(Doug MacKenzie, a startlingly gifted bodyworker whose work is further described on his website brilliantbody.net, wrote this recently to introduce his class “moving how we grew” (email dougmack@brilliantbody.net for schedules and information).  – George Russell)

Amazing Photos and Amazing Thoughts About Body-Mind Centering®

by Doug MacKenzie (brilliantbody.net, dougmack@me.com)

Caption: Homologous Squirrel

Through touch, movement and mindful dialogue, Body-Mind Centering® offers options in how you can feel, move, and relate to others with the support of your embodiment. It helps you change, move, heal, and focus on what matters. While most movement and bodywork focuses on the alignment of bones and the activity of muscles, BMC® can encourage you to release, energize and integrate all of your anatomical systems. Imagine your abdominal organs nourished, your nerves calm and eager to learn new things, your muscles responsive, ligaments supple, and your movement coordinating, flowing and easy. Find and bring forward hidden strengths that balance your body, so overworking parts can rest and relax with alertness, ready for action. Understand how your mind moves through your body and your body through your mind. Through BMC® we can increase our comfort with who we are, exquisitely, and find our own way with ease.

Caption: Evolving Consciously

Body-Mind Centering has an almost unlimited number of areas of application. It is currently being used by people in movement, dance, yoga, bodywork, physical and occupational therapy, psychotherapy, child development, education, voice, music, art, meditation, athletics and other body-mind disciplines.  Through study and exploration, we progress toward a comprehensive and embodied understanding of both the Body Systems and Developmental Movement. We can see how the Systems coordinate as we grow and develop, and in turn, access Developmental pathways to help the Systems coordinate.

Caption:  Correspondence

The Body Systems

• the skeletal system relates to clarity, effortlessness and form
• the muscles provide vitality, dynamics of resistance and a tensile three-dimensional grid for the balanced support and movement of the skeletal system
• the organs underly feelings, expression and sense of volume
• the endocrine system relates to intuition, energy flow and internal chaos/balance
• the fluids mediate the dynamics of flow between rest and activity
• the nerves govern alertness, thought, precision and perception

Caption:  Seeds of Thought

Developmental Movement

Because our development occurs continuously in relation to our environmental stimulus, we can, in each moment, discover options in the fundamental ways we relate to and orient toward ourselves, others, and that which moves us. However, it is in the first year of life that we learn how to learn and establish a basic perceptual framework. In this formative time, our strengths and perceptions grow through movement patterns that integrate all of our body systems. These patterns cohere in a continuum that echoes the evolutionary progression of the animal kingdom and guides and supports our orientation to this world. Understanding movement patterns can help us to understand and support infants through their growth. As adults we can play with these patterns of our earliest movement, finding more coordination, ease, and choice in the way we move, the way we perceive, and the way we learn.

Though not a linear process, our development occurs in stages that can be identified. Any problems in the early stages will present themselves as obstacles to the fulfillment of our potential—imbalances in skeletal alignment and the body systems, and problems in perception, sequencing, organization, memory, and creativity. By tapping into the forms of our earliest developmental choices—creeping and crawling; grasping and letting go; motivation, initiation and desire—we can release old habits, address and correct imbalances, and find support for following our interests to fruition.

Reposted from http://alexdallymacfarlane.tumblr.com/

20+ years ago, I was working on Martha Partridge at a dance festival.  I had no training, but I used to give people a lot of bodywork anyway and her knee was hurting.  Instinctively, I started moving her tissues around gently, looking for tight and free spots and seeking to feel even flow all around the kneecap.  Little did I know that Martha was a master of Trager technique trained, in part, by Milton Trager himself.  Martha told me that I was doing Trager technique on her.  “How can I be doing Trager on you when I don’t even know what Trager is!” I protested.  “I’ll teach you” said Martha.  Although I was never certified, the lessons I learned from Martha are a foundation brick in my technique to this day.  And I realized that 5 years before, I had received a Trager session from Elizabeth Frumin in Philadelphia without knowing the technique she was using.  Turns out I wasn’t a savant, just a plagiarist.

I almost always incorporate passive body movement into my work.  I don’t know why or how I started doing it… it might have been that I noticed other parts of the body seemed dead, stuck, or held while I was working on one part.  On the other hand, as my sister has observed, it might have been because I am hyperactive and want to get paid to fidget.

Either way, there are at least five ways that Shaking, Rattling and Rolling your client can help them.

1. Resets Nervous System.  When the body perceives movement at the joints and in the muscles, it assesses joint position, muscle length and speed of change everywhere.  Then it does a “save” so you still know where your body is in space.  Moving your client a lot adds to this effect and helps your body to recognize the released state as the “new normal”.
2. Increases Pleasure Center Stimulation.  More movement, more comprehensive and wide-ranging touch within a healthy range of motion increases oxytocin secretion, and fluid movement of the whole body increases the clients’ pleasure in the massage.
3. Distracts from Pain Sensations.  Remember during the Ice Age when you used to have to fight wooly mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers on a daily basis?  Humans have an area of the brain called the thalamus, which is like the executive secretary to the sensory-motor brain.  This secretary always privileges movement sensation over pain sensaion, so you can keep fighting the tiger even if you’ve got a little flesh wound down your body that would otherwise hurt like hell.  So with massage.  Movement trumps pain in the brain, and so tight areas will not feel as painful if we release them while moving the client.
4. Helps Reorganize Inefficient Movement Patterns.  Movement Patterns are stored in the brain, but they rely on specific muscle lengths and relationships.  When you move a person around over an extended period of time, the muscles change length in accordance with the movements you’re introducing.  This feeds back to the brain, which has to work harder to fall into habit. Combine this with number 1 above, and you have rehabilitation.
5. Creates a fulcrum for release.  If you hold a point and move the body around it, rather than digging into the point, the moving tissue flows around the still point, which becomes a fulcrum for movement.  When you take your hand away from the fixed point, the tissues around have softened it, and it is less painful and more open, whether it was contracted or adhered.

Study Shake, Rattle and Roll with Aviva Geismar. http://gettingbetterbodywork.com/events/shake-rattle-and-roll/

[this blog entry is copyright 2005 and courtesy of Trager International.  See more at trager.com.]

“The Trager Approach” as it is more generally known, is the discovery of Milton Trager M.D.who first encountered its principles somewhat serendipitously, at the age of 18. He then spent the next 50 years, as a lay practitioner and later, medical doctor, refining and expanding his discovery. With a long and successful career as a therapist behind him, Milton Trager embarked on the new venture of teaching his work at an age when most others are thinking of retirement. There are now thousands of Certified Practitioners throughout the globe; in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan. At the age of 88, he passed away in January 1997 – after teaching for over 20 years.

Born in Chicago, in 1908, with a congenital spinal deformity, Milton Trager overcame a weak and rather sickly childhood through practice and patience, until he achieved the athletic, graceful body of a dancer and gymnast. In his late teens his family had moved to Miami Beach and he was training to be a boxer. It was at this time that he had his first experience of having intuitively accessed a bodywork technique which produced lasting results. His trainer, Mickey Martin, used to give him a rub down after each boxing session. One day, when Mickey was looking particularly tired, young Milton offered to do it on him. The trainer was astonished at what he felt from the young man’s hands. Milton, surprised and encouraged at the result achieved, went home and applied it to his father who had been suffering from sciatica, a chronic complaint that cleared up after two sessions from Milton.

So began the exploration that lasted a lifetime. Milton would apply his approach with everyone who was open to experiencing it. People with emphysema, asthma, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, polio and thousands of painful backs–all responded to his touch with degrees of benefit ranging from greater ease to the miraculous. Early on in his development, Milton applied his approach to a friend of his who was 19 at the time, with polio, and confined to a wheelchair. Milton’s approach helped him walk again after four years of paralysis.

And yet Milton always denied that he was a healer. His favorite comment was ” I have this thing and it works…”. He would always add, “We’re all healers”.

Dr. Trager was no stranger to challenge and determination, having surmounted obstacles both physically and educationally, that would have seemed daunting to many of us. Years of working with people with all kinds of neuro-muscular complaints convinced him that he had something to offer the medical profession, and when the war was over he applied to seventy medical schools in the United States, but was refused by all of them because of his age (42). Dr. Trager says of this time, “My big aim was to teach registered physical therapists my work, because of the results I was getting in comparison with the results they were getting.” He persevered and was accepted into the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara in Mexico, not knowing a word of Spanish at that time! They set up a clinic for him to continue his work in psychophysical integration, and six years later in 1955, he received his M.D.

Milton continued to work with clients within his practice for the next 20 years. He was frustrated that it had never been possible for him to teach his work, until he was invited to Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, to give a demonstration. Betty Fuller (who was also instrumental in bringing Moshe Feldenkrais to the States) was teaching at Esalen at the time and having tremendous problems with her neck. Milton offered to see what he could do for her neck, and after a few minutes her neck was no longer in pain. Betty was instantly “hooked”, and went on to co-found–with Dr. Trager–The Trager Institute in 1980. Shortly thereafter a certification program was established to train and certify people in his approach.

Forty years after Milton’s determined efforts to reach the medical profession, he was gratified by the interest of an increasing number of holistically-minded doctors, nurses and physical therapists who make use of The Trager Approach in their practices.

The Trager Approach is valuable for anyone who wants to encourage growing awareness and autonomy in themselves and their clients!

There is an excellent biography of Dr. Trager and his life, entitled “Moving Medicine”, by Jack Liskin, which includes a much more comprehensive history of Dr. Trager and his life. The book is available from the United States Trager Association.

I was delighted when I first came across Liz Koch’s amazing work because it confirmed much of what I’d been intuiting on my own. I had begun to open and close my yoga practise with hip opening poses with the specific intention of releasing tension in my psoas and hip flexors. I’d breathe and imagine tension flowing out of constricted muscles to be released as energy into the torso.

It worked, I’d feel my body soften yet somehow grow stronger. (Read more)

http://bodydivineyoga.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/the-psoas-muscle-of-the-soul/

I offer support to my clients in staying present to themselves, to learn tenderness and self-compassion in their bodies and minds and to find a way through whatever is physically presenting itself. We can do it through massage, movement awareness (Feldenkrais Method®), and mindfulness practices. We are blessed with bodies that house these amazing senses that are the most present moment reminders we have. They’re conveniently built right in, too. No external drives to add on or parts to buy. If there is a way to practice staying present and finding our tenderness, going through the body is the best way I know.

Jean Vitrano, LMT, CFP
Specializing in Massage, Movement and Awareness
917-859-1073
jean@jeanvitrano.com
www.jeanvitrano.com
https://www.facebook.com/jeanvitranolmt
80 East 11th Street, Suite 532, NY, NY 10003
697 Valley Street, Maplewood, NJ 07040

Rudolf Laban studied forms in nature in relationship to human movement in developing Choreutics, i.e., the study of the harmonious movement of the body in space, also called Space Harmony. There is an interrelationship of all organic and inorganic forms to gravity and also to each other.

One of the forms in which we humans move is the icosahedron, a 12-verticed 20-sided geometric form:

Labanʼs understanding of balance in movement, whether it be where the body is in space, how it shapes through space, the qualities we exhibit as we move or their combination, is the basis for Laban Movement Analysis. Our breath pattern is the fundamental Exertion/Recuperation pattern from which our individual movement patterns form.

An example of Exertion/Recuperation in movement within the icosahedron is a golfer at the tee, preparing to hit and then hitting the ball. The preparation, the swing, and the follow-through are examples of ExertionRecuperation in which the body moves in space, while changing dynamics and shape. The body shape changes and the spatial use changes in the swing of the club from back high to front. The rhythm of the swing changes from some combination of strong quick, free (power) to directing the ball (aiming). After he completes his follow-through, the golfer then recuperates from the stroke by releasing the tension in his body. All human movement is rhythmic.

The beach is a perfect place to study forms and patterns in nature (shells, seaweed, waves) as related to Laban’s theories of Space Harmony.

My introduction to fascia began in 1984 when Karen Bradley, now acting director at the Laban Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies (LIMS) in New York City, author of Rudolf Laban, and person extraordinaire, needed a partner to study Connective Tissue Therapy (CTT). Theresa Lamb was only teaching students in pairs. I agreed to partner Karen and my journey began.

Theresa, a CMA who had studied Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) with Irmgard Bartenieff (IB), had begged IB to teach her, and was teaching CTT as IB had taught her. IB had combined her own understanding of the movement of the body, her Physical Therapy training and her studies with Rudolf Laban with her training in Bindegewebbsmassage. Her approach is unique, and continues to stand unique today in the interconnecting profession of movement and bodywork.

We met for 46 intensive semi-private hours in the summer of 1984. I was assisting the LMA Certificate training program that Karen was in, so we met with Theresa around the program’s hours. I practiced at odd hours on Marty Barylick,  then a classmate of Karen’s and now a well-known movement educator. (Thank you, Marty!)

Through the years I refined my body level connections, touch and sensitivity to fascia. I continued to work with Theresa as student and assistant while she trained the handful of interested CMAs immediately after they completed their LMA Certification. Theresa was always demanding, thorough and I gained invaluable knowledge and experience.

When I was a student, fascia had very little understanding by, or interest from, the medical community.  It has only been within the past few years that a different perspective of the systems of the human body other than separate and isolated has gained credence. Theories of left and right brains, the separation of the body and mind, and the model of the cell taught in the 60’s are just some of postulates that are being augmented and/or replaced with other theories.  Some of these, i.e. string theory, the vibrational body, the meridians and the movement of the fascia in plates, provide a more integrated way in which to view and perceive our physical selves than we had earlier acknowledged.

Finally fascia is getting the attention it deserves and with the attention, research- and my work has more validation and there is more understanding of what it is I do.

Thank god my job is physically active.  I’m fidgety, and I’m uncomfortable sitting still in front of this computer.  Most of my job involves frequent movement of all the joints in my body, and I like it that way.  Until I started doing my amalgam of bodywork, rehab and chiropractic with several people every day, I just didn’t know that I had some very bad habits.  I was originally self-taught as a bodyworker, and I was so focused on how to help that my own body and the potential harm to it never occurred to me.  When I started to learn specific techniques, I started to learn mechanics.  But still, most of my re-training has been trial (as in “by fire”) and error (as in “What the Hell was I Thinking??).  It’s only recently that I’ve begun systematic work on my mechanics.

Chiropractic requires a very low table, most bodywork a mid-height, and Trager technique, which I use a lot, is nice with a high table.  In my first year of full-time work with a modified and very low massage table, I started having left low back pain and I realized I was leaning to my right when using my right arm with strength.  I was pretty sure I “fixed that” habit and the pain “went away”. Then a few years ago I developed a shoulder problem which became bilateral, and thumb problems.  Under the care of Aviva Geismar and James Nicholson, I made huge progress in rehabbing my shoulders, but the problems return periodically.

And then, four weeks ago, Rolfer Jason DeFilippis was working on me (I was supine), and he suddenly said, “I think you must be doing this“.  He leaned to the right and then swung his body around and pushed with the right arm.  While my mouth was hanging open (it was the same habit), he said “you’re powering from your right shoulder and your body and legs aren’t behind or under you, so you’re powering it by swinging your shoulder around”.  Besides seeming a little too spooky to just be genius, the observation correlated with so many things I’d heard from posture analysts and observed in my standing posture.  I just never put it together.

Another boost for my mechanics came in the form of a mechanical table and friendship.  Sally Firestein and I went to college together at Wesleyan, danced together in Richard Bull’s company and in my own work,  and we’re now colleagues:  Sally is a massage therapist and yoga teacher.  About six years ago, Sally saw my physical strain at work, and she helped me get a hydraulic table that moves up and down with a foot pedal.  Having a table that changes level has made the mechanics of going from bodywork to chiropractic so much easier.  (Reminder to myself:  Ask Sally to string up a harness for me so I can walk on patients’ backs.)

Learning about my own habits, good and bad, is fascinating, disturbing, inspiring… it engages me on so many levels.  And as it turns out, I don’t have to do it by having my body break into little pieces.  Who knew?

–George Russell, D.C.

April 15th + 22nd: Body Mechanics Class for LMTs! With Aviva Geismar and James Nicholson! @ Chelsea Studios!

May 2nd through the 5th: Bartenieff Fundamentals/Laban Movement Analysis for LMTs! @ Chelsea Studios!