense of balance. So when you're inside or on a clear sidewalk, give yourself a chance to take it all in again.

2) When indoors, go barefoot. If your house is too cold, wear socks. This way, you can keep some awareness in your feet and ankles even if they are housed in heavy boots outside. This can allow your feet to be more mobile, improving balance and agility.

3) Move it or lose it. Go dancing (or dance around the house), do Zumba, wrestle, whatever. Get some skis. If you don't like to leave the house, find something that you can do at home- just make sure it gets your whole body moving, so it has less thawing to do come springtime.

Be well!

Use Your Placebo, Volume One

2011-01-02T12:57:00.000-08:00

The fame (or infamy) of the placebo effect has rippled far beyond scientific circles, and most people have at least a vague understanding that even fake medicine can be real if a patient has faith in it. Understandably, this has made a lot of scientists and pharmacologists uncomfortable, because modern medicine has always enjoyed at least a pretense of being thoroughly objective and authoritative, as neat and clean as a physics problem. The placebo effect, being messy and subjective, messed with this certainty, and was therefore often regarded as unscientific and beneath study. Fortunately, this is changing, (partly due to placebos becoming more and more effective?).

Where the placebo was once viewed as a mere annoyance, or even worse, a dangerous phenomenon that made people feel better when their conditions were actually worsening, many scientists now believe that placebo effects go far beyond pain relief and into real healing. Here's a partial listing of conditions that may improve with placebo treatment (and yes, I am using Wikipedia as a resource here, so check the citations if you need more proof.) Notice that cancer is not on the list- Robert Sapolsky, in the fabulous "Why Zebras don't Get Ulcers," mentions that cancer is a condition that doesn't seem to respond well to positive attitudes. So placebos may not help with everything, but it would seem that they help with a lot of things.

Even more excitingly, it now appears that a placebo may work even if you know it's a placebo! This would mean that you can take a pill (or an herb, etc.) and think to yourself, "Well, this might not do anything in itself, but placebos are still known to be effective," and get more benefit than if you thought "This is bound to fail." There's an "anti-placebo," called the nocebo effect, where a treatment becomes less effective when you don't believe in it. So positive thinking becomes important in this case.

However, when enjoying placebo-based relief from pain, it seems wise to consult with a medical professional to check whether there is any serious underlying condition which may still be worsening. Use your placebo, but don't be fooled by it!

Connective Tissue and Energy

2010-12-16T16:51:00.000-08:00

As a practitioner of Rolfing® Structural Integration and Asian bodywork therapy, I find the common ground between them quite interesting. They differ dramatically in theory, as Structural Integration talks about balancing the body in gravity and connective tissue, while Asian bodywork talks about exotic things like Qi (life energy) and balancing Yin and Yang (the opposing forces in the universe and the human body). They also work pretty differently in practice, as Rolfing SI has you moving around and actively participating during sessions while Asian bodywork more closely resembles a Western massage. As different as they seem, they both work with your connective tissue, specifically a type of connective tissue called fascia.

The "potent points" that an Asian bodywork therapist presses on with fingers and thumbs are the same ones that an acupuncturist inserts needles into. They are said to control the flow of Qi in the body, and be responsible for a variety of effects. In 2006, researchers found that inserting acupuncture needles into potent points caused the connective tissue around them to grab onto the needle like a whirlpool. This didn't happen at other points in the body. Interestingly, this phenomenon was widely known by acupuncturists of old, who likened it to a fish biting on a line. The nature of the connective tissue network is to connect everything together, so this effect spreads across the body when you insert a needle. Furthermore, many (possibly 80%) of the points lie along places where one sheet of connective tissue (fascia) intersects with another.

Now, as connective tissue is what primarily concerns us Cert. Rolfers™, I was excited to find out about this study. It seems that fascia is part of why these points work, and that a healthy fascial system is necessary for them to be effective. As Rolfing SI works to open up areas where fascia has become overly dense or unable to move freely, it could be useful also to increase the abilities of Asian bodywork and acupuncture. It might also be possible to apply pressure on a potent point to speed the process of SI along, and to show clients how to use these points to maintain their connective tissue!

Of course, these are not the only ways to help your connective tissue. Other ways you can keep your fascial system healthy are massage and bodywork in general (including myofascial release), and movement practices which get you to move in a variety of directions (dance, climbing trees, fencing, etc.). The important thing to remember is "move it or lose it-" too much immobility in an area, and the fascia thickens, slowing down metabolism in the area and reducing movement potential. One advantage of bodywork is that it can get to places that you might not be able to reach through movement or stretching alone, especially where things have already gotten stuck.

Be well!

Keeping a Wide Lens

2010-12-07T07:23:00.000-08:00

First, an exploration:

1) Find a small point to stare at. It could be on a wall across the room or on the screen in front of you, but it should be small. Focus intently on it for a few seconds with your vision, then let it go.
2) Now, imagine you are out in a natural setting, with a panoramic view of beautiful surroundings (on a beach, near a mountain range, etc.). Imagine yourself visually taking in the whole expansive view around you at once, letting it permeate your being. Give yourself a few seconds to get the feel of it.

Now that you have experienced these two extremes, shift back and forth between them, slowly, a few times (stop if you experience eyestrain). Notice what happens to your head, your neck, and your body as you focus intently and as you take in a wide view.

Many of us will begin to stick our heads forward and tense our bodies somewhat when we focus our vision sharply, and will return to a more relaxed, upright state when we let our focus be soft and broad. When doing this exploration just now, I noticed that if I try to fight this tendency, I tense up my chest and the back of my butt slightly, as if I'm having to force myself to stay in place.

Unfortunately, many of us are somewhat stuck in the "zoom" mode most of the time, which not only affects our body but also our mind and how others perceive us. Having a "wide lens" allows us to relax and let go of excess anxiety, making us more comfortable to be around. It also coordinates our balance system- some martial arts use a soft focus to enable the practitioner be ready and relaxed simultaneously.

Sauron from Lord of the Rings gives us an example of focusing too hard (and silly animation).

It is definitely useful to have a zoom lens feature, but also important to be able to relax back into a wide lens in between zooms! If we sit at a computer for hours, this is especially true, and it would be good to take breaks regularly, letting our vision be broad in addition to whatever physical exercise we do during breaks. This will reduce the risk of neck problems over time, and make you more effective in the meantime.

Be well,
Chris

New Vocabulary Term: Somatic

2010-11-18T18:12:00.000-08:00

The more I practice and study arts like Tai Chi and Structural Integration, the more I realize that "alternative medicine" doesn't really work to describe what I do. Neither do "natural," "holistic," or "complementary," although there are certainly elements of all of these in my work. "Healing art" is pretty good, but still kind of general. The word "somatic" actually applies much better than anything else, and could help to alleviate a lot of confusion about these arts if people knew what it meant. Unfortunately, it's not widely known in mainstream culture, so I'm introducing it here.

"Somatic," according to Merriam-Webster, means "of, or relating to, or affecting the body," which is a really general definition. When people in my field use it, they mean something more specific. The somatic arts or disciplines are those that use the mind-body connection, and improved body awareness, to make life better. Strictly speaking, they are not medicine that you get from someone else, but instead a practice you undertake to better understand and use the connections within your body and between body and mind. We call this "embodiment."

Why bother with this distinction? First of all, when you work with a somatic practitioner, you understand that you are going to be taking some active role in your development- this is true whether you're doing Rolfing® Structural Integration, yoga, the Alexander Technique, or whatever. In most somatic practices, you gain the most if you continue to explore your body outside of sessions with your practitioner.

Secondly, there is a difference between medicine, where you go to someone to get a specific problem fixed, and an somatic art, which is a whole-body experience. Many specific problems do improve through somatic arts, but you also become healthier and more self-aware in general. Sometimes it really is quicker and more effective to take other routes such as surgery or physical therapy if you want symptomatic relief.

Finally, because somatic arts incorporate the idea of body-mind oneness, they treat the body less as an object, with an emphasis on experiencing the body in new ways rather than "making" it do something. This separates somatics from some forms of athleticism which just push the body around like a tool.

What are the somatic disciplines? They include Structural Integration, yoga, tai chi, Feldenkrais, Hakomi body-centered therapy, some meditative practices, and many more. Some fields like massage and bodywork also have somatic elements, as do the martial arts. Some athletic activities, including modern dance and modern running approaches, could be included. I would recommend that you bring a somatic discipline into your life for your happiness and well-being!

Harmonizing with Winter

2010-11-15T07:45:00.000-08:00

Since I've been studying and practicing Tai Chi and Asian Bodywork Therapy for a while, I've become influenced in my thinking by Taoism, an ancient philosophy which these arts are partly based on. Taoism advocates harmony with nature, which means paying attention to the moods and cycles of our own bodies as well as the Earth, learning how to use them to our advantage by adapting to them rather than rigidly opposing them.

This way of thinking has a strong implication for the approach of winter here in the Great White North, when people begin to complain about weight gain, fatigue, and stress as the days become darker and colder. The usual way our culture deals with this is to fight against it, maintaining or increasing activity levels in order to keep pace with the busy holiday season. Then in January, the time when many mammals are hibernating or taking it easy, we feel compelled to begin intense exercise programs to work off the calories we put on to deal with the mania of the last couple of months.

Here's a different idea: When you start to feel sluggish as the light diminishes, allow yourself to reduce your activities, and not be too hard on yourself if you gaina little weight. Keep exercising, but don't go crazy with it- maybe do more yoga or meditation. Enjoy the holiday season as a contemplative time spent with loved ones. Then, in the spring, harmonize with the increase in light by increasing aerobic-type exercise and activity. My hypothesis is that, over the course of the year, this will allow us to actually increase our activity levels without feeling as much stress and burnout. I have found it to be true that in following my own advice, I sleep much less in the summer than I used to, and not all that much more in the winter.

Be well!

Update on the Cortisone Shot

2010-11-04T16:41:00.000-07:00

I've been letting the blog gather a bit of dust while I studied for the national Asian Bodywork Therapy exam last month. So I'll just ease back into it with a link to a very interesting article on cortisone shots, which concludes, based on a recent review, that they wind up doing more harm than good in the long run.

This may not come as a shock to some of us, as anti-inflammatory drugs such as cortisone might, logically, impede the inflammatory response which the body uses for healing. Or at least that's been my layperson's understanding for a few years now. My own work as a Rolfer™ is about aligning body structure to allow it a chance to heal on its own, and showing people how to improve function with less resort to drastic measures. This is not an overnight process, but I've been blessed with clients who generally understand that both time and personal involvement are needed to enact such whole-person change. Seeing how patterns of restriction are set up by a person's structure and movement has given me the concrete experience which reinforced my intuition that the quick fix is sometimes not a fix at all, and may cause more trouble than it's worth.

Be well!

When Credentials Attack!

2010-09-27T08:49:00.000-07:00

This is a little follow-up to my post about finding a qualified wellness practitioner from last month.

The flip side to the lack of credentials in the wellness world is when you see a practitioner with "credential-itis," which is an inflammation of credentials that can happen to some wellness practitioners who feel the need to appear extremely qualified. The most common clinical sign of this is a string of letters and abbreviations after their name, such as: "Jerry Overkill, CR, L.Ac, LMT, CNA, Dipl. ABT, CR, ND, CN, Cert. Personal Trainer, OC, LPC, Tai Chi Master, PI, CST, " and so on.

Some people whose business cards look like this are indeed highly qualified, highly skilled practitioners who have had a lot of spare time in their lives. The problem is that many mind-body disciplines takes a long time to really understand, even though you can take a training and become "certified" in a relatively short period of time. It's not the same as accumulating book knowledge- someone can become a yoga teacher in a couple hundred hours, but I would hope that they've had a yoga practice for a while before taking the training! You need to "get" this stuff in your own body to be able to really help people beyond what they could read in a book.

Now, it is certainly possible for someone who is skilled in one field to be able to pick up a related discipline fairly quickly. For example, there are a lot of massage therapists who practice a wide range of massage techniques including hot stone massage, trigger point work, and so on. That seems just fine to me, and probably shows that the therapist is willing to expand their own knowledge and skill base.

The important thing is not to avoid people with a lot of credentials, it's that you don't get taken in by them. I always think of how some of the best tai chi instruction I've gotten is from people with no particular health background, aside from actually practicing tai chi for years or decades. Compare that to someone who gets a "tai chi master" certification from an online course! It's just so easy to be fooled by letters on paper that we should notice when we're overly impressed by them.

Finding Your Line

2010-09-17T09:46:00.001-07:00

The central concern of Rolfing® Structural Integration is organizing your body around a line, which we call the "gravity line," running from the top of your head, through the center of your body, and into your feet. In this way, Rolfing SI is a lot like yoga, tai chi, and Feldenkrais movement education- all of these systems utilize some form of "The Line."

In tai chi, for example, we "connect" the top of our head to the sky above, and allow our weight to settle completely through our feet, which is called "rooting." After a while, it feels as if your head is actually being mysteriously lifted from above, and your spine can just hang from your skull in a relaxed way, while your weight seems sink into the floor. This polarity is vital for tai chi, and allows advanced practitioners to be incredibly relaxed and yet very difficult to push over.

Similarly, Structural Integration looks at the whole body to determine how a person's Line is working, and how to shift the body around to strengthen it. It is necessary to take the whole body into account when doing SI work, because an imbalance in any part could pull the Line off balance. A body more organized around its Line can function more as a unified whole, with less effort and pain, without fighting gravity as much. Ida Rolf described this as gravity "flowing" through the body, reinforcing the body's energy field. Whether this has any scientific validity or not, the actual experience of Integration is one of being lifted up and relaxed down simultaneously, often accompanied by an appearance and a feeling of being magically taller (even if one's height hasn't changed).

How do you develop your Line? First of all, all of the practices I mentioned above can help, as they place emphasis on developing your connection to Earth and Sky simultaneously. Also, you might be someone who has a strong Earth connection, and needs more Sky, or vice-versa. Some indicators: "Earth" people tend to look down and occasionally bump their heads, have a heavier stride, seem grounded and even heavy in their movement, and prefer words like "pushing" as metaphors, while "Sky" people tend to be lighter, looking out and around them and occasionally tripping, possibly seeming airy and ungrounded, and preferring metaphors related to "reaching." Obviously this is not a scientific system of classification, but it can be useful for some people. If you think you might need more Sky in your life, try activities such as expressive dance or tennis, which develop reaching and a sense of spaciousness. If you think Earth is lacking, something like football or tango may be more useful. In music, violin may develop Sky, while percussion would probably develop Earth (especially if you're rocking out like Janet Weiss is here). The important thing is to find balance, so that you can develop your total physical and human potential.

The Vital Back

2010-09-09T11:22:00.000-07:00

Our lower backs are a fascinating landscape, featuring mountainous lumbar vertebrae and springy floating ribs, strong surface spinal muscles, and subterranean core muscles, such as the diaphragm (responsible for most of our breathing) and the psoas (which stabilizes our spine and swings our legs forward). Near to these reside the kidneys and adrenal glands, vital organs which lie in little islands outside the protective fascia of the abdomen.

(Notice the psoas major and minor in the picture to the left?)

In Chinese medical texts, the low back is also incredibly important, providing a physical location for the energy of the body symbolized by water. The flow of Water energy comes up the inner thigh from the bottom of the foot, and one pathway follows the psoas muscle from the inner thigh up to the spine, then joining another river along the spine which flows all the way up the back. In this area resides the "Gate of Vitality," where Water energy is "boiled" to be used by the body.

All this Chinese terminology may sound like mumbo-jumbo, but if you follow the river of Water from thigh to spine, you also follow the path of core muscles, from the big supporting muscles of the inner thigh, to the psoas, and then up to where the psoas reaches into the spine, right underneath the back of the diaphragm- a very important juncture! The Chinese relate Water to the kidneys and adrenals as well, which as I mentioned also reside here- the adrenals are certainly capable of sending "boiling" energy to the rest of the body! They also relate Water to the emotion of fear, which seems reasonable if you've ever felt that fear-induced tingling along your spine.

Now that you've either read through all that or scrolled quickly past, here's an easy self-massage for the low back, which is used in tai chi classes to stimulate the Water energy: with loose fists, reach around to your low back on either side of your spine, and rub up and down with moderate pressure. (You want to be above your pelvis a little ways- the picture seen here shows the approximate location of the kidneys.) This activates that energy pathway for the Water energy that I talked about, and provides a little massage for the spinal muscles and kidney area as well. You can do this whenever you want; done regularly, it can be an invigorating and simple massage for the back muscles and your Gate of Vitality!

Kvetching about Stretching

2010-08-30T07:34:00.000-07:00

The role of stretching in physical fitness has been rather controversial in recent times. A much venerated warm-up ritual in our culture, it has at times been found to be useless, or even detrimental to physical performance. For instance, check out this study from 2004, which shows that static stretching (the kind where you hold a stretch without moving), can actually reduce pitching speeds, and doesn't protect against injury. Pitchers may actually feel like they can pitch faster after stretching, but this is not borne out by objective measurements. The same may hold true with running- many athletes and coaches seem to be advocating against stretching before running, and the culture-changing Born to Run describes how the Mexican Tarahumara tribe easily outrun other ultramarathoners with nary a warm-up routine at all.

Other trains of thought, such as Feldenkrais Movement Integration, consider stretching to be against the body's natural inclination. They favor instead certain patterns of movement that gently encourage muscles to lengthen appropriately, rather than putting direct physical pressure on them. According to the Feldenkrais philosophy, stretching can provoke the body into shortening rather than lengthening, as it naturally resists the force being applied against it.

Meanwhile, many traditional martial arts, and of course much yoga, emphasize the need for deep, intense stretching. From my own experience with yoga, such sustained stretches can be very relaxing to body and mind. Yoga was originally considered to be a primarily spiritual practice, so it makes sense that relaxing the mind would be a more primary goal than improving pitching speeds, for instance. Some yoga practices, unfortunately, emphasize extreme stretching of certain muscles for dramatic effect, which can mask stiffness in other areas such as the spine. Likewise, some martial arts schools will force students to painfully stretch in displays of macho exuberance.

On the other hand, stretching can help with many painful conditions as well, especially when some part of the body has become chronically tightened. I recommend long, gentle stretches to some of my Rolfing SI clients who need areas of connective tissue released. In these cases, the stretches are held for at least a couple of minutes, and incorporate breath awareness and sometimes tiny jiggling motions which help the body relax. These can be challenging, but not to the point where the breath or the rest of the body tightens up.

I've found personally that my favorite warm-ups are the ones where you just move to your comfortable range of motion, with awareness, and save stretching for after your workout. This approach is used in much tai chi, where too much stretching would be considered excessive (excess being the enemy of tai chi philosophy). I think of these as "loosening" exercises rather than stretching, and I use them to become aware of all the excess tension I've been unconsciously holding. It's similar to Feldenkrais, where the added awareness helps your nervous system to relax without a struggle.

Be well!

How to Find a Qualifed Alternative Health Practitioner

2010-08-16T06:40:00.000-07:00

One of the problems with the healing arts/alternative medicine field is that it can be confusing to find a legitimate practitioner of the modality you're looking for. The scene is rife with people who spend a weekend workshop to become a "certified practitioner" of something, and the qualifications for some professions are all over the map, often depending on which state you live in. This can downgrade the profession as a whole, and give people the wrong impression about what fully trained practitioners are capable of doing.

For instance, a naturopathic doctor, or ND, is the natural medicine equivalent of an MD, and trains for over four years in an intense program, with prerequisite coursework in biology, chemistry, physics, and so on. There are only a handful of such programs in North America. In states where NDs are licensed, they are legally able to conduct blood tests, among other medical privileges. However, in states like Wisconsin, the term "Naturopathic Doctor" also refers to anyone practicing traditional naturopathy, which is a very different field without the focus on science. Technically, there's no standard at all- anyone can hang out a shingle advertising yourself as a naturopathic doctor if they want. It's obviously confusing to patients, and also may make it harder for medical NDs to eventually gain the legal status to perform medical tests.

And then there's my own field: Structural Integration. Since SI is not licensed in most states, it is easy for someone who takes a few hours of training to call themselves practitioners. That's one reason why the brand of SI that I practice, Rolfing®, has that little trademark after it- Certified Rolfers™ can only be trained at the Rolf Institute for Structural Integration, the original school of SI. There are other schools of SI which are very good, and some which are not schools at all but mere week-long workshops. Still, people who take them can say they do "Structural Integration." This is not good, because we do work deeply in the body, altering its form and function, and it is important for us to know how to do that safely!

So what to do as a consumer? There are a few things you can do when seeking out a practitioner of any modality which may help in your selection process:

1) Find out what regulations, if any, are governing a practitioner's profession. These will vary by state and are somewhat arbitrary. I'm not a big fan of legal red tape, but this is one way to find out if your practitioner has a minimal level of training. (There are certainly some who practice illegally who also have high skill level- the alternative health field was popularized by outsiders and individualists, and there are some who still refuse to be licensed. There are also some scam artists who just want your money.) Chiropractic is one example of a legalized profession, and many states regulate bodywork and massage.

2) Find out if there are any professional organizations for this modality. For modalities which aren't legally organized in your state, this is a useful way to find someone qualified. If someone is not a member of one of these organizations, they may still be great at what they do- this is only one way to narrow your search! Here are some of the most important organizations:

-Naturopathic Medicine (Naturopathy): The American Association of Naturopathic Physicians has a member directory online which shows at least some of the graduates of full ND programs.

-Structural Integration: The International Association of Structural Integrators (IASI) has an online directory of its member schools (scroll down to see it- it's the blue text). There is also a directory of IASI members on their site, although many of us Rolfers are not members (having our own certification). At least you can see if your practitioner has graduated from one of these schools, which would guarantee a certain level of training.

-Rolfing Structural Integration: The Rolf Institute has a list of Certified Rolfers as well, many of whom are not members of IASI, but all of whom graduated from the Institute.

-Nutrition (Holistic): The National Association of Nutrition Professionals has a list of members who have attended schooling and passed their exam. They are the foremost member organization in the United States for holistic nutrition.

-Herbalism: The American Herbalists Guild has a rigorous membership process.

-Bodywork and massage: For Western massage, the American Massage Therapy Association has a web listing. The National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM) has a certification for Asian Bodywork Therapy, and the American Organization for Bodywork Therapies of Asia (AOBTA) also has a listing online.

3) Use word of mouth, of course.

4) Use your own judgement. The less you depend on official qualifications when seeking a practitioner, the more engaged you will need to be in finding out how skilled someone is. Ask questions, such as what their training consisted of. Of course, sometimes even highly credentialed and experienced practitioners are not as skillful as a naturally talented beginner!
Remember, no matter how "good" someone is, they are not going to be the right practitioner for everyone. One of the great things about holistic healing is that it is about interrelationship, including the relationship between you and your practitioner. There are many factors that go into this; in some cases, such as Structural Integration or personal training, it is also somewhat important for personal styles to mesh in order to make progress. Notice your intuitive response to someone- beyond their qualifications, is this someone you feel you can work with? You are entering into a partnership, not just receiving medicine passively!

Healing Arts, Medical Science

2010-07-24T11:05:00.000-07:00

Recently, a friend of mine told me that she strongly preferred going to alternative health specialists who were also MDs or had similar training in mainstream medicine. My temptation was to say, "I strongly prefer to read poetry by poets who also write technical instruction manuals." This might sound ridiculous, but I feel like it's kind of an accurate comparison.

It is important, as a user of health and wellness services, to understand the distinction between what I call the "healing arts" and medical science, even though this distinction can be blurry at times. A practitioner of the healing arts is not another medical specialist, but someone who has developed and honed a craft which is based as much on intuition and their own body sense as it is on objective, rational knowledge. The healing arts rely on the human connection between practitioner and client, and often the practitioner is also changed by the work being done. The self-development needed to master a healing art goes on for decades, and can be compared to the development of a martial artist, demonstrated here by Chun Man Sit (the "good stuff" starts at about 40 seconds):

This isn't to say that the healing arts do not have a technical, analytic side. They often do. Think about classical music, highly technical field if there ever was one. Classical composers have a complex understanding of theory, and often study acoustics as a science. It's an art based on precision and intellectual knowledge as well as imagination. Composers don't conduct double-blind, placebo controlled studies to see if their music will be effective (at least not yet), but it obviously has powerful effects for working with the emotions. Likewise, the healing arts can work with the body in powerful ways. (Music can also affect the body- the eminent neurologist Oliver Sacks has written of music's power to heal both mentally and physically, and many of us have felt it.)

Equating healing arts to medical science degrades both professions. Modern medicine is an extraordinary tool for healing, and depends largely on reductionist, objective thinking. The healing arts have profound power as well. To pretend that the healing arts are totally scientific would dismiss the power of our intuitive and subjective capacity to heal using the mind-body connection. (I myself had once considered becoming a PT, but wanted to practice the holistic vision of body structure and body-mind connection offered by Structural Integration- I don't pretend to practice a purely scientific approach, although I follow and use scientific findings.)

I think it would be very difficult to master both of these disciplines, and I'm kind of skeptical about people who do both. (Although it has been done succesfully.) It may be better, from the point of view of someone seeking health services, to find separate practitioners for "medicine" and "healing arts." The tendency to believe that someone with "MD" after their name is a master of every aspect of health is problematic, no matter how high a pedestal these people are put on. If we go down that path too far, we will lose the true strength of the healing arts.

Your Fluid Architecture, Part Two

2010-07-07T14:30:00.001-07:00

(A bad example of fluid architecture. Or a good example of bad architecture?)

In Part One of this mini-series we made a little foray into the anatomy and function of your connective tissue. So why should you care about it? What are the practical benefits of understanding this aspect of yourself, when you could be watching YouTube videos instead?

To begin with, it flies in the face of how we in modern society understand and perceive our bodies. Since we are used to thinking of our bodies as a mere bundle of parts, we wind up using them as such, to a greater degree. At least, that's my theory. Our science, "reductionist" in the sense that it tries to understand the world by breaking it into smaller and smaller elements, seems to influence us into thinking this way. Another factor is our tendency to overuse language in explaining our body (and the rest of the world) to ourselves, rather than experiencing it directly. While both science and language are extraordinarily useful, the way we've been trained to think about ourselves has led us to experience our own bodies somewhat inaccurately and incompletely. How this works maybe has something to do with our conscious, rational minds overriding the feelings and sensations coming from our body. (I went into that a bit with an earlier blog post).

So, let's get to some real-life examples.

Try this: take a deep breath into your chest. When you let the air out, don't push it, just let it naturally leave your body. What happens when you do this is that the fascia (connective tissue) around your chest expands when you inhale, and then naturally returns to its "resting" shape, like a rubber band. While you also have muscles that help you forcefully exhale, as when doing aerobics, they're usually not all that active. (If you do push your resting breath out forcefully, you're probably overdoing it- see my posts on breathing.) So here is one way that your fascia saves you on energy, if you're letting it.

Another way we humans use connective tissue is in walking, a highly rhythmic activity. If you've ever hit your stride in walking or running, where it felt like it took almost no energy to keep going, you've probably been tuned in unconsciously to the natural rhythms of your connective tissue network. It's designed to store the kinetic energy of walking, and then release it again in a sequence which involves much of the body, including the springy arches of your feet and the rotational power of your spine.

This feature of normal walking can also be manipulated by the body for special tasks, like carrying a heavy load on your head. In fact, a study done on women who were accustomed to such loads found that when they walked with a load of 20% of their body weight, there was no measurable increase in heart rate. Since their heart rate wasn't increasing, we can deduce that they weren't using extra muscle power, but instead cleverly taking advantage of their connective tissue's recoiling power. Specifically, for those interested in anatomy, it seems that their IT bands, the bane of many runners, were being used to give their hips more side-to-side power.

Of course, other rhythmic activities can tap into our connective power. Martial artists and boxers make obvious use of it when they push into their foot and send a punch flying. At the highest level, people can use very little strength to do this, yet release a lot of energy. It takes a while to learn to relax your extra muscles to allow this movement to flow through the fascia!

Hopefully, after reading Part One, it's clear that when you have a problem with one body part, other parts of your body may be involved. Thinking in this way can get you to notice when you are doing something unhealthy with one area of your body that might be straining another. For instance, jutting your head forward all day at the computer might start to drag your shoulders forward as well, leading to compressed nerves and blood flow in the front of your arm, and causing problems in your wrist. This is just one of infinitely many examples, but should help illustrate how it helps to think whole-body. Of course, a holistically-minded health practitioner can really help illuminate your movement and posture patterns; our own habits are often the hardest to notice!

Sustainability and Health

2010-07-02T13:41:00.000-07:00

I want to briefly interrupt my series on connective tissue, in light of the BP disaster and the possible near-future extinction of whales due to heavy metal contamination.

My interest in preserving the natural world factored into my decision to learn about natural healing methods. Many of them use far less resources than high-tech surgical and pharmaceutical approaches, produce less medical waste, and do not require animal testing. I am a huge fan of modern biomedicine, to be sure, but I want to live with a smaller environmental footprint, and part of that is living in ways that reduce the need for medical intervention. (Here's a quiz you can take to get a rough idea of your environmental footprint.)

I encourage everyone reading this to take steps for their health, to engage in simple healthful activities, and to eat a healthy diet (which generally means eating less processed foods lower on the food chain, both environmentally savvy moves). Using services such as massage, Pilates/yoga/tai chi classes, movement education such as Feldenkrais, or structural integration can help you stay healthy without using a lot of resources. Meditation has also been shown to reduce stress and have health benefits, without the need to even leave the house. If you're lucky enough to live in a nice neighborhood, consider going for a walk or run instead of driving to a gym full of high-tech equipment. Madison has a nice system of pedestrian/bike trails, and when enough people ride, drivers learn to be mindful of bicycles.

The last few weeks have been distressing for anyone concerned about the future of our planet. These tips will not solve everything, to be sure, but you can't have holistic health without concern for the environment as well as the individual- the era of thinking of our own health as separate needs to end now.

Your Fluid Architecture, Part One

2010-06-25T13:32:00.000-07:00

Figure 1: You

This post opens a short series about the human body's connective tissue system, an amazing network of which serves to hold us together, among other things. Without it, we'd be a primordial puddle on the floor, and yet you probably haven't heard much about it. Learning a little about this essential system will help you understand your body much better.

We begin with a study of the anatomy of connective tissue. I'll try to be brief. The network as a whole is actually ridiculously complex, wrapping the the entire body and going through, between, and around every part, down to the smallest nerves and blood vessels. It is known by various common names, depending on variations in its tissue: bone, ligament, cartilage, fascia, etc. These differently named "parts" actually flow into each other, changing density and becoming more elastic and fluid in some areas, less in others. The important point is that this fluid web functions very differently than a bunch of separate parts thrown together in a bag of skin- it is a unified family of tissues, capable of smoothly transmitting motion and stress between what we think of as our parts, allowing much more flowing, efficient and effective movements.

Another aspect of its fluidity is its shape-shifting power. Even bone can change shape to meet the demands you place on it! Likewise, bone deforms slightly due to temporary stress placed on it (as in walking), and then "pops" back to its resting shape when the stress passes. (This last part is somewhat theoretical, but has been demonstrated in studies of rats.)

Other forms of connective tissue, such as fascia, have a more obvious "rubber band" quality than bone does. You may have heard of "myofascia," which is just the connective tissue closely related to, and inseparable from, your muscles. One way myofascia helps contribute to the body's movement is by stretching around a muscle when it contracts and widens, then snapping back when the muscle relaxes, helping get it back into place. Therapies such as myofascial release work to free this tissue when it becomes overly constricted, and Structural Integration seeks to balance the myofascia, among other tissues, to aid in body alignment.

Like with bone, your body will essentially remodel your fascia over time, depending on the demands placed on it. Recently, a Rolfer named Robert Schleip (whose website contains a section for non-professionals) also demonstrated that fascia can contract like a muscle as well, and contains quite a few nerves. For a long time in anatomy studies fascia was just an inert packing material that only played a backing role to such stars as muscles and nerves. A handful of oddballs on the fringes of medicine, such as early osteopaths and Ida Rolf, were the only people seriously interested in it, but it's becoming the in thing nowadays- even surgery has become much more careful about putting it back together following an operation.

Another really cool thing about the connective tissue system is that is seems to be able to hold us together in a very different way than a common human structure such as a building. While a building depends on the strength of its parts to resist the destructive force of gravity, a human body can at least partly hold itself up by balancing the tension of its muscles, fascia, and ligaments against the stability of its bones. How is this possible? Consider the lowly bicycle wheel.

Figure 2: The Not-So-Lowly Bike Wheel (Flemons 2007)

Even a common bike wheel is built on this same principle of counterbalance, called "tensegrity." Buckminster Fuller, oddball genius and inventor of the geodesic dome, coined the term, which combines "tension" and "integrity." (Two artistic examples of tensegrity are featured on this page.) In the case of the bike wheel, each spoke is under tension, tugging against the rim and the hub in balance with its fellow spokes. If the balance is lost, the wheel is more difficult to ride on, and is called "out of true." Having this balance also means that when you ride over an obstacle such as a curb, the entire wheel will change shape very slightly to allow for the change in pressure, and then pop back into place. This makes the wheel more resilient, and requires less weight than a non-tensegrity wheel like an old wagon wheel.

Putting a human body back into true is a bit more complicated, anatomically speaking, but there are a lot of ways you can shift towards that goal. I'll go more into that in the next post.

If it Feels Bad, Don't Do It.

2010-06-17T05:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a major problem with learning a mind-body discipline: Your teacher is good at it. Not only that, but they have probably had their life transformed by it. Why is this a problem? Because many teachers are not good at seeing when their own practice is not a good match for a particular student.

It's a basic principle of holism that what is good for one person might be bad for another. While this is also common sense, it sometimes gets ignored by teachers because they believe strongly in their particular discipline. This is partly due to the results they've had with it personally, and sometimes partly due to a dogma of a particular system or art which idealizes that system. So, when a student complains of pain or difficulty, the teacher will reflexively decide that the student must be doing something wrong, and then try to find it and fix it.

Of course, many times the student is actually doing something wrong. There are also times when the student is doing everything right, in a "by the books" way, but the practice itself is causing the problem. A student's body structure may not be suited for a particular way of moving, no matter how good they get at it, or their mind may not be ready for it.

For example, Scott Anderson, a yoga teacher in Madison, points out that a even a thorough practice like yoga needs to be modified for individual needs to be the most effective. Ultimately, each student has to develop the inner awareness to learn how to use yoga the most effectively and without injury. A teacher who tries to force a student's body to fit a particular mold will most likely hinder this learning.

This can lead to difficulties, or at worst injuries. I have seen this within other arts, such as tai chi and Aikido. Well-meaning teachers will insist that a student with pain is doing something wrong, and try to force the student's body to do something that it isn't meant to. I believe that some of this comes from trying to adapt Eastern arts to Western bodies, but there are also significant differences between almost any two individuals. Something that began as one person exploring and honoring the wisdom of their own body can become a rigid tradition which ignores these differences.

On the other hand, any practice that is worthwhile will challenge your body and mind, sometimes intensely, and there are usually good reasons for doing things a certain way. My advice for you as a student is to be your own "guru," to keep an open mindset to the practice but recognize when your body is being hurt. Pain coming from your joints is a very good sign that something is wrong, and will feel very different from a muscular workout. A high level of tension in your body is also a yellow flag.

If you experience serious problems, ask your teacher for help or modifications to the practice, and if they can't or won't allow you to change, consider changing practices instead!

Field Report: Alignment and Spirituality

2010-06-13T12:51:00.000-07:00

(and now for something completely different..)

Much has been made of a connection between body alignment and spirituality, at least in traditions such as yoga and Buddhism, which place great emphasis on posture and alignment as tools for spiritual development. Obviously, many forms of Christianity prescribe certain postures for worship as well. Our language itself uses such words as "uprightness" or "righteousness" to connote morality, which could imply at least a metaphorical connection to body posture. As my line of work involves body alignment, and I have an ongoing interest in the link between mind and body, this naturally interests me. Between my professional practice and my meditative and tai chi practices, I have been mulling this over and hopefully have gleaned some insights.

In seeking to answer the question of how the alignment of the body and spiritual growth are linked, we need to define the slippery word "spiritual," which I use to mean an experienced connection to reality as a whole, or a larger part. Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck points out that the word "religion" derives from the Latin word "religare," meaning "to bind." So spiritual or religious practice is designed to connect our sense of being to the universe, a Goddess or God, etc. Note that this could also include an atheist spirituality, where the connection is for instance to all of nature or humanity. "Spiritual" could refer to one aspect of our psychological makeup, the part that understands and experiences that connection.

I should also specify what I mean by "alignment" and "posture." "Alignment" refers to the underlying structure of your body, while "posture" is how you use that structure. So, when someone tells you to "stand up straight," they are giving you postural advice (usually misguided), while when you do tai chi for years and change your body structure as a result, you are working with alignment. When alignment changes, it's deeper than a temporary use of muscles- it's a shift in the shape of the soft tissue and bone of your body.

The idea that there is an ideal spiritual posture or alignment is strongly distasteful to me personally, as it means that people with certain body structures, severe injuries, and so on are always going to be less spiritual than others. Stephen Hawking, for instance, has always struck me as someone with a strong inner sense of connection to the world despite having ALS. Also, constantly trying to force a rigid "straight" posture on your underlying alignment might lead not to spiritual growth but to excess tension if you're not careful. So it's hard to pin down this body-spirit connection!

Nevertheless, I know from the experience of myself and others that when the body is aligned through practices such as Rolfing Structural Integration (SI), Feldenkrais Functional Integration, etc., there is a sense of greater connectedness and freedom that seems to extend beyond the physical. Scientific studies have at least begun to demonstrate psychological shifts due to body posture as well, although I don't know of any that have correlated body posture with spirituality specifically.

From my training and clinical experience, I have concluded that "aligning" the body is not necessarily bringing it in line with an absolute ideal (notwithstanding the Rolfing logo shown), but helping organize the subconscious nervous system to align the body more effectively, as it sees fit. Part of this process is bringing new awareness to the body, in places where it there has been missing or inaccurate information- this can happen due to psychological reasons, such as "withdrawing" from an area due to fear of pain caused by an injury (even after the pain has passed), or an "overflow" of negative emotion into the body which shows up as tension and a numbed perception of the area or the whole body. These things can all pull the body into distorted alignment. Here is where the spiritual link is clearest, as it seems there is a direct connection between many of these dysfunctional patterns and a lack of felt connection with the world. Some of my clients have remarked that they felt like it was easier to be themselves after our work together. I think that this is not because of the supernatural effects of better alignment, but because they have let go of the physical patterns that were holding them back. Their restrictions depended on their unique genetics, personality, and history, and only their own bodies knew how to release them, with the help of outside awareness. An aware body can work as a more connected whole within itself, and relate more effectively to gravity, which is the relationship of our body to the Earth itself. Relationships with others can also become more realistic and human. In this way, I view my work as "paraspiritual" (as in "paralegal," "paramedic," etc.), because it seems to help with spiritual growth for some people, without being spiritual in itself. This growth tends to be in a practical direction; as the self-awareness of the body becomes clearer, awareness of how other areas of one's life are "out of alignment" also clarifies, and the need for transformation becomes obvious.

Ok, enough for now. In a future post, I hope to compare the physical aspects of various spiritual and religious paths, which I think will have a lot in common despite geographic and cultural differences.

Be well.

Wellness to the People!

2010-06-05T07:28:00.000-07:00

One thing that annoys me about "holistic" medicine is the lack of access to it, both due to people's financial situations as well as the difficulty in finding good information about services, no matter how good your Google-Fu is. These factors add up to a kind of elitism, where it might seem that you need to be rich and/or some kind of Ascended Being to be worthy to partake of such things. Certain practitioners feed this attitude, charging high amounts which are not warranted by their training or skill, in order to appear more qualified or mysterious. I'm strongly opposed to this, because at its heart mind-body medicine is something that should be available to everyone, and give you greater self-reliance in your own health and healing. Practitioners do need to make a living, but in a society where many of us cannot even afford basic medical care, it is important to have as many options for health as possible. So, today's blog features some of the programs available in the Madison area and around the U.S. that can help you remove some of the obstacles to your healing:

Time Banks, which are basically large bartering networks, where you can offer to spend your time helping one person, and in turn get help from someone else. The "Hours" that you spend and save are recorded online in a central database, making it easier to use. There are many of these sprouting up across the U.S., offering a variety of services besides wellness-related practices. In Madison, we have a 1500 member Bank currently, with things like massage, reflexology, and nutritional advice being offered. I'm also offering sessions of Rolfing Structural Integration through our Time Bank. If there's no Time Bank in your area, consider starting one!

Working Class Acupuncture, and the Community Acupuncture Network. This movement, started in Portland, promotes acupuncture as a "people's medicine," using low-cost sliding scales to allow you to get enough sessions to improve your health. Each Community Acupuncture center is a bit different, but they all follow the same basic model of doing treatments in a group setting, on a sliding scale where you decide how much you can afford to pay (no income verification, etc. is needed). It is considered important to get repeated treatments in acupuncture, and this makes it possible for many of us to do so. In Madison, we're fortunate to have one such clinic right now.

The Community Wellness Collective of Madison, which a group of us wellness professionals started to provide holistic healthcare to all Madison residents. We provide a listing of lower-cost conventional and alternative health resources on request, and additionally offer low-cost services as part of our own practices. Outreach to the homeless and street population is our latest project, and we have hosted and will continue to host street medic trainings, open to anyone interested. For further information on any of these options, please contact info@madcwc.org!

If you're an avid cyclist, Bicycle Benefits is a great program for saving money at various business in several cities, including Madison. You buy a $5 sticker, put it on your helmet, and then show the helmet for a discount when you go places on your bike. Several of us wellness practitioners in Madison offer a session discount, meaning that you make up your $5 pretty much with the first visit. Last time I checked, we had 95 participating business in Madison!

Be well!

I, Cycle

2010-05-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

In honor of Memorial Day weekend, and of my friends Mandy and Ryan who have biked pert near 'round the whole U. S. of A on their sustainable communities tour (soon to be a somewhat major motion picture!), I'm just going to take it easy for this post, and write about how much I love biking.

To be sure, biking isn't the perfect exercise. It lacks some of the biomechanical finesse of walking or running, and the upper body workout of swimming or climbing. Still, it's a great endurance workout, and can be done at a leisurely pace, slowly enough to inhale through your nose. This pace naturally encourages a deeper inhale than resting, especially if you push it a bit, requiring you to find more room for your breath in order to avoid mouth breathing. I notice that I'm usually tensing my lower back and sides, and letting go of this tension allows more outward movement in my lower ribs and makes room for a fuller diaphramatic breath (more on breathing in my previous posts). I think of it is as going for a stroll on the bike, which allows me to take in the trees and lakes, and amuse myself by watching the super-intense gearhead bike jocks burning past. The interesting part for me is that my speed and endurance have increased markedly this year, without my pushing very hard, and I'm beginning to overtake quite a few road bikes in my cheapo hybrid (road and off-road combo). It is widely reported that this approach also burns more fat than a higher intensity workout, which I can always use after a Wisconsin winter filled with Wisconsin microbrew.

As far as how biking affects core awareness, I've been able to better explore the connections from my abdominal core muscles (such as the psoas, the long one in the picture going from the spine to the inner thigh) through my adductors (msucles which reside along the inner thigh, reaching down towards the knee). Basically speaking, these muscles generate a lot of power for us when they're activated fully, which isn't often the case for modern folks. It's not that they're too weak, it's just that a combination of factors, including over training of our more external muscles, can cause them to shut down. Bike riding won't necessarily wake them up, but if they're already partly awake, it can help you to engage them further.

Well, there I go again, unable to resist throwing a little core chit-chat into my ode. I'll wrap things up for now, with a little warning: if you frequent the bike paths in your town, keep an eye out for other cyclists! A surprising amount of damage can happen in a bike-on-bike collision, as my left knee and nose learned a couple of years ago. Learn the rules of the trail, watch out for blind spots, and allow your vision to take in the periphery, which can incidentally be helpful for your head and neck posture.

So with that caveat, if you've been resisting getting on the bike this year, just tell yourself you're going for a stroll on wheels!

Book Report: Born to Run

2010-04-28T15:45:00.000-07:00

This book definitely has all the feel of a magazine sports writer's master work. While author Christopher McDougall did strain my patience with his too clever writing style that came off as one part preacher, one part salesman, and one part drunk guy standing around the campfire, the final impact of reading it was nothing short of inspiring. I say that as someone who hates "running," the tedious activity which requires expensive shoes and a Puritan's work ethic and self-sacrifice. I do love the sheer pleasure of physical activity done for it's own sake, where the separation between body and mind dissolves into a simple and healthy peace, and this is the type of running that Born to Run explores.

McDougall weaves a sprawling yet cohesive narrative, following the legendary exploits of a fringe subgroup of runners, the ultra-marathoners, who travel distances almost unimaginable to most of us. His own story ties in with theirs, as he attempts to learn from them to rehabilitate his own running style and run without being totally in pain. This quest leads him to Mexico, home of a native tribe called the Tarahumara, whose inhuman skill at running is matched only by their peaceable culture. Along the way to a showdown between the Tarahumara and the modern-day tribe of ultra-marathoners, we meet a great cast of characters which includes a barefoot running disciple named Barefoot Ted, a math student who becomes a primitive hunter-gatherer and winds up running an antelope down on foot, and anthropologists who seek the origins of our humanity itself in the simple act of running.

Joining the chorus of "barefoot" running advocates and others who explore a thin-soled approach, McDougall roundly criticizes the podiatrists and Nike salesmen who led us to what describes as a plague of shoe-created running injuries almost unheard of in earlier times. He cites the decline of American marathoners in recent decades as an example of how when running became a business and lost its joyfulness, it also lost some of its power. As a Rolfer, I also believe that running with less artificial support, when possible, promotes healthier arch function while reducing impact on the rest of the body. Awareness in the soles of the feet can also increase mobilization of deep core support in the torso. So, philosophically I appreciated this aspect of the book. While I'm unsure about how much high-tech footwear most people need, I am certainly skeptical about the hugely profitable shoe industry's claims.

Here's a picture of the Vibram Five Finger, my own favorite "barefoot" shoe, which helps to activate individual toe function.

Mostly, the beauty of this book is in its humanity. It seeks to find a better way for us to live as humans, by showing that being nicer to each other might make us better runners, and vice-versa. While I think McDougall overstates his case, and is more interested in story than hard fact, I was inspired enough by him to become a better cyclist literally overnight, proving once again the power of the mind-body connection. So far, I haven't started running.

Driving Part Two- Eyes on the Road, etc.

2010-04-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

In part one I went into detail about the hands and arms, because this is where much of our superfluous tension is held while driving, as in "white knuckles." This part will briefly offer some tips to round out your structurally happy driving experience:

1) Let your vision be broad. Take in the periphery as well as the center. This helps with a few things. It allows your head and neck an opportunity to relax a bit, if they are used to being "pulled" forward by narrowed vision- the way we take in the world with our senses can have strong effects on our structure over time. Notice if you are letting the sights around you come to you, or trying to somehow reach out to grab them with your vision. This tactic can also reduce eye strain. In a suddenly dangerous situation, it allows you quicker and better reactions than having a narrow focus- it's a trick used in tai chi to promote relaxed alertness with less distracting mental chatter.

2) Remember to allow yourself to breathe in your belly, especially under stress. Refer to my previous posts on breathing, from last month, for more detail.

3) Try a little cushion for your back, just under the bottom of your shoulder blades and centered over your spine. You can get small pillows at drug stores that will do the trick for something like $5. This can help to bring your center of gravity forward, and put less stress on your back. Some people prefer supporting their low back with a cushion, but sometimes this can put more strain on your back as it brings your shoulders farther behind your center of gravity- experiment with this one a bit.
Ideally, this tip will help center your weight over the large bones of your pelvis (aka the sit bones) rather than over your tailbone, which requires less tension and is better for your spine, and will give your spinal muscles a chance to engage and support the spinal column.

Behold, the "sit bones:"

(Also called the "sits bones," or technically the "ischial tuberosities.")

If you want to find them on yourself, feel for the big round bones in the center of each side of your butt. When sitting, you can try rolling forward and back on them, seeing if you can find a good balancing place (although many chairs are horrible for this; you might have better luck on the ground).

Finally, as a service of the Hayden Traffic Safety Commission, check out this video to test your ability to pay attention:

Driving Part One- Keeping Your Hands Upon the Wheel

2010-04-13T06:30:00.000-07:00

This is part one in a two-part series geared towards those who spend significant time behind the wheel. None of you are likely to be surprised to hear that driving is not generally a healthy activity for our body structure, what with the slumped postures enforced by seat designers, the constant repetitive motions, and the stress of interacting with our fellow humans at their finest. Personally, I'd rather be out on a bike in nice weather, getting in my eco-cardio-whatnot commute. Since that's not always possible, I've adapted my driving to work for my body in a way that actually develops my core awareness and relieves stress. Not all of the following techniques will work for you; as always, it's best to listen to your body, and work with your health and medical professionals as necessary to avoid injury. I'll relate what works well for me, starting today with some explorations for your hands and arms for relaxation and avoiding repetitive stress injuries in your arms.

1) Just relax. Notice how much tension you have in your arms compared to the amount necessary to hold the steering wheel. Can you let go of anything extra in your hands, forearms, elbows, upper arms, and shoulders? Are you pushing your neck forward?

2) Notice the sensations of your hands on the wheel. Pay attention in turn to each finger, the palm, and the thumb of your hands, and how they feel. Tuning in like this can help engage the support muscles (including the serratus anterior) of your shoulder and arm, and allow you to release tension further. Have some part of each finger in contact with the wheel.

3) Allow your hands to be soft, wrapping around the wheel like bear paws, clouds, or whatever image works for you to create a soft, yet strong, grip. See if this helps you release any tension in your forearms- for most driving purposes, we don't need to engage a lot of our forearm strength in order to keep our grip on the wheel, and holding excess tension actually slows response time. The soft strength of our hands can be surprisingly powerful, as we learn to be more efficient.
To get even softer, you can try feeling as if only the skin of your hands is wrapping around the wheel, as if it were growing into the wheel or magnetically attached to it. This helps to bring more awareness to excess tension within your hand itself, and also to bring more sensory awareness to the brain to activate core support for your shoulder- it's as if the increased awareness reminds the body that it needs to help hold the arms in place. This is more effective than using your arms and shoulders alone, and along with the other techniques, keeps the nerves of your arms and shoulders from getting aggravated by sustained tension in the muscles.

4) Allow your shoulders to be at rest, heavy, but not pushing down.

5) Allow a little space in your armpit, so that your elbows are not held tight against your sides. I think of little clouds of energy pushing outwards slightly. Notice if this helps you relax your shoulder a bit further.

6) Imagine your collarbones being broad and lengthening out towards your shoulders. This can help keep you from collapsing inwards at your shoulders, which over time can compress nerve tissue and lead to problems in your arms and hands.

7) Feel as if your shoulder blade itself is able to glide a little bit down your back. Sometimes it helps to imagine little strings lifting them up from above as you breath in, and then letting go as you exhale so that they drift downwards like seashells across the sand on the bottom of the ocean. This might be a bit picturesque for some, but the idea again is to find a working metaphor to engage your subconscious mind.

8) The "ten and two o' clock" position for the hands on the wheel is usually recommended by driving experts. On the other hand, on long trips you might try more of a "four and eight o' clock" position sometimes, especially if you have carpal tunnel or other nerve problems in your forearms. Having your palms facing upwards puts less pressure on the median nerve (of carpal tunnel fame), as it doesn't force one bone (the radius) to rotate around the other (the ulna) and cause greater compression in your forearm.

And be careful out there!

Defining "Mind-Body Medicine"

2010-04-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

What is "mind-body" medicine, and how can it be used? To begin with, it's important to distinguish it from "natural," "alternative," "complementary," and "holistic" medicine, though it may be any or all of these. There is one major aspect of mind-body medicine which sets it apart: it depends on the conscious participation of the person receiving it. A practitioner of this type of medicine is not really giving it to someone else; they are only acting as a guide to help the recipient unlock their own healing powers, as trite as that may sound. The person who is being healed is really the healer, using their body and mind as a unified whole to engage these abilities, which is not really so difficult but can take a bit of practice.

What are the benefits specific to mind-body medicine? To begin with, it fosters a sense of self-reliance in healing. You can't heal everything yourself, of course, but to realize that you can use visualizations to help improve your balance or lower your blood pressure is a powerful lesson. Like any ability, the mind-body connection can improve with practice, and can also be transferred to a variety of situations. A professional practitioner of mind-body medicine is only as good as their ability to support this development in their client or patient, so that the benefits can continue after treatment.

The methods of mind-body medicine typically use very little in resources, other than the tools we are born with. The more we can improve our health with these methods, the less we have to impact the environment through more resource-intensive forms of medicine. (I should probably note that this doesn't mean we should avoid going to the hospital when we need to, for instance- oftentimes we don't have a choice.)

Less tangibly, but no less profoundly, the experience of mind-body unity which develops through these processes begins to impact not only physical conditions, but one's quality of life in general. On a spiritual level, it can begin to provide us with glimpses of a greater unity of life, reflected in the whole of our being. This offers us a sense of health which goes far beyond the lack of disease, but is also very difficult to describe.

There are many types of mind-body medicine out there, and the boundaries around it are blurry. Practices such as tai chi or yoga certainly qualify, when done with proper awareness. Massage and bodywork can help us learn about our body on a deep level, where the distinction between mind and body is broken down. Meditations of various types, including shamanistic practices, can bring us into this awareness in a different way, coming from the mind into the body. Movement awareness systems such as Feldenkries use consciousness to engage the mind on a deeper, pre-conscious level, where it is easier to work with the body. Structural Integration often combines bodywork with movement explorations to bridge the "gap" from both directions simultaneously. And the list goes on... Additionally, many books and audio recordings are available to help you develop your skills in this area.

Book Report: The New Rules of Posture

2010-03-28T13:34:00.000-07:00

I've already mentioned this book a couple of times on the blog. It's written by a Rolfer, and like Rolfing Structural Integration, to gain the full benefits from it takes time and a commitment to body awareness. For those who are willing to put in the time, it's a fantastic resource.
Author Mary Bond's "rules" are really more like ways to increase internal awareness of what your body is doing in a variety of situations. As one example, the book helps you activate the somewhat mythical "core" muscles of your abdomen, which are hard to activate through sheer willpower alone, unless you happen to be athletically gifted. It also helps you navigate physically challenging situations, such as sitting at a computer 40 hours a week. You can use these explorations to improve athletic performance, reduce pain, or just make daily life more relaxed and productive.
I would recommend this book to both clients and wellness practitioners, as it's so rich with detail and exercises. I frequently refer to it both for myself and others. It's truly a self-help manual for your health.

Breathing Easy

2010-03-19T14:07:00.001-07:00

The ability to breathe well has obvious implications for athletics, but also can imbue us with better health in general, and a calmer state of mind- this last benefit being one reason why breath is a focus of many meditative traditions. The flexibility to move between the type of intense breathing needed for heavy exertion and the type needed for sedentary states is one hallmark of healthy breath. Gaining this adaptability requires that we tune in to our breath as we would to a good friend during a conversation, and not override its natural cycles. Fortunately, there are many ways to use the mind to enhance rather than interfere with breathing.

So, now that I've already talked a bit about how not to breathe, here are some basic things to consider in attaining a deeper, more natural breath cycle. These can be used in conjunction with practices such as yoga or martial arts, or on their own. With regular attention in your spare moments, you can encourage natural, healthy breathing ability. During intense activity, I would suggest not trying too hard to consciously change your breathing or impose some pattern on your breath, because you could be dangerously interfering with your body's wisdom which protects you from injury.

1) Think in 3D. Your lungs exist as much in the back of your body as in your front. Most people think of their breath as something only in their front side, which limits their ability to get breath in their sides and back. Sometimes, just realizing this fact has given my clients more breathing room. Notice if you tend to breath just into your front, and see if you can allow more breath in other directions.

2) Your so-called "rib cage" is really more of a mobile basket, moving more dramatically in front and more subtly in your sides and back as you breathe, each rib rising and opening like a Venetian blind and then settling back again. You can experience this capability in your side ribs by placing your palms against them, above your waist, and gently breathing into those areas. You may find that some areas do not move as much as others- one trick to help with this is to breathe into the space outside those ribs, allowing the ribs to move into that space when you inhale. The full movement of your ribs will allow more circulation into the area near your spine, as the joints between your ribs and spine open and close rhythmically.

3) When you breath in, allow your abdomen to expand in response to the breath, in front, sides, and back. This may be easier to do lying down, as there is less tension in the abdominal muscles. This type of breathing can be used for calming down in a pinch, and is a simple version of the type taught in many martial arts and meditative traditions. Make sure you aren't actually pushing with your abdomen, however! Just let it expand, and then shrink.

4) Breathe through your nose, but not from your nose. This means to allow your nose to be a relaxed passage for air, and to avoid tensing up your face to suck air through. One visualization you can do for this is to imagine breathing through the back of your nose- see if this allows your nasal area to relax. Of course, during heavy exertion, it may become necessary to breathe through your mouth.

5) Take a break in your breathing. Notice the little pause at the end of your out breath, and allow it to be as long as your body feels comfortable with. This pause is an important stage of breathing naturally. Notice if you are not pausing at all, and see if you can patiently wait for a pause to appear at the end of the breath. Also notice if you're not letting the air out completely, or maybe pushing it out beyond where it would naturally go, and try to relinquish that habit for the time being.

6) No two breaths are alike. Like ocean waves, each breath is slightly (or dramatically) different from the last, and depends on your body's needs at that moment. Don't try to enforce a uniformity on your breath.

7) Smell the roses. This is one of my favorite quick ways to deepen my breathing when it is tight: imagine that you are inhaling a pleasant fragrance through your nose. This often will allow your breath to deepen without forcing it. Explore for yourself whether this works with any specific fragrance better than others; I tend to like pine needles.

8) Don't use force. Your body will naturally breathe hard when it needs to, but don't try to take fast, deep breaths while resting. If you can hear your breath loudly, it may be that you're trying too hard. Notice if you're inhaling or exhaling too forcefully, and see if you can back off of that, and let your natural breath emerge.

Well, that turned out to be a long list, but there are many ways to work with your breath. Some of them are detailed in The New Rules of Posture, an excellent do-it-yourself manual written by a Rolfer. Of course, the aforementioned yogic, martial arts, and meditation systems all have ways of working with the breath as well, as do movement education systems like the Alexander Technique.

How Not to Breathe

2010-03-07T14:55:00.000-08:00

Our breath flows in and out of us thousands of times every day, an unconscious miracle which sustains us every minute of our lives and interrelates us with the life outside of us. Each inbreath brings the outer world into our lungs, and with each exhalation our exhaust exits us and goes on to become food for plants somewhere. Automatically, our breath reacts to our actions in the world, changing all the time depending on what we're doing, and in anticipation of what we are about to do.

Our breath also binds together different sides of our internal selves: our conscious mind and will meet our unconscious mind and our emotions in this swirl. We can control it, but only to a limited extent, and often it reflects our emotional state whether we want it to our not. We can be aware of it, but it can go on indefinitely without our notice, smoothly overseen by the ancient reptilian parts of our brain.

All of this means that the breath is a complicated feature of our being, and there is no one proper way to breathe for every situation in your life. There are techniques which are used in certain disciplines, like music or the martial arts, in order to direct our river of air towards one purpose or another. These can be extremely useful for certain situations. However, the body has a lot of mechanisms built in to allow it to breathe in a variety of ways; it seems odd to ignore this fact and try to force a single way of breathing onto ourselves for the rest of our life.

For instance, there are muscles which help us to breathe when we are more at rest, and muscles which help us to take heavier breaths during aerobic exercise. If we insist on only breathing into our abdomens, as some people do, we never use those muscles which open up our upper chest and give us a boost during more active periods.

On the other hand, when we're just sitting around, we mostly just need our abdominal breathing, which is controlled by a big muscle called the respiratory diaphragm. This muscle pulls down on your lungs as we breathe in, and causes your belly to push out a bit in response. Then, as the diaphragm relaxes and floats back up, your belly shrinks again. You can see this happening in a baby's body. Most of us have lost some of this ability, due to tension, habits, and cultural ideas of not having a large belly.

There are many ways to expand your possibilities for breathing, and there is one definite way not to do so. If you ask most people to take a deep breath, you will probably get something that looks a lot like hyperventilation, because we have all been taught that the best way to breathe deeply is to rapidly force a lot of air in and out of our chest. Unfortunately, this type of breathing is really only suitable for aerobic exercise. Using this type of over-breathing to try to relax often has the opposite effect, as it puts our nervous system into emergency mode and messes with our blood chemistry by actually bringing our level of carbon dioxide below healthy levels. This is explained thoroughly in the excellent book The New Rules of Posture, written by Rolfer Mary Bond who has a lot of great advice on breathing easy.

When we're not using much oxygen, we don't need to force the breath in and out to sustain us- it's just thin air, after all. Taking a deep breath does not have to involve a lot of work, but it requires some attention to notice how we are inhibiting our own breathing patterns. In the next blog installment, I'll give you some easy tips on breathing deeply. For now, see my last article, Minding the Back, which will give you a basic starting point.

Minding the Back

2010-02-25T11:13:00.000-08:00

Most of us will experience significant back pain at some point in our lives, and according to the Mayo Clinic, it's one of the most common reasons people miss work. Plenty has been said about protecting the spine through proper body mechanics- one list of tips can be found here. However, much back pain seems to be without a known physical cause- even abnormalities found in MRI scans may not be good predictors of pain.

Recently, the link between emotions and back pain has garnered much attention. Interestingly, one of the major predictors of work-related back pain is not lifting technique, but low job satisfaction and high workplace stress. Depression has also been long been associated with back pain; now it seems that in some cases the pain actually results from depression rather than the other way around.

It is obvious to most that stress can translate into tense muscles. Along the spine, this tension can restrict blood flow and lead to weakened muscles which are easily injured, as described in this article. Most of us who practice bodywork therapy can directly attest to the high levels of muscle tension in our clients who suffer from back pain. Oftentimes, tension has become so embedded that the muscles become numb, even as they feel like steel cables to the therpist. The Mayo Clinic lists massage therapy of the spinal muscles as one treatment for back pain.

I believe that high stress can also reduce the function of the core muscles which provide flexible support for the lower back. When movement is well-coordinated, these muscles activate to stabilize your spine just before you perform a task such as lifting a heavy object. Unfortunately, the subtle function of these deep abdominal and spinal muscles can become overwhelmed by tension in outer muscles such as the rectus abdominis muscle (you may know it as the "six pack" muscle) which are often overdeveloped through exercises such as sit-ups, often in an attempt to help back pain! When the abdomen becomes tense for a long period due to stress, it cannot support this core function very well, and also exerts a destabilizing pull on the spine from the outer muscles. Core function can be developed through many disciplines, such as Pilates, yoga, tai chi, and Feldenkreis. In Rolfing Structural Integration, I work to help my client find their core through my touch and guided movements.

For many, high stress leads to a tightening and shortening of breath, usually pushing it into your upper chest. Allowing your abdomen to relax can help improve the depth of your breathing, which in turn helps bring gentle rhythmic movement along the spine, providing increased circulation. This is not taking deep breaths in a forceful way- the feeling is more like allowing your abdomen (including your sides and back) to expand slowly when you inhale. More on breathing in the next blog entry!

I Sing the Body Electric, Part II

2010-02-17T15:46:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick self-exploration: think of three ways that your body works well. Is it hard to do without thinking of problems with your body instead? Can you avoid sneaking in negative comments, as in, "Um, I guess my legs work pretty well, but sometimes my ankle hurts, and my big toes look freaky," and so on? Many of us have difficulty with this exercise.

This illustrates an important point: our unconscious bias towards our body is characterized by negative judgments. How easy is it, comparatively, to come up with three problems you have with your body? We seem to habitual think of our body as a set of problems. Of course, it does help to be able to analyze and solve the problems that we do have with our body, but in doing so we often lose sight of the "big picture."

How does this bias affect our lives? For one thing, it amplifies our basic sense of separation from the physical. In order to view a body as a problem to solve, we need to distance our self from it and analyze it. In doing so, we use our rational minds, which are ill-suited to interacting with the body in a complex and highly functional way. How many athletes use calculus to catch a ball? Many techniques used by effective physical performers of various types are geared toward getting the rational mind out of the body's way. Take for instance the superstitions surrounding sports performance; they sound ridiculous to outsiders, but shut down the whirlpool of worries that threaten to overwhelm the mind of the believer.

Visualization is for many the primary tool of this kind. When we practice a visualization, we engage with the pre-conscious movement systems which take our imagination literally, so to speak, seemingly making little distinction between real and imagined experience. In this way, our conscious mind can interact with our body as a dance partner rather than an American Gladiator. It has been long known, for instance, that practicing a physical activity only in the mind will lead to better results than doing nothing at all, though less than actually performing the activity.

Negativity toward the body is also linked with decreased physical pleasure. Children enjoy their bodies unreservedly, running barefoot in the grass, while for many adults such simple enjoyments are faded pictures. We are encouraged to focus on "adult pleasures," and indulge in overconsumption of substances that harm us, but how many of us frequently allow ourselves to enjoy the more simple aspects of tactile existence? Even the word "sensuality" becomes conflated with "sexuality" in our culture. As our range of pleasure becomes neurotically narrowed in some cases, "pleasure" becomes defined as something done to one's body, which often harms the body in the process, rather than coming from the body itself.

The problem is not the seeking of pleasure; it is the loss of connection. Acting like a Puritan will not necessarily help with this, and may cut you off from your body just as much, as the relationship becomes one of domination and not friendly cooperation. There are many, myself included, who don't make all the healthiest choices, but can still experience well-being in the sense that we are tuned in to our bodies and can benefit from our connection.

So, be friends with your body. Take a gentle breath, and notice how good it actually feels to breathe. The more you can tap into this felt sense of enjoyment, the more you can use it to improve your health and enhance your life. If you enjoy walking, you will walk better. If you enjoy eating in a mindful way, you can get more from your food without overeating. Feeling the weight of your feet on the ground can help activate the muscles which stabilize your spine; even imagining that your bare feet are standing on a pleasurable surface (I usually think of wet mud) can enhance this effect. Enjoying your work may decrease your back pain. Tuning into the basic health of your body overall can help you be well even in sickness and pain, as you gain peace in your most intimate relationship.

I Sing the Body Electric, Part I

2010-02-12T15:47:00.000-08:00

To kick off this blog the right way, I'd like to talk about something that gets right to the heart of wellness as I understand it. The issue can be summarized in the form of a simple question: What is your relationship with your body? How you answer this question has profound implications for your quality and experience of life, and the more you examine it, the deeper it becomes both philosophically and practically.

Before we can dig into the core of this relationship, we first need to unwrap it by examining in the cultural layers which surround it. These layers, like thick clothing, provide us with a comforting context for thinking about our bodies even as they distort and deny our actual experience. They include our standards of beauty and ideals of physique, the requirements of gender roles, our framing of health only in terms of disease, our obsession with youth, and so on. On less obvious levels, they include our tendency to automatically feel negativity towards our body and to focus on negative bodily experiences, as well as the layer which seems to underpin all the others: the separation of body from self.

Each of these layers can have dramatic repercussions for our health and quality of life, in both helpful and unhelpful ways. Most of us are limited by them to the degree that we cannot fully be present in ourselves because of them. In part two, I will explore how our negative feelings about our body can prevent us from achieving a state of true well-being in our bodies, and what we can begin to do about it. As we gain a more peaceful relationship to our physical aspects, we experience a depth and joy of being which in going beyond the physical reflects the exuberant words of Walt Whitman, "O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul, O I say now these are the soul!"