The More Profound Form of The Dark Vise Described by Thomas Hanna

There's another perspective on "Dark Vise" (as T.H. described it in Somatics):  the emotional perspective.

Emotions (and thoughts) are contraction patterns at higher levels of organization than gross movements of a sensory-motor kind.

Anger ("getting your back up") corresponds to Landau Reaction.
Fear corresponds to Startle Reflex.
Sorrow (and guilt and shame) correspond to Trauma Reflex.

These emotions also mix with and complicate each other and lead to pressure build-up.  They have one-to-one (though not necessarily obvious) correspondences to muscular contraction patterns that may not respond to gross pandicular actions.  These correspondences are revealed at the moment of emotional relaxation as muscular relaxation.  It's the meaning of the old term, "nervous tension."

In the vernacular, the expression was, "uptight".

"Many" people have self-repressive tendencies toward anger, sorrow and fear.  The exaggerated or out-of-control or inappropriate expressions of these emotions come from the pressure build-up of such self-repression and from the complications of one or two emotions being "parasitically entangled" with others.

Emotional contraction states must (must) be addressed on their own terms.

Unless that is done, certain habituated tension patterns that show up as our characteristic postural set persist, despite somatic education exercises.  They show up as our identity.

Somatic education is deeper than "sensory-motor" and involves more kinds of pain than muscular, joint, or nerve pain.

The Gold Key Release is an effective tool for working through and working out the deeper layers.  | http://lawrencegoldsomatics.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-basic-structure-of-all-senses-of.html

Test my words.  Then, report your finding.