Therapeutics and Somatics

Big, Bad Government -- the Decoy of the Political Far-Right

2012-01-27T12:04:00.000-08:00

While the Political Far-Right and many of the rich (The Constipated Rich) publicly decry Big Government, the cry is a decoy.

These are the people who call at every turn for deregulation.

Well, another group of people also call for deregulation: children and adolescents. They want out from under the control of their parents. They want freedom -- and they want it without responsibility. So, also, do the self-indulgent, the lazy, and the criminal.

That much they have in common with the Political Far-Right and The Constipated Rich. All want to do as they please without obligation to or regulation by others.

The difference is that the Political Right and The Constipated Rich want us to believe that it is for our own good -- whereas it is for their own good.

Let's take an honest and sober look at the pros, cons, and the safe conditions of deregulation and reduction of government.

The pros: government regulations impose bureaucracy, and all of the time-wasting paperwork and hoop-jumping that goes with it, upon society. Deregulation and reduction of government promise to reduce the bureaucratic overload and attendant costs, both in dollars and in humanpower.

The cons: unregulated, the principals of certain, well-recognized Big Business corporations -- many of which are The Constipated Rich -- act in their self interest, not in the interest of society at large. Their mentality is that of children raiding the forbidden "cookie jar", hoping never to get noticed or caught. They are quick to label altruism as socialism -- a problem because Socialism suffered the same onus as our degraded Capitalism suffers: the onus earned by abuse.

Though some Capitalists may not admit it, Capitalism and Socialism suffer similar degradation, and the consequence shows up as a sluggish economy and growing class stratification.

The thing is, the Political Right and the Constipated Rich want class stratification because they think (wrongly) that it benefits them. It's as if the leaves of a tree, the branches and the fruit, detested the tree's roots.

They regulate themselves poorly and it is for that very reason that Big Government and regulation become necessary.

The safe condition for an Economized Government and deregulation would be if people, including and especially the Political Far-Right and the Constipated Rich, exercised their intelligence and saw that they depend upon those whom they strip bare (impoverish) and uproot (disenfrancise) -- and acted accordingly. Cause the economic waters of society-at-large to rise, and all boats rise.

Instead, they foolishly set out the decoys of "taxes and government regulation" as the culprits, or socialism, or terrorists, or drugs, or government-mandated health insurance coverage, or The Left. But it is all too obvious to cursory intelligence that all of these problems stem from socio-economic imbalances and disparities that disturb and weaken not just societies, but also international relations -- imbalances that can and must be redressed by a balancing of the economic flow of all societies. By fostering conditions that reduce the overall class-stratification of our societies (not merely economically, but also in terms of education and health care -- the primary means and requirements of all productivity) -- we can thereby reduce the need for government bureaucracy and regulation.

To protect their positions, they build houses of brick -- legislation and preferential treatment (through lobbyists) -- so that they may be safe from the storms of fate that beset those not so well-off and who live in houses of sticks (mortgage borrowers) or of straw (renters).

Now, let me ask, "Who's Afraid of Big Bad Government"?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You may become a member of the elite club, The Integral Somatics Association of Earth -- "Busybodies, All".

We start down-to-Earth. Just send for and listen for free to a beautifully articulated and nuanced reading, in its entirety and in the moods of its author, of the transcription of Thomas Hanna's fervently inspiring, book-length tirade one afternoon in 1974 and into the evening. That tirade became The End of Tyranny. Hear him describe what is happening today with such penetrating clarity that you'll be aroar with the fire of righteous intelligence as you recognize what you see and hear happening, today, with new understanding. Once you've started, you'll be drawn right in. It'll light a fire under your hiney, so take it a little at a time, in sections lasting ten minutes, or so. No need to rush through it.

MORE: The Constipated Rich and Trickle-Down Theory

Constipation of the Rich and Trickle-Down Theory

2012-01-26T17:00:00.000-08:00

Allow me to start with two wisecracks, befitting the title.

"The Fat Cats has been liposuctioning the "fat" out of the economy, into their own pockets, which they don't seem to mind."

Or, otherwise, our world economy appears to be suffering from "Constipation of the Rich".

Trickle-down theory only seems to work when you put the squeeze on, and the ones in control of the squeeze are those who would be squeezed -- so, no squeeze, no trickle-down.

So, this watered-down economy gets by on a trickle while the Fat Cats of the world are bloated with Constipation of the Rich.

And when Constipation of the Rich is concerned, everything slows down. Stagnation sets in. People complain. The News Media make news out of it, as if it's something that results from mysterious economic forces out of anyone's control.

But there's nothing new or even newsworthy about Constipation of the Rich.

Why?

Because no one's done anything (consequential) about it.

Some of us are working on it.

You may become a member of the elite club, The Integral Somatics Association of Earth -- "Busybodies, All".

We start down-to-Earth. Just send for and listen for free to a beautifully articulated and nuanced reading, in its entirety and in the moods of its author, of the transcription of Thomas Hanna's fervently inspiring, book-length tirade one afternoon in 1974 and into the evening. That tirade became The End of Tyranny. Hear him describe what is happening today with such penetrating clarity that you'll be aroar with the fire of righteous intelligence as you recognize what you see and hear happening, today, with new understanding. Once you've started, you'll be drawn right in. It'll light a fire under your hiney, so take it a little at a time, in sections lasting ten minutes, or so. No need to rush through it.

MORE: Big, Bad Government -- the Decoy of the Far-Right

There is No Mind-Body Connection -- There is No Mind-Body Split

2012-01-24T11:51:00.000-08:00

Yoga, Religion, and Psychotherapy are Based Upon a Misunderstanding.

The words, "yoga" and "religion" have something in common: they both refer to unification or union of two things that are presumed to be un-unified in the ordinary person. But in both cases, those two things are always already in union.

"Yoga" means "union" and comes from the same root as the word, "yoke". Agricultural cultures use the yoke to unify the efforts of two beasts of burden -- whether oxen, bulls, or horses. In yoga, it is the individual self (you) and the Great Self (God or Brahman or Ultimate Reality) that are to be unified (or realized to be one) through practices outlined in Eastern scriptures -- and also "mind" and "body" that are to be unified. Thus, practices exist at the "physical" level (hatha yoga, kriya yoga, etc.), at the emotional level (bhakti yoga), at the "mental" level (jnana yoga, etc.), at the behavioral level (raja yoga, karma yoga), and at the subtle-energetic level (kundalini yoga and siddha yoga). I put those terms into quotes because they represent not actual, separate levels of the self, but soma-self seen and considered from different perspectives, with different phenomena (kinds of events). It's the perspectives that are different; "level" means "a perspective and its content".

"Religion" comes from the root words, "re-" (again) and "ligare" (to bind together). "Ligare" and ligament come from the same meaning-root (ligaments bind bones together). In religion, it is the individual self (you) and God that are to be re-united -- "God and sinners reconciled", as the Christmas carol goes -- and their separation is the very definition of "sin" -- "to miss the mark".

Yogic scriptures attribute the separation of self from Ultimate Reality to "Maya" or "Samsara" -- conditional reality, which the scriptures describe as "illusory", with Ultimate Reality being the only "Real". "Conditional reality" is everything experienced through the senses, through memory, and through self-awareness. Maya or Samsara are called "illusion", while God or Brahman or Ultimate Reality are "the Real".

These statements apply to the more exoteric teachings of religion and yoga.

Well, the whole thing is wrong.

Self and God (or Ultimate Reality) are always already one and the same, and mind and body are always already fully united.

The esoteric teachings state that the self and Ultimate Reality (or God) are always already one, but that actuality must be realized (not merely believed as dogma or known as necessary reasoning).

However, there exists a reason why they appear to be separate from one another, and that reason is, "memory". The "ten dollar", Sanscrit word for memories is, "samscaras". Memory, the carrying forward of impressions of past experience (and our reactions to them) into the present moment, is illusion, not existence, itself, and it is the very mechanism and meaning of the word, "karma". "Karma" literally means, "action".

We, in the West, readily accept the notion that some memories are accessible to us and others are buried in the subconscious. We accept the notion that subconscious memories affect our behavior. What we may not so readily recognize is that memories affect us bodily.

In Western psychotherapy, the effect of subconscious ("repressed") memories on the body is called "somatization". Somatization always involves physiological effects -- alterations of bodily functions -- muscle tension, nervous arousal states, glandular and immunological changes. A related scientific field is called, "psycho-neuro-immunology".

Because some memories are subconscious (or unconscious), we feel their somatic effects without recognizing the underlying memory or memories that create those affects; we feel out of control -- and so we say that there exists a mind-body split. I will say more about subconscious and unconscious memories later.

There exist two faults with this understanding.

The first fault is the notion that one "affects" the "other"; that they are "two". And there we are, in the notion of a mind-body split that can (or must), through some efforts, be unified -- even though psychotherapy recognizes "somatization".

The second fault is to fail to recognize that all of our chronic or repetitive stresses and tensions are somatization in action; psychotherapy may recognize "clinical" forms of somatization (as outlined in DSM IV), but if its understanding were more inclusive, it would recognize that ordinary emotional distress, nervous tension, all speech, and all actions and behaviors are forms of somatization, not just clinical disease-entities.

In Western religion, we accept the notion of "sin" as "voluntary wrong action" that separates us from Divinity. Some branches of Christianity postulate "original sin" -- sin that exists by virtue of being born as a human being that can ultimately only be remediated in heaven after death or upon the Judgment Day.

There exist two faults with this understanding.

The first fault is the notion that one can cease to be a sinner by accepting and vigorously reinforcing beliefs and right behaviors. The closest correction to this fault is the notion of being "saved" in Christianity -- saved by grace bestowed upon oneself by a religious authority.

The second fault is to fail to recognize that sin comes from deeply entrenched memory patterns that show up involuntarily and without recognition, as our very self. "Original sin" approaches this understanding but fails to recognize that the body or born self is not the problem, but that the subconsciousness or unconsciousness of the memory patterns that define self is the problem. The automaticity, the automatic nature, the automatic control of the memories of self-identity (and all of our ways, which stem from those memories) -- the unconscious automaticity is the problem. The unconsciousness is the problem -- and the "sinning" behaviors that come from subconscious memories being secondary effects.

So, let me say it another way. There is no mind-body connection; they are two views of the same thing. There are two ways of viewing the same living process -- from inside ("mind") and from outside ("body"). From a scientific perspective, "mind" is the "field" and "body" is the "particle" -- two aspects of the same thing. The two perspectives, together, constitute what we call, "soma" -- your experience of yourself as an conscious, living person with the ability to direct attention and to exercise intention. Mind and body are always already "one" (named, "soma").

The ability to direct attention and to exercise intention is the very basis of the idea of "sin" (because it presumes we have absolute control of our actions), but our self-control is limited by the unconsciousness of the controlling memories by which we remember "ourselves", control our actions and make sense of our experiences.

This is a practical distinction that flies in the face of the New Age-y notion that "we are total controllers of our own reality and totally responsible for our experience". It's nonsense. Personal experience shows it to be so. You should feel relieved. On the other hand, we are not relieved of responsibility; we still continue to suffer until we get a handle on (not just "right ideas about") the cause of our experience. Responsibility is a practical matter, and for it to be a practical matter, we must be actually capable of perceiving and doing something practical. Otherwise, the idea of responsibility is just an abstraction.

However, that understanding, as it is, is insufficient to relieve suffering, which is the ostensible goal both of Western Religion and Eastern spiritual practices.

Our target is properly the unconscious/subconscious material that, when rendered "tunable" or "adjustable" (instead of stuck or poorly adjustable to immediate conditions), becomes recognizable as our repertoire of activities, not assumed as our somehow "human nature" identities.

There is no "mind-body connection" to be restored; there is no "self-and-God" to be re-united . What there is, are all of the unconscious memories that cause compulsory thinking, compulsory feelings, behaviors that seem to be out of our control, that seem to "happen to" us, the internal conflicts and dilemmas that afflict us in the course of life -- the whole mass of which constitute an illusory "opacity" that hijacks and blocks attention from intuiting the formless, un"knowable" ground of being that Western religions call Divinity and that Eastern spirituality calls "liberation".

The Divine cannot correctly be sought (because seeking depends upon memories that determine "what is to be sought", and memories are precisely what hijack and trap attention); The Divine can only be revealed in the transparency of memory that occurs when unconscious (unrecognized) memory patterns become conscious (and recognizable as memories), so that they lose their binding attraction ("stickiness") and attention can "see through them" (external perception) or "fall through them" (internal apperception) -- to enjoy intuition of self-source, which is Divinity, or Brahman, and which is not some spectacular accomplishment, but merely the easy ordinaryness of the experience of our own most ordinary faculties, unfouled by unconscious memories.

As a practical matter, binding and deluding memories (which may be anything and everything) exist at different levels of the being (or ways of organizing intention/actions and attention/sensations) which we may call "physical", "emotional", "mental", "higher mental", "intuitive", etc., according to their content. As a practical matter, my experience is that memories must be addressed on their own terms -- or the terms of the level at which they appear -- and that certain principles of conscious awakening and change apply to memories at all "levels". It's a matter of learning how to apply those principles at different levels.

In my experience, perhaps the most accessible way to learn to exercise those principles is through somatic education, which, though it may illuminate any and all levels of the being, approaches through the perspective (or doorway) of the body. It's very easy to tell whether your application of somatic principles is effective; did you feel immediately different after practice? Was the change durable? If so, then so; if not, then not.

Somatic education is a doorway -- but not the entire path -- simply because people commonly consider the scope of somatic education to be "matters bodily" (or physiological); it's a fault of the mind-body "split"-concept. Actually, somatic education is a full-spectrum affair that runs from physiological concerns to the highest matters of consciousness, and throughout that spectrum, different means apply for awakening responsibility, some of which may look clinical, others psychological, and others, spiritual/evolutionary. In whatever ways the technical means may differ, the principles are identical.

There is no mind-body connection, there is no yoga, there is no true religion ("binding again"); there is just the uncovering and mastery, freely intelligent use and free release of the patterns of memory by which we define and interact in life, even our very own.

When the "stickiness" of memories (Tibetan: dukkha) dissolves, we are more free to relate to experience (relationship), and so the sense of separation so decried in spiritual circles as the affliction of humanity, diminishes and dissolves.

So be it.

RELATED:
Somatic Spiritual (Evolutionary) Practice -- The Big Pandiculation
The Integration of Un-evolved and Evolved View of the Body
Education is More Than 'Learning New Things'

We Cannot Stop our Minds -- nor Need We

2012-01-01T09:20:00.000-08:00

But when we steadily observe the flow and the feeling of each thought, the space between thoughts gets longer until mind stops by itself, for periods of time.

Attention and intention are the two fundamental functions of all sentient beings ("somas"). Everything more is varied instrumentality for those two ends: Sense organs (organs of attention) and organs of intention (musculo-skeletology -- hands, feet, mouth, paws, trunk, claws, tail, etc., then speech and then tools and technology that externalize somatic functions). Sensation and movement. Emotion (feelings) and motivation (actions). Imagination and preparation. Perception (incoming) and conception (outgoing).

While the language may indicate that attention and intention -- and their organs -- are separate from each other, they are altogether intertwined, as I describe, as follows.

The most primal intention is the movement of attention, experienced as the impulse to be, which is actually the experience of movement. Movements maintain the sense of being, even movements as subtle as the movements of breathing and the internal pulsing of heartbeat; without movement, the body-sense fades out, insensate, even as hair and nails lack sensation.

The movements of mind are subject to attention: movements of thought, the movements of reverie, all of which bear the force of intention to some degree; to discover what the intention of mind at any moment, pay attention. Here's a funny thing:

Anyone who has ever practiced a meditation or attention discipline has noticed the incessant arising of thoughts and reveries. The funny thing is, these thoughts and reveries arise before we know them, fading or congealing into existence -- and doing so always, to some unknown degree, before we know it.

Intention is force ("wattage") -- or in the language of physics, "tendency". Tendency is the movement of things happening and things changing into something else.

Objects of attention and new intentions are arising in us, ongoingly, as our swooning reveries of thought and daydream-streams.

Now, spiritual fascists -- I being a recovering one -- may have the idea that meditation is about quieting the mind. Well, that may be an effect, but it isn't the intention, per se, and to attempt to do so by an act of will is less than fruitless; it is counterproductive, reinforcing the mind in this novel, almost-all-encompassing intention:

QUIET THE MIND !!!!!

We can't quiet the mind by an act of will because thoughts and reveries are always already in existence by the time that we notice them to quieten them. More than that, and in addition to the swooning reverie of thought, the effort to quiet the swooning reverie of thought is just another thought-intention added to all the rest.

There is a loophole, however. To say it explictly . . . . .

Thinking and reverie
are kinds of stress
which can be felt if we pay attention.

Every thought is evidenced by a feeling --
otherwise, how do you know when you're thinking?
-- never mind, what.

Thinking is an ever-shifting play of feeling
and if a person is imagining (reverie),
there may be imagined sounds, sights, and smells.

These are things upon which we may place our attention.

After all, they are already part of our experience,
so no need to go looking.

We notice that, if we place our attention on a thought
we have caught ourselves having,
and if we feel the "thought stress",
we notice that the thought dissipates in time, often fairly quickly,
leading attention straight into the "space between thoughts" --
that fabled Bramanic zone of conscious awareness . . . . .

until the next thought reverie captures you
as it rises as a momentary preoccupation

Then, you notice it
and dive your attention down upon it,
like a duck on a bug
feel it,
and follow it through its development.

Feeling the thought-stress
rather than concerning yourself with the content,
the mind dissipates,
dropping you into the Thoughtless Unknown between thoughts.

Then you have an interval of ordinary
thoughtless abiding . . . . .
no mind, though you are present
no thoughts, though you are intelligently present
no special effort
either of action or of rest.

Until the next one arises! like gas! effervescence! The Universal Alka-Seltzer Fizz! Fizz Mind.

Anyhow, some things dissipate much faster than others,
so take that into account.

Also, some thought-reveries, instead of dissipating under attention
seduce you into their fascinating content
congeal, develop, and become more solid.
They become tangible creations and interactions
with life and duration enough to affect us.

They run their course as life-experience
and then dissipate into the Silent Drop-Off.

It all goes on.
The mind goes off on a tangent.
Then it goes off.

If ever you want to know the way out,
the way "out" is "in-and-through".

phut!

Back Spasms -- The Inside Story

2011-12-22T15:51:00.000-08:00

Back spasms catch us unawares

so to speak.

But here’s the odd thing: when a back spasm happens, it’s most often been coming for a long time.

The Back Story of Most Back Pain

Back during a period of prolonged high stress — maybe during an employment crisis or facing deadline after deadline after deadline — you got yourself used to driving yourself hard or used to being in a state of urgency. Maybe you listen to too much news or talk radio and get "wound up". Maybe you stayed too long in a situation you really wanted to get out of, or maybe you put and kept yourself in uncomfortable positions, by sense of necessity, that you would rather have gotten out of, and got part-way used to that, while keeping going. Or maybe you just “trained” badly or trained on top of old injuries. You’re musclebound, whatever the story, with a spasm in your back.

It’s been coming for a long time, your back spasm — you’ve been getting closer to the edge of cramp or spasm for a long time. You got so used to being tense and stiff that, one day, you pulled on that tenseness and stiffness and it pulled you right back, something like an internally generated whiplash action.

What If It Was a Whiplash Incident?

Maybe you were involved in an accident that yanked or jerked or jolted you a bit too much.

Then, you tightened up suddenly, got prone to sudden yank-back, and you knew you were caught — even if, at first, you didn’t realize it was a protective spasm you were feeling.

A Back Spasm Shows Brain-Muscle Conditioning

Caught in your own conditioning– think about that. Your spasm is your conditioning.

We all caught in our conditioning, to varying degrees and in different ways. Had you thought of it like that, before?

However, sometimes, it’s “just enough” (too much), and with just one more challenge we suddenly go hard-line, uptight, tense, caught in the grip of our own conditioning, in spasm, body and mind (two aspects of the same thing). Think about it: didn’t your back spasm stop you in your tracks? mid-step? It wasn’t “a back spasm“; it was a "you spasm“.

The Problem with a "You Spasm"

Not enough reserve capacity, not enough tolerance for additional demand. On edge, trying to be nice, perhaps. Not much more capacity for stress, however. Used up, or close to it, in the grip.

The solution?

Recover much of that reserve capacity by dispeling obsolete tension patterns. Lose the excess tension. Get back to normal. Recover your reserve capacity. Feel like a human being. You may have forgotten what that feels like and you may not have known that you can do it, yourself.

Common Back Spasms are Simple

"Simple When You Know How"

Common Back Pain is a fairly simple condition to master. It’s just a primitive “go” reaction (“Landau Reaction“) turned on too hard and too long. You’re overheated; you’re idling too high. You can learn to turn this reflex (Landau Reaction) down and up again, temper it, recover a bunch of reserve capacity, flexibility and freedom of movement. No more spasm, no more back pain, more reserve capacity, more movability.

Back Spasms from Injury are More Complex, May Take More Doing to Clear Up

Back pain from injury may consist of a number of overlying contraction patterns. However, bending over or twisting and getting a spasm isn’t an injury; it’s a malfunction that falls under “Common Back Pain”. Recovering from a complicated injury isn’t more difficult, particularly; it just takes more steps, some sorting out, and more doing, of course.

The same principle applies, either way.

Recover voluntary (deliberate) control of the muscular grip and let it relax, then deliberately use it freely and so reclaim it. Strength, reserve capacity, free control. Security.

One Right Reason

That’s one very good purpose of somatic education — to get people out of pain. It’s effective, it’s faster than more well-known or popularized methods, and it brings durable benefits under all life conditions.

Different — and More Like Yourself

A larger effect of somatic education is to train people to free themselves from the excessive grip of their conditioning; to re-acquaint people with what it feels like to feel fine; so people feel different and more like themselves.

Relief comes primarily from what the person does, secondarily from what someone else did with the person. If you do sessions of this process, you contribute at least 50% to the change, moving between effort and non-effort (in clinical sessions), or more like 90% if you’re working at a distance from me (Lawrence Gold) following recorded instructional material and taking distance-coaching, as needed.

Because the person is contributing energy, intention, and intelligence to the process, and because they’re changing from within (if guided from out), the change is theirs — theirs to maintain or theirs to re-create, if necessary. More than that, it’s faster than by externally operating methods, whether scalpel, laser, or stretching device ("spinal decompression"), longer-lasting than manipulations or interventions of many kinds. It’s longer-lasting because it covers more of the bases and from the internal control center, the self, oneself, and faster because it works from the inside, out.

MORE ON BACK PAIN, DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES

Esoteric Somatics and Tibetan Buddhism

2011-12-19T20:42:00.000-08:00

In Tibetan Buddhism, the human being is regarded to have three interfitting "bodies", which correspond to the waking state ("Nirmanakaya" or dense/"gross" physical flesh/genetic body), the dreaming state ("Sambhogakaya" or "subtle" body), and deep sleep ("Dharmakaya" or "causal/most subtle" or "unborn, unmanifest" body). This entry discusses our experience of them and how they evolve as a given individual develops and evolves.

These bodies are not separate, but exist in a mutually-pervading continuum that we call "soma" (or "living, aware, psycho-physical person"). I consider them "nodes" or octaves on a continuum. Of these three, two are manifest, consist of changing processes, and exist in time: the Nirmanakaya (genetic body) and the Sambhogakaya (dream body). These two bodies are not static and unchanging, but exist as living, changing processes. The Dharmakaya is transcendental, all-pervading, and is the ground of being from which the other two arise and in which they exist, consisting of self-radiant awareness.

This writing describes and explains the interrelation of the three bodies in terms of personal/conscious evolution. People who are just learning the process of deliberate growth and change, we call "proto-mutants"; people who are actively engaging deliberate growth and change, we call "mutants" -- after Thomas Hanna's usage in his book, "Bodies in Revolt".

"Pointing Out" Instructions

When the Nirmanakaya (manifested genetic/memory body) and the Sambhogakaya (imaginary dreamed-body) align (or attain a high degree of mutual congruency), as the individual remains consciously awake, volitionally present and at a sufficiently poised state of equanimity or balance (free attention), the Dharmakaya (deep, silent, formless body or field) may be intuited by feeling the content of experience and, while feeling it, feeling beyond it into what is deeper.

The Dharmakaya is the "clutch pedal". As the formless aspect of buddha-nature, "resorting" to it (or "taking refuge" in it) is the means of disengagement from, or relinquishment of, the memory-form of the moment. Dynamic balance between the intuition of the Dharmakaya and intuition of the form and feeling of the Sambhogakaya (imaginary dreamed-body) allows the Sambhogakaya to transform. Without that dynamic balance, the Sambhogakaya remains bogged in its current form, anchored by the Nirmanakaya's tangible memory pattern (present as physiological adaptation, neurological conditioning, and the patterning of the myofascia/soft-tissue), which feeds back the memory pattern to the Sambhogakaya in a self-perpetuating feedback loop. You can't lift the foot you are standing on; you're using it.

The Nirmanakaya/genetic body is the densest seat of memory and is slower to (and more resistant to) change than the Sambhogakaya (dream-body), and so introduces a lag into the process of change -- which has survival value, but slows re-adaptation.

The "anchoring" of the Nirmanakaya is its habitual pattern; intuition of the Dharmakaya "lifts anchor".

Ordinarily, the perception of the Nirmanakaya/Sambhogakaya dynamic fades in deep sleep, leaving only the Dharmakaya's formless nature. This is rest. Upon passage from the deep sleep state (Dharmakaya) into the dream state (Sambhogakaya), residual memories imprinted upon the Nirmanakaya (daytime body) "leak" into the emerging dream-activity of the Samghogakaya. Dreams appear, whose elements are, every one, aspects of the dreaming individual.

The "Ins" and "Outs" of the Subtle/Dream Body (Sambhogakaya)

Though it has been said that dreams are the royal road to the Unconscious, it is better said that they are the royal road to pervading the Unconscious with Consciousness. It is fruitless and misguided to consult "dream interpretation" texts for their meaning. They are indirect, second-hand, and intellectually biased, if not outright arbirary.

There is a better way: Merely to remember each element of the dream and notice what you feel as you put your full attention on each element -- that action reveals the latent significance of the element attended to. It's a "feel" thing. The feelings are likely to be very familiar. More than that, with recognition comes dissolution of the binding forces of those feelings.

With each recognition and dissolution come both greater access to intuition of the Dharmakaya and release of the physical form (Nirmanakaya) from hitherto unconscious patterns of contraction (or somatic/psychophysical shaping forces). The body changes.

As the process of recognition and release continues, there appears a feeling of "straightening out". The process gives meaning to a term that Castaneda used, "The Mold of Man". (I think it was in "The Fire from Within"). The "straightening out" progressively approximates a feeling of more natural wholeness, of "self as you would prefer to be", which is The Mold of Man.

The process of that straightening out may involve passages through personal distortions, recognized as "damaged self", dysfunctional patterns or neuroses, some of which may be pretty hairy. It gives meaning to the term, "Lions at the Gate" or "Personal Demons" or "The Dragon's Lair" or "The Green Knight" (but not The Jolly Green Giant).

As it proceeds, the energy-dynamic of the individual changes -- not wholesale and in some general fashion, but in specific ways energetically/vibrationally related to the material recognized and released. A person gets more spontaneously intelligent in various ways.

The Special Function of the Formless or Most Subtle Body (Dharmakaya)

However, without the balancing influence of intuition of the Dharmakaya, transformation is slowed, rather than allowed -- hence the value of meditation -- and of a good night's sleep! Paradoxically, as the process proceeds, the person may find (s)he needs less sleep and spontaneously spends more time in early-morning meditation. Or maybe it's just insomnia. But you can put the time to good use!

Now, as the energy-dynamic of the individual changes, the field of the individual tends to become quieter -- that is, less beset by occlusive noise -- more "resonant" to processes occurring within and outside. The faculty of intuition becomes more available. With less internal noise, the individual is more sensitive -- particularly to subtle forces guiding and shaping the emergence of actual existence. In other words, the person may become spontaneously pre-cognitive, getting intimations of things to come through revery and streams of thought. When those things come to pass, people call it, "synchronicity" or "signs of wisdom".

It's a natural result of doing "clean-up" which, by releasing the "glue" of memory patterns, allows the Nirmanakaya to change more quickly/fluidly, and the energy dynamic of Nirmanakaya and Sambhogakaya to be more congruent. (The physiologically-based memory-"glue" of the Nirmanakaya makes it slower to change, and so less dynamic than the dream-body/ Sambhogakaya. They get out of phase, as attention is trapped in memory. Somatic education helps in the releasing of that "glue".) As Nirmanakaya and Sambhogakaya become more synchronous and congruent, they seem more transparent and attention is more free to penetrate to the deeper layer or node of consciousness: the Dharmakaya.

As both Sambhogakaya and Dharmakaya are simultaneously intuited, spontaneous adjustments in the field of the Sahbhogakaya (dream body) occur in the direction of felt balance and centered wholeness (these words being metaphors for a felt experience), these being how the Dharmakaya manifests through or as the Sambhogakaya. The Nirmanakaya undergoes corresponding evolutionary mutations (at a personal, not species, level).

Transformation

This simultaneous intuition may be fostered by the presence of persons or objects imprinted with the harmonic of "Nirmanakaya/Sambhogakaya Manifesting Dharmakaya". Such is the virtue of spiritual masters, the localities of such masters, and the relics of such masters, of teachings generated from such intuition, and of groups of practitioners.

What may start out as an idealized state in certain aspects of the individual's make-up broadens to include more of the individual's functions, with consciousness of the Dharmakaya progressively pervading the dream-body and its manifested-memory (neural/genetic) body, to the benefit of ongoing mutation or "personal evolution".

The End

Intrinsic Action, Extrinsic Action and "The Controlling Moment"

2011-12-06T10:19:00.000-08:00

Growth and Change are a Mystery to Most People.

This piece clarifies.

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." So wrote Benjamin Franklin in Poor Richard's Almanac.

Failing that, another saying carries the point: "The biggest problem could have been solved when it was small." So wrote Lao Tzu, a Chinese Taoist sage, in The Tao Teh Ching, an ancient text of wisdom.

Changing behaviors and entrenched conditions isn't as simple as it sounds -- a mere decision powered (at best) by enthusiasm -- as anyone who has worked to change a habit has found.

People do it by "trying" -- working harder to change -- rather than by uncovering their/our own remaining impulse to be "the old way" -- working smarter.

However, without taking into account the root of action, any change of action remains incomplete and in conflict with old ways of acting. This understanding applies as much to social politics as it does to individual behavior and experience. That's why, "You can't change minds with guns."

There's a way of "working smarter", rather than harder -- and that is part of what I cover in this entry.

There's a "Root" of Action??

The idea that there is a root of action doesn't occur to most people. That's because people generally experience action -- theirs and others -- only once it is well underway. The root of action, because it is small, subtle, goes unnoticed.

So, I will, in this entry, illuminate the nature of the root of action (and it isn't psychological, but more primordial/rudimentary than that).

In the process, I will show the relationship between the subjective experience of the root of change and the objective (and outwardly observable) bodily sign of the root of action.

Let's get started.

The Root of Action

The root of action is so common as to go unnoticed, except in certain specialized situations. Its word is, "readiness".

Readiness is not merely an emotional state, a state of anticipation. ("Yeah, boss! Yeah, boss!") It's a state of preparation, the first step of shifting from rest (unreadiness) into action. ("On your mark, get set . . . ") It's a "steering" action, the step of organizing oneself for a particular activity, generally based upon the memory of the action we are about to do, but also modulated by the relationships of the moment. It's that subtle.

Because it is that subtle, as subtle as memory and the subtle effects of a person or place upon us, it generally goes unnoticed.

Memory and imagination go together, are two sides of the same coin.

The act of getting ready is preparation for a leap into a (however vaguely imagined) future which has some connection with a memory.

I call the moment of getting ready, "The Controlling Moment." As we leap (or subtly drift) into action, we rally our determination, springing (or gliding) forward from that controlling moment into full action.

As we launch into action, we power up. The controlling moment points our direction. Powering up builds upon the controlling moment, and away we go.

Now, here's the odd thing about human beings: it's common for us automatically to redirect our launch, so that what we do after the Controlling Moment misses the mark we (think we have) set in our Controlling Moment.

The act of redirecting ourselves occurs automatically, involuntarily, and is based upon memories of life situations similar to the one into which we are launching. Fears, conditioning, beliefs all change our trajectory, but "behind the scenes", without conscious awareness. That means we get unanticipated results.

Not only do they change our trajectory; they also disguise or obscure the Controlling Moment of that action, so that an observer of our action often can't tell what our precise intention was at the controlling moment -- and we, ourselves, find it difficult to tell why things went awry. ("The road to Hell is paved with good intentions," a pathetic saying based on the presently-described dynamic) What we and others perceive is everything that followed the Controlling Moment of that action, but the Controlling Moment remains obscured and obscure.

Why? Because the experience of "powering up" is so much "louder" than that of The Controlling Moment. The root remains buried.

That's why it's so difficult to self-correct, to change habits, and to understand the motivations of others whose actions we observe.

Two "Layers" of Action

We may regard The Controlling Moment as the core of an action (steering) and Powering Up as the extension of that core (acceleration).

Another odd thing, however: the two layers don't always go together. Sometimes, we get ready for an action but refrain from carrying it out; sometimes, we do an action for which we are not really ready, and our heart really isn't in it, but carry it out, anyway. We counteract our own Controlling Moment or we act without the precise internal guidance of a mature Controlling Moment.

In those cases, we have a condition of self-arrest (Controlling Moment without Powering Up -- ineffectuality) or poorly organized action (undeveloped Controlling Moment and lots of Powering Up -- stupidity or clumsiness).

In such cases, a residue of the action (or lack of action) remains in memory. The residue of self-arrest is regret, frustration and/or self-recrimination; the residue of poorly organized action remains in memory as a sense of guilt, shame, and/or lower self-esteem.

Integrity

What's lacking when we have one but not the other is integrity.

Integrity is intelligent, well-regulated, well-modulated power.

In other words, when we have one but not the other, we fail either to exercise our intelligence adequately or we fail to exercise our power appropriately.

What happens as aftermath when we act without intelligence or without well-regulated power is we experience our lack of integrity as disempowerment.

What to do? What to do?

Forging Integrity

Congruence between our Controlling Moment and our Powering Up shows up as integrity. To forge integrity, we must correct one or both of our errors -- the error of acting without adequate intelligence or an error of the exercise of power .

However, it's not sufficient merely to power up; we must power up to a degree of intensity appropriate to our circumstances. Likewise, it's not sufficient merely to power up to an appropriate degree of intensity; we must power up intelligently, which means in alignment with the intention present in our Controlling Moment. The Controlling Moment is the truth of any action.

The kicker is that we can't have intelligence about a Controlling Moment buried by an unintelligent powering up -- and powering up always buries the Controlling Moment simply because it's louder.

So, we have to uncover the Controlling Moment underlying any action or habit we find problematic.

How do we do that?

First Attention

Self-correction requires that we catch the fault when it is small. Otherwise, we have to deal with both the momentum of an action in progress and the direction of that momentum. Think of turning a vehicle at slow speed vs. at high speed.

Again, unfortunately, we may (and commonly do) miss the Controlling Moment.

One way to catch the Controlling Moment is to slow down so that we can observe the first moment of action, the Controlling Moment.

Another way to catch the Controlling Moment is to repeat the action with close attention each time, so that we ultimately catch the Controlling Moment.

And yet another way to catch the Controlling Moment is to alternate doing an action with refraining from that action, so that, by virtue of the contrast between doing and not-doing, we get enhanced perception of the action.

And yet another way to catch the Controlling Moment is to take instruction (and example) from someone adept at the intended action, so that, by virtue of the contrast between their competence and our incompetence, we catch our own errant Controlling Moment and correct it, with repetition, by degrees (successively accurate approximations).

But, whatever the approach, we must catch the Controlling Moment, so that we perceive the contrast (or difference) between our Controlling Moment and the subsequent Powering Up (which may be out of close alignment with our Controlling Moment) -- so that we can self-correct at the root of action.

A master of anything is one who has done so.

I've just outlined the theoretical (not hypothetical) underpinning of action and of change of action. I'm going to leave you with that basic understanding without outlining specific techniques so that you can form an intention and your own Controlling Moment for improving your access and control of your own controlling moments.

What follows is an addendum of interest to somatic educators and Rolfers. To continue this consideration, please see this entry on The Big Pandiculation.

We continue.

For Somatic Educators

Feldenkrais pointed out, in "Body and Mature Behavior", that laboratory studies showed that we can sense a stimulus about 1/20th of the intensity of another, immediately preceding stimulus. That means, when a stronger stimulus immediately precedes another, weaker, stimulus as little 1/20th as intense, we can sense both, but if the weaker stimulus is less than 1/20th as intense, we may not be able to sense it.

Hanna pointed out that to voluntarily alter a pattern of function, we must deliberately do the old pattern of function (to be changed) at a level of intensity at least equal to that of the same pattern, when caused by involuntary habit. By matching or exceeding the level of voluntary intensity to the intensity of the involuntary habit, control shifts from involuntary habit to voluntary performance. At that point, change is possible.

However, to make a change, we must reach, or catch, the Controlling Moment, and that requires two things: that we:

closely match the voluntary pattern of action to the habitual/involuntary pattern.
maintain continuous sensory awareness from full intensity if the action all the way to zero intensity.

In practice, 1. requires that we compare (by feeling) our voluntary action to the habitual action and self-correct until they closely match.

In practice, 2. requires that we either go slowly enough that neighboring (or successive) "takes" of sensory perception are less than 20:1 ("takes" of sensory perception can't be continuous due to the way our nervous systems function, in which our brains link successive "snapshots" of perception the way movie films and TV images present successive "shapshots" of movement that our brains link together -- via memory -- into the impression of continuous action). Since, by tendency, we lack continuous perception of habitual actions, we may need to make numerous repetitions of the action to develop sufficient perception to apprehend the Controlling Moment and to make the change.

For Rolfers

Ida Rolf made a distinction between "Intrinsic Movement" and "Extrinsic Movement." She defined "extrinsic movement" as "immature movement" and "intrinsic movement" as "mature movement."

Now to clarify those meanings.

Intrinsic Movement is movement we originate with awareness of the Controlling Moment -- the root of action -- intention.

Extrinsic Movement is movement we originate with more concern for how the movement looks or conforms to the expectations of others (or social standards) than by how it feels -- and so is immature movement that we may characterized as "obedience", "conformity", "going through the motions".

She also distinguished two "layers of depth" of the musculature and myofascial web: intrinsic musculature and extrinsic musculature, or "core" (intrinsic") and "sleeve" (extrinsic).

The intrinsic muscles are those most immediately responsive to the shift from rest into full activity, which corresponds to the shift from rest (or unreadiness) into readiness for activity. Examples of intrinsic muscles include the finest, deepest muscles of the spine, the tongue, the muscles of focusing, the psoas muscles.

The extrinsic muscles add power to the pattern of organization set by activation of intrinsic muscles. So, it may be said that visually seeing organizes the body for motion. Thus, "Look where you're going," has an intuitively understandable meaning.

Another distinction she made was of two variations of poor integration:

soft (open or free) core, hard (restrictive or tight) sleeve -- conformity -- "going through the motions," "going along to get along"
hard (restrictive or tight) core, soft (open or free) sleeve -- outwardly obedient, but internally resistant behavior

She distinguished another pattern, which she defined as the desirable, mature pattern

open core, free sleeve

That pattern corresponds to a kind of rest, rather than activity.

I distinguish yet another pattern:

freely responsive core and cooperative sleeve

This pattern is neither defined by a rest condition nor by an active condition, but by free modulation between both states, characterized by freedom from entrapment in either state. In other words, there's relatively smooth continuity between an "open core, free sleeve" condition and a freely responsive core empowered by a cooperative sleeve.

Paradoxically, it's impossible to tell by a moment's observation whether a person is entrapped, since their state of core and sleeve may be a momentary response (or even a frequent one). Only over the long term can we tell whether an action pattern is free or compulsorily maintained by habit. We can't even tell, about ourselves, unless we are aware of our own Controlling Moments and the continuity of those moments with the movement into full rest.

Again, paradoxically, spontaneity shows up when the person moves easily from state to state. A true "Controlling Moment" arises from the 'open core, free sleeve" (undefined) condition -- Source.

Again, habitual fixation in a pattern at the Controlling Moment or in Powering Up interferes with this free condition, since a person can neither move freely from action to rest, nor does their action, when carried out, reflect their direction, as determined at their Controlling Moments.

Ultimately, an approach from the outside, in (such as passive bodywork) can lead only to immature patterns of function, since we activate our core from the inside, out (intrinsically), and outside-in approaches, even those that contact the intrinsic muscular or depth, are inherently extrinsic (at least at the beginning). Hence, the absolute necessity, with all kinds of bodywork, Rolfing included, for training in self-mastery to complement the changes of an outside-in approach. That training may start as movement education, but should mature toward Transcendental Realization and stages of personal (and cultural) evolution. (See Ken Wilber's AQAL -- "All Quadrant, All Level, All Line" Kosmological (yes, spelled correctly) model)

A final quote from Ida Rolf:

Comprehensive recognition of human structure includes not only the physical body, but also the psychological personality -- behavior, attitudes, capacities.

MORE READING
An Advance of Somatic Education Technique -- The Diamond Penetration Pandiculation Technique
The Integration Process
The Incarnation Taboo
Psychotherapy and Integral Somatic Education
The Big Pandiculation

VIDEO about SOMATIC EDUCATION

Agency in Communion | Somatic Integration

2011-11-24T12:54:00.000-08:00

The term, "agency", may have different connotations to some than to others. Likewise, the term, "communion", may have different connotations to some than to others.

Let us clarify the airwaves.

AGENCY
A place where people go to find employment. To be put to work, to take action. A place that deploys people to employment. A place where a lot of people are employed. A place where secret agents hang out. No.

COMMUNION
A religious ritual. A religious experience. A feeling of one-ness with (or as). The experience of a group of individuals sharing that feeling of one-ness. The experience of incoming experience. Also, a name for an organization composed of such individuals. A flock of priests. OK.

What happens when you put them together? What do you get?

Agency-Communion. The communion of agencies, a community of agencies, agencies secretly in communion with each other. A Communist Agency! No.

As living beings, we experience agency as the sense of being a doer of things, being responsible for things, but also of being witness to our spontaneous actions; the taker of responsibility (respondent) as well as initiator of actions that return consequences to us.

But -- and here's the big question -- how do we know we're doing or being any of those things?

A-hah!

We experience it as incoming experience. Received Feedback, The Formation of Information, The Belief Narratives of Myth, The Transparency of Truth, The Diversion of Fallacy, Emotions, The Body Sense, The self-Sense -- all Modes of Communion -- shaped at different levels of the being.

There's more than agency; there's also communion.

So. Down to Earth.

We have incoming sensations and make movements that are at times outgoing and, at other times, incoming, returning to rest, floating at center (balance).

Communion doing the Sensing
Agency Moving Between Action and Rest
Sensibly Moving Among Action and Rest

There may exist more or less continuity of sensing ones one movements and state, as the senses depend upon memory for recognition purposes. Disruption of ones sense of movement and of ones state (shock) creates a discontinuity of identity (amnesia), as memory can't keep up with the intensity of that change at the speed of that change. the phonograph needle skips a groove, leaving a click (or glitch) behind.

Identity continues to live, moment-by-moment, as a continuous sensing of self and other (more or less) -- laying down or imprinting a stream of memory, most of which is in the background unless pleasure overwashes us or pain strikes. Then, we experience heightened awareness -- more or less pleasant or unpleasant, but heightened -- and heightened awareness is like the laser that burns the groove of a phonograph record, CD or DVD. Brighter and more focussed makes a sharper impression.

In disruption and discontinuity, a gap or abyss of unknowing encloses or encapsulates the memory prior to the disruption. It separates the continuing identity from that part of what it was before the disruption. That's the discontinuity. It's a lump in the gravy of the mind, a skip out of the groove. We do well the stir in the lump, to re-groove the groove.

But to do so requires magnifying the ability for communion and smoothing it out so it's fairly continuous. Then, we can apply that ability, which is the ability to pay attention, to the trouble left behind in the disjointed discontinuity. Then, we deliberately activate (agency) that sense of trouble that we are already feeling (communion), acting in communion with our own agency and living in communion with the experience of our agency (responsibility). We learn the way into it and we learn the way out of it. We get free of it and free in it.

In other words, we do clean up.

The more we clean up, the subtler our sensing and the subtler our control. Also, the clearer our signal and the better our ability to home in on others and on the signals of probability that pervade us; also, the more power goes into our actions -- with less effort than we're used to -- necessitating "retransformation" of the power of our intent (i.e., of our self-re-regulation) from time to time. In general, a finer and more completely neurotic individual, you will never see. It's all too much. So, we "retransform". Retransformation -- the ongoing occupation of proto-mutants who are learning to transform themselves and their environments more intelligently.

This isn't from Outer Space.

Have you heard of synchronicity? (who hasn't?).

Synchronicity is an unexpected synchronization of events that have recognizable mutual significance. In other words, too blatantly related to be overlooked. Resonant moments in the field of experience. More likely to be recognized if the individual isn't already drowning in the conditioning of past memories, which cause him to lag behind in recognition of his present circumstances. But, with most of humanity, as far as I can see, "fuggeddaboutit".

Still, synchronicities appear in movies, and even in the circumstances surrounding the creation of each movie -- such as the impossibility of filming the story, Don Quixote (not "Man of La Mancha" -- a musical) --- the state of grace that pervaded the filming of "Miracle on 34th Street" -- and the unexpected good fortune in which "Casablanca", not expected by the studio to be particularly noteworthy, emerged as a classic.

But I digress. Not really.

Synchronicity.

Agency in Communion with Communion
and Communion Openly Informing Agency

There develops a finer clarity of self-expression -- the way agency retransforms itself when in communion with communion, to adapt more easily (except, occasionally, screaming); and in the way that communion communicates what's changing to agency, who listens and may adapt. (Get the metaphor? No? Then I'm wrong.)

Sensation and movement are inner and outer perspectives on the individual (soma - body).

The correspond to

attention and intention.

Attention:sensation || Intention:Movement

See how they go together?

Soma is sentient (sensory attentive and intentionally moving), developmental (faculties emerge), initiatory (pushy), malleable (omni-plastic), and can be observed to undergo bodily changes as different memory patterns get activated by experience. You know. Nervous tension.

You want better self-expression? Improve the vehicle of expression -- oneself -- activate and develop the full spectrum of our faculties.

SEE
The Immortal Harold Somaman -- What Keeps Him Going?

Imagination

2011-11-13T14:44:00.000-08:00

The thing we most take for granted is, ourselves. We notice that we come into existence before we know it. And, in fact, if you hadn't noticed it, thoughts arise before we know it, and our imaginings surface and rise into daydreams -- before we know it.

And the will, deliberately, to imagine also arises before we know it, as a growing impulse that we may perceive closer and closer to its root, as an intensifying of attention.

So, I think everyone's imagination is an arising from an innate place to go into places -- the places we think to look and their neighboring places.

It's just that some people's memories have a stronger grip than others', and so complicate and garble the arising imaginary newness, rather than allow it to arise in a more streamlined and more integrated (and so pristine) form.

Imagination.

The Vibrant Mystery of "We"

2011-09-17T15:53:00.000-07:00

The Old Sage oversees the serene meditation
of his student.

The Fool laughs at the beneficent and peaceful Quon Yin.

We are not,

when alone,

as we are

when with someone else.

And we are not

with every "someone else"

as we are

with any other "someone else".

Therefore, who can say what are the preconditions

for relationship?

For just as we cannot predict

how we will be

with another,

we cannot predict

how an other

will be with us.

Therefore, we enter into mystery

every time we enter into relationship.

And who can say

what attributes

will lead to a combination

of two "alone-ness-ess"

into a "we-ness"?

Since we don't even know

what "we-ness"

might emerge

in any next instant
we converge.

And in the converging,

a meeting of boundaries

and then a slow sinking together

with softening boundaries

and softening movements

a converging into merging

with undulatory messages

flickering between.

More on The Pair of Complementary Walking Patterns

2011-09-14T19:32:00.000-07:00

I have written elsewhere about The Magnetic Walk, a rhythmic movement pattern that recycles, gathers, and conserves kinetic energy; and about The Old Scotch Geezer's Walk (or The Scotsman's Walk), which sets up a rhythm that oscillates right and left, and thereby dispels and disperses the conserved energy.

By alternating The Magnetic Walk, as a walking regimen, with The Scotsman's (or Old Scotch Geezer's) Walk, we set up an oscillation between gathering energy (or momentum) and dispelling and dispersing it. It's a pulsation set in motion by alternating between the two patterns of movement.

That pulsation is the pulsation of our organizing ourselves for one walk and then organizing ourselves for the other. The feeling is of a gathering of everything together around a center, then of letting go of the center and feeling sensation get more and more two-sided, then of gathering everything together again, and letting go, again. That's a pulsation.

That pulsation is like a radar wave going through us, that we sense, showing us where we are creased, jammed, or broken. The movement and breathing that go along with the pulsation seem to fuel a reorganization that solves some chronic problems.

Now, those who know The Magnetic Walk and The Scotsman's (or Old Scotch Geezer's) Walk can do as I have described.

And if you don't,
you gonna have to Get on the Train!

Shake Your Booooty!

2011-09-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

There's moving because you want to
and there's moving because you have to,
and which do you do?

There's moving no more than necessary
and moving for the pleasure of it
and which do you prefer?

There's moving before you know it
and there's moving to show it.
Are you comfortable being seen?

There's moving to take it
and moving to escape it.
Are you that free?

There's moving a little
and there's moving a lot
and there's moving to show
that you're still hot to trot!
How old are you?

There's moving all creaky
and just getting along.
Are you satisfied with that?

There's moving in rhythm
and as in moving in song.
Is the spirit alive in you?

There's moving, "Look out"!
and "Wow! Look at that!"
as your eyes open wide
and you hold down your hat.

There's shakin' yo booty
to the tune, Twist and Shout.
How long has it been
since you moved it about?

SHAKE YOUR BOOOOTY ! ! ! SHAKE YOUR BOOOOTY!!!! SHAKE YOUR BOOOOTY ! ! ! ! !

Disproving the Myth of Aging (entry)
Disproving the Myth of Aging (self-teaching program)

Being and Doing

2011-08-10T11:29:00.000-07:00

There is no experience of "being" without "doing" -- contrary to the stated opinion of pop-spirituality and self-help enthusiasts.

Here's why: We can experience only sensations that change. Anything that doesn't change rapidly fades from our awareness. If we can perceive it, it's changing, and that's a kind of "doing".

Things that change are all "doings"; even inanimate objects are doing something, if only capturing and re-radiating ("reflecting") light, and that light creates a change in our experience that makes it possible to perceive something.

The notion that being and doing are separate and different leads, in those who seek peace or other spiritual attributes, to seeking for being -- a kind of doing. They abandon "already being" for seeking being -- a kind of doing!

That being the case, all seeking for "being" or "peace" or other spiritual attributes is fruitless. Not just frustrating. Fruitless.

Now, oddly, the act of seeking is the action of "being, seeking".

All actions come from an unfathomable depth in ourselves. That unfathomable depth is our being; it is "the seer which is unseen". (If it can be seen, it's an object, not the seer.) Doing emerges from being. Something comes from nothing. (Where do you think the Universe came from? -- or if you have a theistic view, What do you think God's nature was, before creation?) Doing is the action of being, while being remains forever unseen, only the doing being perceptible.

In reality, we can never depart from being, nor can we be separate from it -- mainly because there is no "it"; all "its" emerge from, are pervaded by, are "made from" and abide within "it".

So, don't worry about "achieving being"; you can only achieve "doing" anyway, which is the action of being.

The way to do is to be.
-- Lao Tzu

Do-Be Do-Be Do
-- Frank Sinatra

Hanna Somatic Education -- a look at the larger picture

2011-07-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

The time has again come for us to take a fresh look at the status of Hanna Somatic Education as a world-level teaching.

By that, I mean our role in alleviating the pain of the billions of people who are presently at the mercy of "less effective" clinical modalities and of the "ten thousand natural shocks flesh is heir to".

We, who number in the small hundreds, represent the seed stock for what may be a body of practitioners adequate to serve those billions.

Puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

Now, to accomplish that end (which is a many-decades long project, even with exponential growth that we have yet to see, in the number of proficient practitioners), two things need to happen.

We need to have a population of highly proficient practitioners.
We need mass-media exposure.

Now, after nearly twenty-one years of practice, I can tell you this, from my experience: Lessons 1, 2 and 3 are highly potent, virtually "sure-fire" as Tom Hanna said to us, Wave 1, students. I almost never have to repeat a session with a client; one pass through virtually always gets the job of each lesson done (with rare exception). I expect that to be true of any proficient practitioner.

A fair number of former clients of mine have gone to the Novato Institute and SSI trainings. My point is that to receive good work has been their inspiration to become practitioners -- and I believe that highly proficient practitioners are, for now, our best source of more practitioners -- hence, the further importance of everyone developing and practicing at a high level of proficiency.

As the more highly proficient trainers age and retire, who is going to replace them? and what will be their level of proficiency? -- which is all they can transmit to their students.

I'm not talking about a higher standard; I'm talking about the minimum acceptable standard -- which is getting the results I get. Why? Because the students should exceed the teacher; if they don't, the teaching is in decline.

For my part, in addition to giving private sessions, I have created and am still adding to my website, which nowadays gets about 30,000+ visitors, monthly and comprises some 245 pages. That means that, since 1996, some millions of people who were looking for help with chronic pain have at least been exposed to somatics. Through that website, I do what Tom Hanna did: I publish information about somatic education and I sell somatic exercise programs to people, worldwide. (I'm now considering re-doing the look of the site -- another large task for which I'm hoping to find a shortcut.)

Let me add another perspective. We are all aware of the "health care crisis"; we are all aware of the "economic meltdown". What do you think is the relationship between the "health care crisis" and the "economic meltdown"?

How about this: Pain management is a major cost in medical treatment. Huge amounts of money are spent on pain management, on conventional physical therapy; huge amounts are lost in productivity due to the three reflexes of stress and the inability of the medical system to manage pain and lost mobility effectively. Do you know how large the Medicare budget is? how much is spent on medical insurance that covers procedures that get so little done so slowly, compared to what we can do so quickly? I'm talking about a major proportion of our country's gross national product, comparable in scale to the military budget. Kind of awes you, doesn't it?

We have a role to play in the recovery of the world economy.

Now, how are we going to do it?

One key is "mass production". We can't mass-produce proficient practitioners -- not, at least, until we have enough highly-proficient trainers producing highly-proficient students who become trainers, to support exponential growth. The only way it's safe to "slack the reins of control" is if exactingly high training-and-certification standards result in top-notch practitioners who become top-notch trainers.

What can be mass-produced are self-relief, somatic exercise programs. We need to infiltrate social institutions.

Let's not be lazy; let's be creative. Let's not cop out; let's develop ourselves and our skills. Let's not sit on the sidelines; let's make the contribution only we can make. Let's not "go with the flow"; let's be the flow. Let's not be foggy-minded; let's be clear about our situation. Let's not be old and tired; let's regenerate and rejuvenate ourselves and this teaching. The more we do, the more we'll have the resources to do more, to more effect and with less effort.

I think it's a little like pulling a cork out of a wine bottle. It's "stuck in there good". So you pull and twist and wiggle and it comes out a bit. You pull and twist and wiggle some more and it comes out further. That makes it easier. At some point, it starts to come free faster, and then it's out -- with a pop.

We're the wine -- but still new wine. Standard and most "alternative" practices and the mindset that they embody are the cork. They should and will stay in place until the wine is ready -- and then they should be pulled from their closed position so we can pour out. Maybe we can do that by positioning ourselves as "helpers" to them, but ultimately "the truth will out". We're the vanguard.

Know that whatever we decide and do (or don't do) has consequences. We need everyone's higher intelligence.

I have set myself to the task creating mass-producible instructional programs that address needs not being well-met by bodywork, therapy, and standard medicine. My most recent was a program to address TMJ dysfunction. I've also had new success with improving eyesight (mine) and with resolving deep pelvic pain and S-I joint syndrome. People need a program for resolving neck pain, and I've got the essentials for that done in raw video. I've developed a technique for multiplying the effectiveness of somatic exercises (fewer repetitions, less time, more accomplished) and written on somatics from "unusual" perspectives.

Personally, I am more interested in training practitioners than in doing one-on-one sessions (which are about the closest thing to instant gratification that I know) or in producing publishable programs. Training others is a way to multiply myself and the benefit I can bring to others. However, I've delayed organizing trainings until I've gotten those other tasks done, even though I've had quite a few training inquiries in the past few months.

That's where I stand.

Lawrence Gold

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The End of Tyranny, by
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the tradition of Thomas Payne:

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PTSD -- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

2011-06-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) hinges on the interrelation of mind and body. However, exclusive emphasis on chemistry or psychology misses the point.

The point is the relationship between memory, sensation, and action (or movement).

Every traumatic event triggers some sort of impulse to action (or movement). If the event is intense enough or repetitive enough, that impulse to action becomes ingrained and habituated (memorized) as a chronic tension pattern, i.e., muscular involvement.

Every muscular tension pattern or action has a corresponding sensation. The habituated sensations of patterns formed during a traumatic event are the sensations of the event, itself, the sensations of the tension pattern formed in that event. However, the vary nature of habituation is its unconscious automaticity, so those sensations remain semi-conscious or unconscious impulses that get triggered and activated by similar, even remotely similar, events.

Bodywork, by contacting habituated muscular tension patterns, awakens corresponding habituated (and so, faded or semi-conscious) sensations. That's why bodywork triggers memories. However, it may or may not be sufficient to release the grip of those memories.

Somatic education, by awakening internal awareness of ones habituated states and by awakening from them into new patterns, supports a person's recovery from and growth past habituated trauma patterns. This principle and process is the basis of Peter Levine's work (although his work intervenes at the autonomic level and not the voluntary level).

In my view, both psychological and sensory-motor approaches to memory are needed.

more
somatic exercise for Startle Reflex

The View from Inside The Big Bang (or The Big Flash)

2011-05-29T18:19:00.000-07:00

Admittedly, we can only speculate – but speculation can be so interesting.

The Big Bang – or The Big Eye-Opening – was an emergence of “something” from “nothing.”

Leaving aside the question as to how something can emerge from nothing, for the time being, the nature of that “something” was very different from what we conceive of as, “something.” It was a “something” that was, in a basic way, indistinguishable from “nothing”; it had no form, it had no length in time, and it had no size. I’m referring to the immediate product of The Big Bang.

How can that be?

THE NAKED SINGULARITY

Here’s the first problem with the scientific description. At the beginning, before the Big Bang, science posits the existence of the “seed” from which everything emerged: a “naked singularity.” Everything was within that naked singularity in potential form; nothing was outside it. From that naked singularity, the entire Big Bang emerged, so it is said (never mind where that naked singularity came from, a point too easily glossed over, since it is really basic to the whole consideration … but even excusing that question, we ask …)

Where was that naked singularity? Since the naked singularity was the repository of all that could be, there could be nothing outside it, not even space, and certainly not a viewpoint from which to view the naked singularity. There was only an inside. (That, in fact is the definition of a naked singularity: a celestial body with no “event horizon” – i.e., defining boundaries.) There could be no boundary, no ‘skin,’ no limit, since such would have had to be a boundary between the inside and something outside, and there was nothing outside.

Outside was absolute zero. If you think you have a grasp of it, that cannot be it because that would be something.

The naked singularity, itself, had no size. It wasn’t “very small,” since size is relative and there was nothing outside the naked singularity against which to compare it, in size. All comparisons of size are based on what is “within” existence, which meant within The Naked Singularity, which at the time had no distinguishing features to permit comparison. Our conception of size is based upon ourselves; the “inch” is based on the approximate length of the thumb from tip to first joint. Since The Naked Singularity was The Only, comparisons of size are impossible.

Scientists who speculate about the size of the Naked Singularity, from which The Big Bang was said to emerge, do so in a very slippery mental environment, given the relative nature of everything. Size requires a frame of reference for measurement, and astrophysicists infer the size of The Naked Singularity from what they can see, today (which assumes certain things about the unchangeability of space – which astrophysicists say is expanding!). To The Naked Singularity, itself, from its own point of view, it had no size; it had only Itself, and not even any parts of itself by which to compare one part to another. Nothing can be said about its size in absolute terms or in relative terms.

THE BIG BANG, THE BIG EYE-OPENING ("THE BIG FLASH")

The Naked Singularity existed in a “condition” of no space, no time.

Said to have expanded in a Big Bang, the expansion of The Naked Singularity took time. From astronomical data, scientists have arrived at an educated guess (based on a cosmological constant, the speed of light) as to how much time was required for the Naked Singularity to go from its seed state to the first stage of its expansion – raw energy of inconceivable magnitude.

The estimate of time is something like a billion times faster than the blink of an eye. The Big Bang, in a sense, was The Big Eye-Opening.

Of course, that estimate is based upon an objective comparison with time as we experience it.

But there was nothing outside or inside The Big Bang against which to compare it, in terms of length of time. Our conception of time is based upon ourselves, as the frame of reference: the “second” is the approximate length of time between a first heartbeat and a second heartbeat (hence the term, second). Scientists who speculate about the time involved in that Event do so with a bias: their own frame of reference, which didn’t exist at the time of The Big Bang. Time requires a fixed point of reference against which to be measured (which astrophysicists assume to be related to the speed of light and measures of distance). However, since there were no objects by which to measure distance, to the Big Bang, from its own point of view, it took no set amount of time, neither large nor small: it had only Itself and no frame of reference outside itself by which to compare its beginning to its progress.

At the moment of The Big Eye-Opening (if we can locate such a point in time), there was nothing – no form. The first moments of The Big Bang consisted of pure energy, pure motion, but nothing in particular to be in motion – again, no form – because no matter had condensed, yet. If you can grasp it conceptually, that’s not it, since concept-formation developed long after The Big Bang.

No size, no time, no form. The emergence of nothing from nothing. No problem.

WHAT EMERGED

Now, if we identify with The Big Eye-Opening, as if it were ourselves (which is in fact true – since existence continues in perfect continuity from then to now), what we might experience is, in a metaphorical way of speaking, the Rousing of a Sleeping Giant, perhaps something like what you may have experienced forcibly rousing yourself from a dream -- a primal urge to motion to wake up in possession of your full faculties. Only, The Big Eye-Opening had no faculties, other than that of the motion of emergence – the emergence of something from nothing – but with a lot of enthusiasm!

Let’s take a fresh look at The Big Eye-Opening.

First, a new assertion: The Big Eye-Opening didn’t expand into anything; what it did was divide itself -- another case of, “How Can That Be?”

Let’s try a metaphor. Among living creatures, reproduction (multiplication) is accomplished by means of division – whether division of a cell, of a seed, or of a fertilized egg.

Let’s use an egg as an example. An egg encompasses the entire potential of its lifeform. When an ovum, or egg, is fertilized, the first thing it does is divide (meiosis).

One cell, the egg cell, becomes two cells.

The two divide, and two becomes four.

Four becomes eight.

Eight becomes sixteen.

Sixteen becomes thirty-two.

Thirty-two becomes sixty-four.

Sixty-four becomes one hundred twenty-eight.

One hundred twenty-eight becomes two hundred fifty-six.

Two hundred fifty-six becomes five hundred-twelve.

Nine steps from one to five-hundred twelve. And the multiplication goes on. Multiplication by dividing. A spherical ovum becomes a spherical blastula, which then shapes itself to become an embryo, and away we go.

A blastula is bigger than an ovum, but it gets bigger by incorporating nutrients from its environment into itself. The Naked Singularity had no environment from which to build itself or expand into; all it could do was divide.

The act of division was the first creation of relative size. But from the point of view of the Naked Singularity, there was no size.

The Naked Singularity had no material existence; it was energy, only. Its very intensity precluded the condensation of matter; it was raw flux, pure motion, again inconceivable. If you can conceive of it in your imagination, that wasn’t it.

ENERGY AND MATTER

Let’s talk about energy and motion.

In our present Universe, light energy exists in a continuum (spectrum) of frequency, which we experience as color, from low (the red side of the spectrum and below) to high (the violet side of the spectrum, and beyond).

Again, in our present Universe, different atoms give off light at different and unique color combinations of the spectrum. Atoms can be identified by the light they give off.

But there were no atoms at the time of The Big Eye-Opening – no matter, no anti-matter, no nothing. At most, there was light (as in “Let there be …”) and since all light travels at the same speed in a vacuum (which was all there was, if that), there was no way of measuring time (which is only known in terms of motion) because everything was the same and there was no scale of differences in size by which to make comparison of distance from “here” to “there.” No time.

The first emergence, beyond mere timeless, sizeless formlessness, would have had to be the emergence of wavelength, or color, of light. In particular, it would have had to be with there being more than one wavelength, or color of light. The “oneness” of all colors would have had to divide, at minimum, into a basic, primordial “twoness,” or more than one wavelength, in order for there to be a difference, and from there, the full range of wavelengths along the mathematical lines discovered by physicists. Again, multiplication by division. There is a paradox inherent in this appearance of “more than one”; the paradox is that, at the time of The Big Eye-Opening, every ray of light exists at a certain frequency and moves at a certain speed, which is the same as that of all others; but from the position of any ray of light, all others exist at a different frequency, even if they all move at the same speed. Things that are the same appear different – another, “How Can This Be?”

For preliminary answers to these questions, we must do something dangerously anthropomorphic; we must speculate on a teleological (developmental) imperative – let’s call it, a tendency. We can speculate this way only because we have, as part of our nature, all of the attributes of our origin, and we have the tendency to develop, just as this essay is developing, and just as the Universe is developing. (The danger is in taking the analogy too literally, because the state of development of our attributes is different from their primordial state. But since they still exist on the same line of development, so we can make metaphors that give us some sense of understanding.)

Because The Big Eye-Opening happened, we seem compelled to allow that some tendency was at work.

Here’s the speculation: The tendency of emergence of something from nothing involves two beginning steps; there are more than two, but for simplicity at this point in our consideration, we will confine ourselves to the first two steps, and those are: awakening and differentiation. Awakening is the emergence into a new realm of existence; differentiation is the distinguishing of the features of that new realm of existence. The tendency behind the emergence of The Big Eye-Opening is the impulse To Be.

The first moments of The Big Eye-Opening can be seen as an emergence of (or into) something new – a new realm of existence -- physicality. But without distinguishing features such as size, shape, or time (motion), no experiencing of that emergence is possible, since there is nothing to experience and no one to experience it. But the impulse To Be, as a drive, has within it a Drive to Be Something. (I told you this line of thought is anthropomorphic.)

The Drive to Be Something has in it two faculties: an outward impulse (radiation) and an impulse to take things in (gravitation). These to faculties show up in living beings as the impulse to move into experience, intention, and the impulse to take experience in, attention. Intention and attention. I’ll touch on this point only that much, for now, and go much more into it as we proceed.

Back to the two faculties.

Scientists who discuss The Big Eye-Opening state that somehow, gravity trapped light and turned it into matter, starting with the simplest sub-atomic particles (if there is such a thing as a simplest particle) then forming hydrogen ions -- protons and free electrons, and proceeding through cosmic evolution (star formation, planetary formation and development) to develop all of the complexities of matter and chemistry we see, today.

There is a big, big gap in that explanation. First of all, if all light was radiating evenly throughout the nascent Universe (and it had to be, or some prior, organizing principle would have had to be operative), why would matter have congealed more in some places than in others? The tendency for matter to appear would have had to be the same everywhere; with equal distribution of forces, nothing could have congealed, anywhere, or everything would have congealed evenly, everywhere. Equal gravity everywhere, equal light everywhere, equal congealing everywhere, including in the space between particles. It is a puzzlement. Again.

Secondly, how do you get mere outwardly-bound radiation of some wavelength to stop traveling in lines and to coalesce into localized spaces? Gravity won’t do it, since gravity, as the weakest basic physical force, can’t even retain an atmosphere on a celestial body as large as our moon, which, compared to you, is huge. How’s it going to get motion occurring at the speed of light to Hold it Right There! and form matter?

Mere physical force is an insufficient explanation. There has to be an organizing principle beyond the organizing of inert matter by uniformly active forces. I’m not saying what that is, but let’s take a look at the usual way of explaining these things.

In science, the structure of organizing principles is defined mathematically. Laws of physics and chemical behaviors follow mathematically defined and definable patterns. It’s these definable patterns – predictability -- that give science it’s vaunted air of reliability.

But let’s pause. We cannot let the logic of this speculation escape unquestioned. When did mathematical laws come into existence? For that matter, why did mathematical laws come into existence? Why are there mathematical laws, at all? Why did things “develop,” instead of stay the same? The contemplation of these mysterious questions is “similar” to the contemplation of, “where did The Naked Singularity exist?” Isn’t it?

I suggest that mathematical structure isn’t a primary cause, but is a secondary development of The Big Eye-Opening, itself.

Again: from nothingness, somethingness indistinguishable from nothingness (oneness). From that somethingness (oneness), the emergence of difference (twoness). Awakening and differentiation. Now, for some smoke and mirrors.

The two different elements of a two-ness have no distinct existence apart from each other; neither can be known as “something” except by its difference from and comparison to something else. That’s the “mirrors” part.

However, I used the word, “known,” didn’t I? Oops. That implies a knower. In a dead, unconscious Universe, no knower, no perception, is possible. However, we know that the Universe isn’t dead, at least not completely, because we exist and we know, from our experience of the existence of things, that there is consciousness. Question is, How far back does consciousness go? We have no basis for asserting any beginning point other than The Big Eye-Opening.

Why did I raise this point about consciousness? The reason has to do with the imperative, To Be. I am developing a view of an increasingly sentient (conscious) Universe, starting with consciousness in its most primitive, primordial forms – the impulse To Be and the impulse to experience Being -- the Rousing of The Sleeping Giant.

Here’s a principle peculiar to all living beings: we perceive change, and that’s all we perceive. Stare into a mirror for long enough, features of your face start to disappear. To get them to reappear, you have to move. We perceive motion (or change).

From the first moments of The Big Eye-Opening (if there were any) to now, there has been only a succession of changes and that is what has kept The Big Event in view. But I get ahead of myself.

The driving impulse of The Big Eye-Opening (now, we have to change the name, since we know that a succession of events has been involved – OK, let’s call it “The Big Show”) the driving impulse has been To Be Something. To Be Something requires, at first, emergence, and then, differentiation (formation of differences), the pre-requisites for change to occur.

Differentiation is very nice, except it’s not the full story. (Nothing ever is.) Let’s take a look back at The Big Show, just after two or more frequencies (or wavelengths, or colors) of light appeared within view of any viewpoint. Wherever rays of light of any two frequencies interacted, by proximity, they formed a third frequency (or wavelength, or color) – just as by adding red light and blue light, we get yellow light.

That’s a way of looking at the process objectively. However, all experiencing involves, at minimum, two viewpoints: objective and subjective. Let’s speculate about the subjective side of things.

Working with the premise that the primal impulse or tendency of the Universe is To Be, and to experience Being, why the differentiation of one color of light into two? An answer: as a necessary continuation of the impulse To Be. Remember that experience fades with monotony. The impulse to experience requires the emergence of The New, and when your playing pieces are as sparse as they were at the beginning of the game, you use what you’ve got. The next possibility, from Oneness, is a movement of (or within) Oneness. To experience existence over a period of time requires movement. How does mere movement result in the experience of more-than-oneness?

Let’s bring in a little thought experiment. Paging Dr. Einstein. Paging Dr. Einstein …

A peculiarity of light is that it moves at a uniform speed in a vacuum, regardless of the speed of its source. If the source moves toward the viewer, the light gets to the viewer no sooner, but appears to the viewer to shift frequency in the “violet” direction of the spectrum ("Blue Shift"); if the source moves away from the viewer, the light appears to the viewer to shift frequency in the “red” direction of the spectrum ("Red Shift"), again, arriving from the light-source to the view in the same amount of time.

Remembering that peculiarity, let’s say that primordial light, all of one frequency, has traveled a certain distance since the inception of The Big Show. Let’s allow that the boundary of consciousness exists at the farthest reach of all the light that has radiated outward and that this consciousness, as it fills or pervades The Big Show, also gathers in primordial experience from all directions. At the boundary and facing outward, there is an Unknown, Unknowable Mystery; at the boundary and facing inward, toward the origin, is all the radiation that has yet to reach the boundary. Assuming that The Big Show is expanding in a sphere, light moving away from this side of the expanding sphere of The Big Show and toward the other side is invisible to us (assuming there was someone to view it, which there wasn’t). Light moving somewhat away from us would be perceived from this side as radiating at a lower (redder) frequency. Because opposite sides of The Big Show are moving away from each other at twice the speed of light, neither side of The Big Show could be seen from the other. However, lines of radiation moving somewhat in the same direction would be seen as being a slightly different, redder color from each viewpoint, even if both were vibrating at the same frequency. Oneness experienced as twoness, because of differences in direction of movement.

The phenomenon of attention works similarly: If you project your attention forward, you can’t perceive things behind you; if you project your attention forward in time (imagination), you still encounter an Unknown at the limit of your imagination. You can perceive things to your sides, but they always appear as being other-than you and different from you. And if you project your attention back in time (memory), there is a limit beyond which lies a mystery – the same mystery as exists forward in time.

Getting back to The Big Show … The mere difference in direction of lines of motion makes for a multiplicity of objects of perception, even if they are, in their essential nature, the same.

We’ve talked about the first two processes of emergence, awakening and differentiation, and we’ve discussed how differentiation follows naturally from motion, even the motion of light, by virtue of differences of direction of movement.

However, we haven’t discussed how matter forms.

See, in the primordial scheme of The Big Show, everything is light. The odd thing about light is that there is no way to perceive light without matter.

Consider: the stars in the sky radiate light in all directions; outer space is full of light. But the night sky appears dark except for points from which light comes directly into our eyes – stars, planets, our moon. Whether radiated directly or reflected from a material body, the outpouring of light from all the stars is invisible from the side and visible only when it strikes our retinas directly. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? The sky is full of light but appears dark, except as it impacts us, directly.

Consider the primordial Universe. Light everywhere, no matter anywhere. Light everywhere, darkness everywhere. The experience of light comes from the existence of a perceiver, and not just the physical existence, but the conscious existence that somehow interprets inanimate, mathematical vibration into living color. The universe generated lifeforms that could generate the experience of light from what was otherwise darkness. The experience of light comes from lifeforms.

The concretizing of light into matter comes not only from gravity, which is only a physical force, but also from the ingathering tendency of the primordial awareness. This is to say that awareness is an inherent feature of the Universe, a living element of the causality of existence. I’ll say more about this point as we get to the discussion of The Ladder of Experience, which shows the correlations of the basic physical expressions of the physical universe – matter and energy – with the functions of movement and sensation, intention and attention, attributes of living beings that experience life.

For now, let’s say that there is an organizing principle whose function is to generate centers, of which matter with gravity is one physical expression.

So, now, we have identified some

The primary impulse of all impulses is to Be.
Differences of movement make two objects that may otherwise be identical obvious as two different things, and thus knowable as “something” different from “something else.”
The multiplicity of objects starts with the multiplicity of their directions of possible movement.
Experience is possible only by means of contrast, differences between two or more objects – at minimum an experiencer and an object of experience, which must seem different from each other, when regarded individually.
Light, or free outgoing motion, is invisible unless met directly by a material object, and is then experienced as incoming experience.
Gravity is the incoming counterpart of outgoing light, just as attention is the “gathering” counterpart of intention, which is outgoing.

We are verging on a discussion of the next process of emergence: integration:

step (1) awakening
step (2) differentiation
step (3) integration

Integration is the gathering of things into a pattern, a whole that, by virtue of the pattern, is more than a mere collection of different things. Integration of things brings into existence a new pattern of function.

Back to light and matter.

Light can’t be perceived without matter. In fact, it can’t do anything but move outward without matter. Even if rays of light intersect, they still can’t do anything but move outward. All we have is motion.

The only way to know something is moving is to have a fixed point of reference. Matter provides that. The appearance of matter came into existence as a necessary means by which to witness the nature of light as a distinct, observable “something.” (Observation always requires a viewpoint separate from that of that which is being observed.)

This line of consideration, as worded, implies some sort of intelligent intentionality, a Primordial Impulse. To entertain that viewpoint, of course, flies in the face of scientific materialism, but dovetails with our own living nature and that of all living beings. (Just an aside to chew on, for a moment.) This conception of the impulse behind The Big Show requires a shift of point of view from that of the Universe as a dead process of mechanical objects haphazardly assembling themselves into chemical processes called, “life,” to that of an ongoing emergence of a living impulse, islands of organization coalescing within a sea of chaos.

We’re at the point where matter emerges to provide a fixed point of reference from which to experience motion, present as free light.

Matter has this handy little property: as soon as a fixed point of reference appears (matter), something else appears: gravity. Gravity didn’t cause the appearance of matter, its congealing from light; it coincided with the appearance of matter as a simultaneous expression of the impulse to gather experience of a new kind. Of what kind, we ain’t sayin’, yet.

Let’s just say that just as the primordial light became divided/differentiated into different frequencies of light, the spectrum (or continuum of color) of light consisted of frequencies of light that were multiples (or fractions) of each other. There was a mathematical order to that spectrum – a structure, a regularity -- another dimension of experience to be known.

To experience light required a contrast of some sort to be introduced, some sort of variation. Gravity provided one variation: it could bend light. This bending exists in contrast to the straight lines in which light otherwise travels. It also causes changes of the speed at which bodies of matter move, providing variations in the spectrum of light, making things appear redder or more violet, according to the speed and direction of the movement of material objects radiating or reflecting light.

Our Universe, such as it is, provides examples of how gravity bends light, but no examples of how light might behave in the absence of gravity. That’s because gravity extends throughout the Universe; it pervades it, strongly or weakly. We’re at a stage in The Big Show where the interaction of energy, matter and gravity are at Center Stage.

Matter provided another variation in the experience of light. Light could change from a freely moving phenomenon to one almost completely stopped, and then reappear again as a freely moving phenomenon going an entirely new direction and at a different frequency or set of frequencies – the process of reflection of light by matter, which is really absorption and re-radiation of light by matter. New behaviors! How novel!

The emergence of matter is a new integration of tendencies of experience: speed, duration (time), and transformation. By itself, light doesn’t transform; it just goes. Matter transforms light.

And light transforms matter. Thing is, matter can’t be known in and by itself. It can only be known by the energy (light or electromagnetic radiation) it absorbs and re-radiates. Even its motion can be known only by the motion of its absorption and re-radiation behavior. The kind of matter is known by its electromagnetic properties, which underlie and are part of its chemical behavior. The behavior of matter has a structure that is related to the structure of the light spectrum. We see these differences of kind and behavior categorized in the Periodic Chart of the Atomic Elements.

With matter, another set of experiences emerged: attraction and repulsion. Whereas rays of light neither attract nor repel other rays of light, they do repel matter; they exert a pressure upon matter, both a physical force and an electro-magnetic force. Light (or energy) induces matter to vibrate, to radiate light, and even to disintegrate, both at the level of molecular structure and at the level of sub-atomic structure. Light provides a way of experiencing matter, even as matter provides a way of experiencing light. Light and matter are interdependent.

Now, it’s one thing to know these things as a matter of scientific theory and another thing to experience them, directly. You might remember that the theme of this essay is, “The View from Inside the Big Bang.” Inside.

And we have a view, from the inside, of the interaction of matter and energy (or light). It’s our experience of being alive.

Now, we don’t generally experience the molecular, atomic, and sub-atomic subtleties of matter. We experience matter at a higher level of organization. Remember, I made reference to integration. As living beings, we have a physical existence as organisms (somas), which has both common and unique characteristics of organization, relative to non-organismic matter. Likewise, we have an experience, from within, of those unique characteristics. Those characteristics are the characteristics of the body (and world), as sensory experiences.

Our being alive is a way of The Big Show experiencing the emergence of yet another dimension of experiencing: not only are we centers of experience with characteristics of both light (sensation) and matter (motion); we are moving centers. Not only are we moving centers (planets move, as do other inanimate processes affected passively by physical forces); we are self-moving centers.

It seems that the emergence of something from nothing has gone full-circle in us, living beings. We all seem to come out of nothing; we know life and we know ourselves by means of contrast of ourselves with our environments and relationships; we grow in our experiencing by moving into new domains. We distinguish ourselves from others and we integrate our lives with those of others.

With us, first comes The Big Eye-Opening, then, The Big Event of Emergence, then, The Big Show. We know ourselves by our reflections from others, from the ways we are stopped by life and the ways in which we are redirected, the way we put our lives together and by the changes we go through as our lives disintegrate and reintegrate in epochs of universal ("kosmic") and biological ("somatic") evolution.

The Universe emerged as a way of experiencing (existence), first in inanimate ways with no center and then in self-moving, animate ways with centers. The Universe persists by transforming; so do we. But we are not the same as the inanimate Universe, or rather, we are a new emergence of its potential and its new potentials emerging.

The Universe is expanding not only its physical limits (into what we do not know), but also the range of possible experiences within its potential. We are the product of The Big Eye-Opening without a break from ancient time and we exemplify its principles in our conscious life, which is still emerging at an accelerating rate, it seems. We are the Big Eye-Opening Experienced from Within, pressing outward into the Unknown and taking experience in. The Big Bang (or "Big Flash" or "Big Eye-Opening") isn't something that "happened"; it's something that is still happening, and we and our current universe are IT.

On Deep Creativity

2011-05-28T08:43:00.001-07:00

DESCRIPTION OF DEEP CREATIVITY
Deep creativity is a name for the deliberate creation of new forms that, when contemplated (by the creator or by others) open a window to intuition of our silent, formless depth. It's the steadying of attention, the integration and transcendence of experience (ref: "Form is emptiness; emptiness is form").

We distinguish "deep" creativity from "superficial" creativity by both the process and the outcome.

The primary characteristic of deep creativity is unified intention. "Unified intention" means non-distraction, coherence, cohesiveness of directed attention. It is the creation of a "space of attention" into which a new creative impulse may emerge.

The tangible form we create in such a space of "coherent attention" ("dhyana" or absorption of attention) reveals, when we place our attention upon it, two "layers" of existence in addition to the tangible manifestation, itself: 1) a subtle communication of a feeling intuition and 2) silent empty space (without center or boundary) perfectly coincident with manifested fullness, our own essential self-nature.

The evident characteristic of superficial creativity is the lack of cohesiveness or of intuitive depth; it lacks simple integrity and communicates scattered attention. Most creativity and "art", stemming from mental ideation rather than intuition, falls into this category.

When we create from a deep place, we are engaged in a process of deliberate feeling-attention, with intention poised for new intuition. Deep creativity is not "random" creativity, but deliberate, coherent creativity, not synthesizing from existing parts from a mental place of "good ideas"; deep creativity manifests "something from nothing" using the creative medium to make something more than the mere sum of parts -- a holon, not a pile. We create from source; we create as source. The distinguishing characteristic of such deep creation is a sense of wholeness, of singleness, of unified integrity that gathers and steadies attention in contemplation.

THE STAGES OF DEEP CREATIVITY
We start by directing attention into what we intend, holding attention there in a disposition of expectation with creative intention poised, as a cat stalks a bird. We are, at once, open, receptive, and poised for activity. This is "active samyama" -- the contemplation of an object (even the emergence of a subjective object -- a creative impulse) until its essential nature is perceived.

As perception of the essential nature of the thing you are creating emerges, we experience an "originating intention" -- creative insight that can be enacted deliberately as an act of creation. Still in subtle form, an originating intention has sufficiently developed (in a kind of intuitive gestation) when creative energy (attentional force) congeals into a coherent intention (morphogenetic field) characterized by sufficient intensity -- creative thrust -- to bring it into tangible form.

Creating a coherent originating intention (morphogenetic field) involves recognizing and releasing/dissolving any ideas, feelings, or intentions that are influences upon you r creative process other than what you are creating. These "other influences" surface as you exert effort or intention into the process of developing your originating intention. (Again, to create a coherent originating intention involves placing attention in the direction of what you want to create; those "other influences" appear as distractions to that creative process).

We then create a form that expresses that originating intention by acting deliberately upon a creative medium -- a creative process that might be termed, "tangification" -- the act of making something tangible (ref: Y.Y. Meru -- "Mastership" and "Attunement"). To do so requires sufficient mastery of attention, intention, of our own actions, and of the medium in which we are creating to create deliberately. In a way of viewing it, creativity involves bridging between subjective interiority and objective exteriority, the capacity to view manifestation from both viewpoints, simultaneously. The simultaneous fidelity of inner and outer and the difference-in-appearance of inner experience from outer expression make all creativity an act of paradox (ref: Da Free John -- "The Paradox of Instruction").

In the case of this present writing, for example, the act of deep creativity required setting an intention -- to create an essay on deep creativity, the time needed to formulate an expression that fulfills that intention, recognition of what that expression would be, and sufficient mastery of language to implement that intention; in other media, other kinds of mastery pertain, but the same requirements for creative intuition and adequate mastery of the medium of creation apply. The combination of an originating intention and mastery of the medium make possible a creative act with a high degree of fidelity between originating intention and tangible result.

Once a creation has been brought into (or taken) form ("tangified"), it is available for contemplation. Contemplation of the tangible creation reveals the degree of its fidelity with the originating intention, allowing for refinement of the tangible expression. Sufficient fidelity between subtle perception ("originating intention") and its tangible creation, such that the subtle and formless layers may both be intuited, constitutes a successful "deep creation."

Once the tangible expression has been brought to a high degree of fidelity with the originating intention, its place within the milieu of already-manifested-actuality may be seen and understood by means of observation of that milieu, and reflection and consideration of the place of the "new creation" within that milieu; once that reflection has reached maturity, we may offer that "new creation" for integration into that greater milieu.

Then, we may begin the process again in a cycle of awakening, differentiation, integration, and transcendence.

For examples of deep creativity in sound, click http://somatics.com/somusic

Somatic Spiritual (Evolutionary) Practice -- The Big Pandiculation

2011-05-17T14:54:00.000-07:00

Hanna Somatic Education^® is a highly accessible doorway to spiritual practice. It provides means for integrating and transcending psycho-physical (somatic) limitations and instant feedback as to the success of the practice.

It's primary technique, "Pandiculation", puts principles into operation that apply equally well to subtler and "inner" aspects of the human being, i.e., the emotions and thinking mind, and the mind of subtle intuition -- the emotional and mental psychic fields -- as they do to the "outer" physiological body/organism. So, I refer to the grand process of human evolutionary transformation as, The Big Pandiculation.

This essay explains how this is so, and also identifies the advantage and limitation of Hanna somatic education as an element of spiritual practice.

An entire human life may be summarized as moving from one state and degree of contraction to another -- with varying degrees of habituation.

Spiritual practice may be summarized as "increasing involvement with and increasing transcendence of" the conditions of life -- increasing involution and increasing evolution -- awakening to what we are constantly doing and being. I suggest that one of the most powerful means of spiritual practice is pandiculation -- applied not only at the sensory-motor level, as in Hanna somatic education, but also at emotional, mental, and intuitive levels. I call this, The Big Pandiculation. Correspondences with Kinetic Mirroring and Means-Whereby (explained here) also apply to those other levels. For non-participants in Hanna somatic education, I explain the term, "Pandiculation", here.

PRACTICAL ACTION, click here.

THE TERM, "SPIRITUAL PRACTICE", AS I MEAN IT

Spiritual practice has two aspects:

awakening to and outgrowing (transcending) archaic, habituated patterns of function and perception
awaking into new faculties of function and perception

In the language of somatic education, (1.) addresses "sensory-motor amnesia" or "attentional-intentional amnesia" -- indicating that the person is suffering (a) the results of inherited, unevolved habits of thought, feeling and action and (b) impairments of their functioning from injury or emotional trauma. (2.) addresses "sensory-motor obliviousness" or "attentional-intentional obliviousness" -- indicating that the person is suffering from the lack of faculties that have never yet awakened.

The first category is that of loss; the second category is that of limited development.

I know that's a lot, and I'll clarify, as needed, below.

For students of Ken Wilber, let me say that these two aspects of spiritual practice correspond to what he characterized as "state pathologies" and "stage pathologies" -- where a state is analogous to "weather" and a stage is analogous to "climate". All problems from category (1.) stem from functional impairments that occur within a given stage of development (broken personal integrity); all problems from category (2.) stem from functional deficiencies that occur because the person needs to mature to his/her next-higher stage of development.

That said, what is the role of somatic education? To answer that rhetorical question, I should first define my terms.

SOMATIC EDUCATION
The term, "somatic" (derived from the ancient Greek word, "soma") refers to the experience of our faculties -- awareness and control -- from within -- autonomy, self-regulation, freedom and responsibility. The term, "education" (derived from Latin "e ducare") refers to the drawing out and making functional an individual's latent faculties so that they come alive.

In this day, both words, "somatic" and "education", are abused and misused in popular parlance. "Somatic" is used to refer to the flesh-body or to cells of the body (as opposed to the mind), so that the word, psychosomatic is not recognized as the redundancy that it is. (Remember, "soma" includes both bodily (or incarnated) existence and awareness, from within, of ourselves and our faculties.) Likewise, education is used to refer to mental learning of more and more things -- facts and rules, without the recognition that such mental learning relies upon a more basic learning -- the learning of how to pay attention and to exercise intention in action (to get specifically intended results). These abuses of words point to the degeneration (category 1.) and unevolved stage (category 2.) of our human culture.

So, we have to rehabilitate these words and their meanings for this essay to be meaningful. If you accept that rehabilitation, read on.

Somatic education does two major general things: it awakens perception (sensory awareness) and it awakens self-control (and by extension, control of things and others).

Understanding that point is "huge", since it is the basis of entire human lives. Somatic education increases the effects of ones actions upon oneself and others. It frees (and in effect, causes) one to be more what one tends be, warts and all.

The enterprise of spiritual practice appears in many forms in human culture -- everything from nature-spirit worship to organized religion to self-transcending practices.

For the purpose of this writing, I especially mean self-awakening and self-transcending practices.

At this point, we have to rehabilitate another slippery word: transcendence.

People commonly use the term to mean "being above" and dissociating from some kind of experience -- not experiencing it anymore. That's a formula for neurosis, pathology and breakdown; it's not transcendence.

The proper understanding of the term is "being inclusive of and more than" some kind of experience -- experiencing it consciously, with understanding, with mastery. This understanding goes along with Einstein's declaration that "It is impossible to solve a problem from within the frame of reference within which it was created." To solve a problem, we must first have mastered and transcended its original frame of reference.

This kind of mastery involves two stages: differentiation and integration.

Differentiation means clearly seeing the distinctions that define something as it is. When cooking, it is "helpful" to distinguish the taste of salt from that of other ingredients so that we can regulate how much salt we put into the cooking.

Integration means putting things together into a satisfactorily functioning whole so that all the parts complement each other. When cooking, it is "helpful" to balance the taste of salt with other tastes.

We can't know how much salt to add by tasting the salt we are adding; we must taste both the salt and the rest of the dish-in-progress and balance them with each other. By so doing, we transcend both the taste of salt and the taste of the rest of the dish -- we include them and occupy a frame of reference that is greater than either.

The somatic principle we have identified as applying to this situation is, "Somas perceive by means of contrasts." The corollary is, "Whatever doesn't change fades from perception." Try staring at something, sometime, and see what I mean.

How does this pertain to somatic education?

First, we understand that all of our experience gets processed through the body via the senses -- brain-based learning of how to interpret experiences. This interpretation applies to physical sensations, to emotions, to mental processes, and to higher intuitions that don't have physical objects but which are felt (e.g., music and other forms of coherent art).

Secondly, we understand that that process of interpretation is subject to the distortions of Category (1.) and to the obliviousness of Category (2.)

Let's clarify how injuries and emotional trauma distort both perception and function.

MEMORY IMPRINTS
Memory consists of two aspects that make up ordinary experiencing: sensation and response (or movement, or behavior). All memories exist as states of "readiness to respond", manifested as patterns of muscular tension that keep us ready for action. The common term is, "nervous tension". A technical term would be, "motor habits".

All experiences leave imprints on memory; intense or repetitive experiences leave intense imprints on memory -- and stronger patterns of muscular tension.

These imprints overlie each other as patterns of tension that show up as posture and "body language", breathing patterns, body-sense or the sense of "self", and also thought patterns and emotional responses. "I" am patterns of memory, in action.

"Don't ask me to relax; it's my tension that's keeping me together."

Most of these memory imprints are below the surface and only get activated by circumstances, but reside at a low level of "idle". When activated by circumstance, we call that "emotional reactivity".

For a more detailed and elaborate discussion of how these memory imprints show up as neuromuscular tension patterns, I refer you to "An Expanded View of the Three Reflexes of Stress", "Is the Body 'Self' or 'Other'?" and "Sensory-Motor Amnesia is Not a Disease."

SOMATIC EDUCATION and MEMORY IMPRINTS
Now, we get into it.

Somatic education provides a means of shifting those memory patterns from "automatic" to voluntary, turning "emotional reactivity" (for instance) into "emotional responsiveness" -- not in a wholesale manner, but progressively and specifically, and also activating latent faculties to which we are oblivious.

Just as muscular tensions can be brought under control by the three basic techniques of Hanna somatic education, "Means-Whereby", "Kinetic Mirroring" and "Pandiculation", so the logic of those techniques can be applied to emotional, mental, and intuitive levels of the being.

In general, three effects make somatic education useful in spiritual practice. (1) It forges and integrates the mind-body connection, (2) It awakens and integrates more of the "neural network" of the brain to make possible more complex and more finely articulated perceptions and behaviors, and (3) It re-activates awareness of personal functions that has been lost in Sensory-Motor Amnesia, so they can be integrated.

These effects correspond to (1) incarnation, (2) maturation, and (3) integration of "shadow (psychological) material".

Incarnation
Mere conception is not incarnation, nor is mere birth. Conception and birth begin the process of incarnation, which involves identification as "body/mind" (soma), so that we experience the body "from within", as our "acting" selves.

The "incarnation" step applies especially to people who tend to live in their dreams, thoughts or emotions, whose fantasy or mental life substitute for engagement in relationships in the world.

Maturation
Development of our capacity to experience and to act is progressive and proceeds by the formation of memory patterns along the developmental lines outlined by Piaget, Rogers, Maslow, and others, which involve progressive development of perception, conception, and action (behavior). It's the development of functional sophistication (more or less).

The "maturation" step applies especially to people who have unevenly developed competence in various areas of their lives.

Integration of "Shadow (psychological) Material"
Shadow material consists of behaviors and feelings that have previously developed and then been distorted by reactions to traumatic experiences of various kinds. They're ways we "won't let ourselves be", but which we still have impulses to be. They're actions "stopped mid-step", both active and opposed by us at the same time.

The "integration" step especially applies to people who have been traumatized.

I'll tell you a few personal stories to illustrate my points.

Incarnation. I grew up in an emotionally dissociated (but financially well-off) family, in which my emotions and wishes felt generally invalidated, even as my material needs were satisfied, without much social contact or play time for ten months out of every year (required to practice piano during the time when the boys on my block were out playing, together). At home, I lived in frequent anxiety, boredom and alienation; in school, I feared for my physical safety and suffered frequent humiliation from more aggressive boys. I was small for my age, but intellectually well-developed (which earned me the name, Peabody, after the brainy cartoon dog-character on "Bullwinkle" -- "Sherman and Peabody" -- from one of the boys). In my free time (after piano practice), I read copiously -- astronomy, paleontology, anatomy, physics, chemistry, science fiction, and the entire World Book Encyclopedia, cover to cover. In physical education classes, I had the least prowess of anybody and was always the last chosen for team sports. So, I was mentally well-developed, emotionally intimidated and alienated, physically undeveloped, and socially out of synch with my peer group.

In my teens, I developed incapacitating tendonitis in my right hand/wrist that resulted, ultimately, in my getting Rolfed. The point of this narrative is that my "incarnation history" led to this: My rolfer described me as being "like concrete" and "the most contracted individual" he had ever worked on. I was largely oblivious to my condition, and I had so little bodily sensation that my forearms and abdomen felt as insensate as wood.

Rolfing was the beginning of my somatic education, and in the process, what aroused my great interest is that I was starting to perceive myself, my body, and my behavior, in ways that had never before awakened. The awakening of feeling and the changes of how I was moving were giving me a viewpoint for self-perception other than the one with which I had been identified -- the contrast making possible new self-observation.

Maturation
My process of maturation gradually progressed, with Rolfing, and accelerated with movement practices designed to speed the integration of the changes from Rolfing.

The movement practices had the same effect of awakening new self-observation (by means of contrast between the state I generated with movement practice and my habitual state) and it had a further effect, development of a kind of psychic sensitivity. I recall one afternoon, working the counter at my father's print shop, when the front door opened and a man came in, and with him, an emotional field that I would characterize as "a downer". It came in with him, specifically (and not the same way with other customers), so it wasn't a matter of "oh, another customer"; it was about, "wow, feel what just walked in the door". Practice of the Structural Patterning Movements typically magnified that psychic sensitivity by calming my mind and quieting and sensitizing my nervous system -- a lower "signal-to-noise ratio".

I stayed with Rolfing for about twenty years, and in so doing, built up a mass of contrast between my physical state and my habitual subjective state (memories of "how to be" and "how I am"). It was to be the basis of a rending, wholesale transformation (that has continued to this day).

Integration
At age 36, after a fairly easy divorce, but also during a wrenching time of change during which I went back to university to train as a physical therapist (living in the dorm with 18-21 year-olds), and during which I lost my entire social network, accustomed diet, work and living situation and had no source of income. I was fairly maxed-out on stress.

Shortly after the end of my university studies, I returned to my previous town in a completely different situation than the one I had left, without friends or income, still maxed out on stress.

During that time, my Rolfer plopped a copy of Somatics, by Thomas Hanna, onto my lap and said, "You might be interested in this." The book contained somatic exercises "for neuromuscular stress", which I began to practice. Surprisingly, instead of reducing my stress, they made it worse. Much worse. The exercises, by awakening and forging my mind-body connection, intensified both my awareness and my manifestation of my state of stress, physically. The exercises made me experience more the state I was in.

That may not seem like a good thing, but by intensifying my experience of stress, it also made me available (and irresistably compelled me) to undertake further spiritual training and intensive inner work to "disarm" the stress.

When I entered training in somatic education with Thomas Hanna, I was in so much stress and so intense that I deliberately wore a red tee-shirt with the words applied to it, in white letters, "Too Intense". Mutual practice of the somatic education techniques among students alleviated my stress by about 50%. At the conclusion of training, we had a celebratory barbeque, at which time my peers burned that tee-shirt. As one of my peers said, as testimony to their acknowledgement of how much I had changed, I wasn't wearing the tee-shirt when they burned it.

After training with Thomas Hanna, circumstances brought me into contact with a teacher of The Avatar Course, which consists of methods that have the same underlying principles as Hanna somatic education. Using those methods has been instrumental in disarming so much of the accumulated stresses of my earlier life, intensified and revealed to me through somatic education.

SUMMARY
This is a fairly summary recounting in which I omit a lot of details -- but the essentials are present.

Spiritual practice does not occur in a vacuum or in a state of obliviousness. Bliss is not oblivion. It's equipoise -- which means active, participatory ease or grace -- what Thomas Hanna termed, "the fair state". It entails both momentary deep intuitions of the formless self-nature ("original mind"), emotional peace, and progressive deepening and integration into life.

Somatic education awakens human faculties so that we come more awake as we are, develop our faculties, and see more vividly the ways in which we are "stuck" in unconscious memory-and-action patterns that befoul attentive consciousness and prevent the awakening to increasingly free being and transcendental intuition.

In practice, clearing up each habituated action-pattern frees and integrates creative energy (attention and intention), so that we have more of ourselves available to put into action. That means we get more effect from the same amount of felt-effort as before. We also feel that effect more keenly and also feel "what's left to do" more keenly. We become more "how we are" and get more sensitive to ourselves and to others, more keenly discerning. As a result, we experience a progressive revelation of our habituated state, to ourselves, leading to "the next thing to clear up", and that progression happens faster and more intensely than before. The term, "the Fire of Practice" attains meaning.

Somatic education activates the great Truth Teller -- our actual feelings, apart from idealistic mental notions or deluding spiritual enthusiasm. "The Body Doesn't Lie." It decreases the likelihood of "spiritual bypassing" -- in which we assert idealisms rather than working with our actualities.

By the same token, Hanna somatic education has a limitation -- its greatest strength is sensory-motor integration, with the secondary emotional and mental benefits described earlier -- however, at some point, the somatic limitations seated at the sensory-motor level have essentially been dealt with, and habituated limitations remain in the subtler "bodies" -- emotional, mental and intuitive. These remaining limitations must be dealt with at those levels on their own terms, even though they may show up as problems in the physical body.

At that point, one must engage processes that apply the principles of somatic education in techniques analogous to those of somatic education, but that apply to those higher bodies.

In summary, the effects of somatic education on spiritual practice are:

relieving impediments left behind by trauma
organizing attention and intention to a higher level of integration
increased effectiveness of intention and action
increased sensitivity to the effects of intentions and actions
progressive revelation of somatic habituations, leading to
progressive integration and transcendence of habituated adaptations

The Big Pandiculation is exactly that process of conscious incarnation and transcendence, awakening experiential awareness and control, and coming out of the habituated state of identity that characterizes the unawakened individual so that (s)he can be her or his free and responsible, unique self.

PRACTICAL ACTION, click here.

Here's a link to an internet interview on clinical somatic education, as found on Happiness After Midlife (http://happiness-after-midlife.com).

MORE:
SOMATIC EDUCATION EXERCISES
ARTICLE ABOUT CLINICAL SOMATIC EDUCATION
ARTICLE ABOUT CLINICAL APPLICATION OF SOMATIC EXERCISES
"The Immortal Harold Somaman -- What Keeps Him Going?"

The Immortal Harold Somaman -- What Keeps Him Going?

2011-05-15T18:14:00.000-07:00

            He began in his own time an ordinary boy, a bit precocious, a bit intellectual, but of average disposition. Unselfconscious.

            It just shows, one never can tell.

            How would one guess that Harold Somaman might evolve to the point that he could, by means of conscious movements mistaken for exotic patterns of stretching, influence the unseen quantum flux network that held the pattern of his body, and by doing so, maintain his physical body at a kind of dynamic equilibrium. Said another way, Harold Somaman had arrested his aging process through a kind of psychokinesis.

            At least that’s how the public understood it.

            People saw in him a strange case of mind over body, like firewalkers or the Shaolin monks whose mastery of Kung Fu and of breaking bricks and sticks is legendary, or as an Olympian of longevity. They saw him as the exception – one of the few chosen who could “do it.” He was regarded as a genetic anomaly, an oddity.

            That, of course, was not his opinion, and he regarded people who held such views as of a “tabloid mentality,” their explanation for his longevity, hilarious. He sometimes jokingly referred to himself as a mutant, but as far as he was concerned, anyone could do what he had done, if they did what he did. It just might take them a while to realize it.

            Quantum flux network? Psychokinesis? Leave to these people to love ten-dollar words.

            Well, once he came to public attention in the local papers, the tabloid reporters and scientists followed. Both interviewed him. The tabloid reports had at least got it less wrong, writing about the mind-body connection, even if they had made it sound like something from outer space. The scientists immediately had wanted to explain it all in terms of hormones and genetics, and keep the mind out of it, thank you very much.

            They studied him.

            In the neuro-physics laboratory, they’d measured his neural conductance in different parts of his body, they’d had him CAT scanned, PET scanned, electromagnetically mapped, x-rayed and MRI’d, and taken his temperature over a forty-eight hour period. The verdict? He was healthy -- as healthy as a thirty year old. He was, at that time one hundred eighty three. He looked good, but his face looked a little older than thirty.

            At the medical lab, they had drawn blood and wanted urine, semen and stool samples. But he had another engagement. “I’m in a hurry,” he had said. “Here, take my shorts.”

            At the psych lab, they’d recorded his brain waves while they attempted to get him to get a match box to slide across the table. They tested him with ESP cards. He’d told them, “That’s not my thing,” but research grants being what they are, they insisted. They said, “We’ve heard you have psychokinetic abilities. We’d very much like to see.” “It’s a different kind of psychokinesis,” he said. They wouldn’t listen. After four hours of countless cups of coffee in a glass observation booth, during which time they became increasingly nervous, fidgety and bad-tempered, they finally gave up.

            Then he told them, his type of psychokinesis came from a higher integration of mind and body, and that it basically affected his biological processes, his mental functioning, and the results of his actions. That didn’t mean he could slide a matchbox across a table or cause apples to bounce, spoons to bend or watches to stop and start. He couldn’t influence slot machines or cause red traffic lights to turn green -- well, not usually. It meant that, by means of a combination of intention and actions of a specific type, he could energetically enhance his body’s functional blueprint at the level of physiology – his nervous system, his muscular system, his sensory awareness, his circulatory system – he could get them all to function more efficiently. He also explained that, because he was functioning more efficiently, he exhibited a higher than average creative capacity. This intrigued them. Finally, he said, it made him smarter. They looked at him dubiously.

            So, then, they start asking questions about what he means by “mind-body connection” and he says, “Can we talk?” and they say, “Yes, of course,” thinking he’s about to give them some answers at last.   And, he says, “That’s it.” And they say, “That’s it? What?” “The mind-body connection,” he says. “What is?” they ask. “Talking,” he says. This stops them. He says, “You guys always make everything so complicated.” He looks at them looking at him and starts to laugh and laugh. He spends the rest of the afternoon explaining the mind-body connection using terms he’d read in a tabloid article about him. Soon, they’re nodding, yes, yes.

            Now, in the biomechanics lab, they weigh him, test his strength and endurance, and measure his bone density and body fat composition. He puts up with it all patiently.

            In the biomechanics lab, they’re going to do some before-and-after studies. Somaman is going to demonstrate some of the mind-body movement processes that he says are his means of arresting the aging process. He’s going to demonstrate them while under measurement. They’re going to get video of the whole thing.

            This time, the physics boys are in on the game. They bring devices for magnetic flux measurements, temperature measurement at a distance, a mass densitometer, infrared and ultraviolet cameras, and a scale to measure his weight in case he starts to levitate -- very sophisticated. These guys have seen Ghostbusters and they know what they’re doing.

            So, Somaman starts, a slow, twisting standing movement, first one way and then the other. Then, he starts twisting his arms as he turns. His arms and shoulders roll forward and backward along his sides in a twisting movement. Then, he starts to turn his head along with his torso, as if looking over each of his shoulders. Then, he starts to turn his eyes in the direction of his twist. So, he’s doing this kind of dramatic super-twisting movement side to side, and now he starts moving his lower jaw side to side with each turn, opposite to the direction of his eyes. He stops and holds his position in an extreme turn and switches his eyes and jaw from side to side. Now, he’s starting to look really crazy. Then, his spine straightens, a bit, and he seems to get taller. The scientists stiffen in their chairs and their eyes widen.

            Meanwhile, the guys at the EMG readout are going crazy with the data that are coming in about the pattern of his muscle firings.

            Somaman starts to breath loudly. An exhalation, and silence, then an inhalation, and again, silence. Again and again, six times, and then a long silence.

            One of the guys catches a look at the expression on Somaman’s face and says in a low voice, “My God! Do you see that?!”

            Suddenly, a light seems to flare around Somaman, or rather, his features seem to be etched in sharp relief and suffused by a radiating hard light of no particular color, other than the color of Harold Somaman himself, only brighter. Even the air around him seems to shine.

            He begins to untwist and face forward, again, in slow motion, and as he does, he begins to straighten, to get even more erect. He ends with arms outstretched wide, palms forward, legs together. He looks like a caduceus, the winged medical emblem. Light still shines from around him, but it is fading with a kind of fizzing quality that leaves him illuminated only by the laboratory lighting.

            Without a word, he starts again, this time in the opposite direction.

            When the light has faded a second time, he smiles softly and says, “How was that?”

           “’What was that?’ is more like it,” says one of lab techs, quietly.

            One of the computers beeps.

            A couple of the others in the room, dressed in white coats, close their mouths and resume looking at their computer screens and start tapping some keys.

           “Look at this,” says the EEG tech. “All four patterns at once.”

           “Look at that symmetry,” says someone else.

           “It spikes and then it all goes to near zero,” says a third.

           “Where is it, now?”

           They look up to see him looking at them with a bemused expression on his face. "Looking at the instant replay?" he asks.

           They look back to the monitor.

           “Delta and alpha. Look at the amplitude. ”

           “Hmm.”

           “What happened with the EMG data?” someone asks.

           “We’re converting it for visual display. Over there.”

           Now, Somaman is getting interested, so he asks, “May I see?”

           “You’ll have to stand until we get that sensor-suit off.”

           “That’s ok.” He comes over.

           An image comes up on the monitor, not this time Harold Somaman, but a kind of transparent figure in three dimensions. As it starts to move, it moves like Harold Somaman. Bands of light start moving through it in synch with the movements, connecting his torso and limbs. They extend and retract themselves from the center of his belly to his fingertips and feet, which glow brightly, getting brighter and dimmer with movement. At the moment of his greatest turn, they shine brightest, connecting his feet, through his calves and thighs, to his pelvis, up through the chest, with a kind of spiral shape lit up in the shoulders and arms and a twist through the spine, neck and head. Some are brighter than others, and they’re all lit up when the breathing movement starts.

           The breathing movement looks like a pumping action in which the figure’s whole torso expands and contracts, with a light brightening and dimming at the bottom of the pelvic region. As it continues, the figure straightens a bit and seems to shift its balance just a little, and then the pumping breathing stops, and a small streak of light passes from the mouth down to the center of the torso. The light at the bottom of the torso is very bright, then suddenly dims as a light at the center of the torso brightens.   Suddenly, all the lit areas come to equal intensity.

           “That’s just the EMG,” someone says.

           “What do you mean?” someone asks.

           “Look at the playback of the magnetic densitometer readings.”

           The magnetic densitometer is a measurer of magnetic field strength and field size. It’s an indicator of changes of electrical activity in his nervous system and the magnetic field around his body.

           “Put it up, split screen.”

           The monitor display divides in two, showing another figure at the side of the first.

           “Start it over.”

           Playback begins, and this time, when the figure lit up at left, a sudden flare expands to surround the figure at right, looking like a slightly irregular plum shape made of shimmering lines of light with a core of light at the center of the figure.

           The figure at left is holding very still in a twisted position. As it starts to untwist and face forward, the plum shape surrounding the figure at right flares even larger and brighter and then, as it brightens more, the figure inside it disappears inside the brightness. The irregularities in the plum of light start to fill up and even out.

           At last, when the figure at left faces forward, the light pervading the figure at right fades at the edges and subsides to a glow. The figure stands very still in the pose of the caduceus. Playback ends.

           “Pretty fancy,” says Harold Somaman.

           Nobody says anything.

           “Well, got your data?” he asks. “May I go?”

           “Wait a minute.” One of the techs taps some keys. “Let me check. OK, everybody?”

           Voices respond one by one in the affirmative.

           Somaman peels off the sensor suit and drapes it over a chair, then heads out the door.

           “Where’re you going?” someone calls out.

He turns and smiles over his shoulder, “I’ve got a date. See ya later, boys.” He winks and walks out, leaving the door slowly sighing closed behind him.

Somatic Ethics

2011-05-09T17:48:00.000-07:00

There is a way about somatic education that can be seen as a kind of ethic or approach to life. By that same token, there is a way of seeing how the way someone participates in somatic education is the way they participate in life.

For one thing, we're dealing with matters of relationship, where relationship isn't a static thing like an abstract concept, but a dynamic of play -- how we do things.

For our first example, let's take the case of how a somatic educator may conduct a session of somatic education with someone. In general, our way is to observe and understand, from within, the predicament of our client. We may look at him or her standing full length, and by observing the stance of that person, replicate its feeling in ourselves. There's a feel to what we see. We kind of get inside you like a hand in a glove and, aided by our theoretical understanding of the behavior of the three major reflexes of stress and our recognition of interconnected movement patterns, we discern what's going on in you. Of course, we cross-verify those findings with your history of injuries, palpation (manual assessment) and your current sensations.

So, here's the first ethic: We get information from both inside and outside, in feeling and in understanding.

Having done that, we choose and guide you into the easiest, most accessible, and generally, most direct route into what you're already doing habitually. We have you make it more. To do so, you must first recognize it as something you can do -- and then do it. So, we guide you, we direct you, into replicating elements of the action you are habitually doing (differentiation) then guide you into assembling all those elements into an integrated pattern -- the more integrated and complete, the better. You go in; you come out. You learn the path into and the path out-of. We help you find it.

You see what I mean about relationship, yet? There's are patterns in us formed by the physical, emotional, mental and intuitive stresses of experience, patterns of remembered tension in our musculature and arrested-but-held impulses to action. We guide you to awaken to what each one is -- and generally, no sooner has that awakening occurred then you are already at least partially, if not largely, out of that pattern. It happens before you know it, actually (although we feel it). Then we have you move about so that you can feel what's changed. Then we do some more.

Into . . . . . out of

The Rule of Thumb, here, is "Whatever they are doing 'wrong', have them do it MORE, and then less -- alternately. Imagine the liberation. "Destination -- Jello" -- but Jello with an attitude!

Now, I suppose there are various ways of going into and out of -- some of which look like going around the problem. So there are degrees of relationship -- degrees of directness -- degrees of relevance -- degrees of comprehensiveness. See?

Now, consider that language: relationship, directness, relevance, comprehensiveness. Those four terms are sufficient to define an ethic.

Relationship | Directness | Relevance | Comprehensiveness

Here's where some variation can creep in. An additional "point on a continuum" is "more and less", "consistent and inconsistent".

"More or less" may be more or less force, more or less speed, more or less intensity, more or less subtlety.

"Consistent and inconsistent" are terms having to do with times and occurrences and also with changes of rules.

Do we change the rules in the middle of the game or do we change the rules between games?

In the case of somatic education, since we are showing a person how to go into and come out-of, some consistency is "desirable". We want to make enough of an imprint in a person's memory that they can find it at will, and then they have also found the way out. In general, "The way it goes in is the way it comes out - and "The way it comes out is the way it goes in."

That's a high-speed strategy because it makes the greatest imprint with the least effort. Another ethic: A case of "get more result with even less effort". Targeted, rhythmic repetition helps a bit.

That kind of high-speed strategy makes even lesser efforts cumulatively effective.

But of course, the point is to get the result -- not to reduce effort.
Another ethic: The way to conserve effort is to get the result very efficiently -- at least as efficiently, and perhaps even more subtly than by less focussed, less specific, less intent, less attentive efforts.

Those are just of few of the ethics we may see in the process of somatic education.

I have observed other variations on ethics among clients.

COMMON ETHICS

There are some interesting ones. I gave them names.

The Cooperative Helper
The Wooden Man
Half-Hearted Participation
The Really Hard Worker
It's Over Before It's Really Over
"Doesn't Know When to Quit"
All-or-Nothing
Criss Cross

Cooperative Helpers go right along with you but never really relax at the core: they've learned to be in control in your groove -- they-re very cooperative -- but if they get into anticipating too much, they get jumpy and never relax.

The Wooden Man appears, to others, to change slowly, if at all, but he reports how much change he is feeling. This is a really sensitive individual.

Half-Hearted Participants don't really put much into it. They don't "ramp up" enough really to engage. You've got to ask them. Repeatedly.

The Really Hard Worker on the other hand, never quits! (S)he springs into action, sometimes ahead of you so it's a little like reigning in a horse. Thoroughbred. Jumpy. A bit high strung. Tends to hurt him or herself by excessive effort or by never taking rest. We repeatedly have to remind him or her to use less effort and to go more slowly. Be more leisurely.

It's Over Before It's Really Over is the person who, somewhere near the middle or three quarters through a movement, suddenly gives way and quits. Understand, this is a movement for which the person set the effort-force level to begin with -- and (s)he gives way, feeling overpowered by someone who matched her example at the beginning! Misconstruing that she is resisting being overpowered by them, rather than they that are respectfully resisting her, she feels overpowered. Pacing, follow-through -- and recognition of responsibility -- are the teaching, here.

Doesn't Know When to Quit never takes a vacation. This is a person who is a bit slow to enter the relaxation from a "movement into tension" and a bit slow to relax faster. Even after a move to complete relaxation, this person also springs into action at a moment's notice -- even when you want him to relax and have said so. It's a learning thing. We take such a person down in stages, having him/her use progressively less effort with each repetition. We sneak up on the relaxation state. (Shhhhhhhhh.)

All or Nothing -- such a person in a high-powered sports car would be dangerous. (S)he knows only "all on" and "all off". It's "pedal to the metal" or "hit the brakes!" Fitful. Sudden. Not much gradation of control. Can you imagine? Workaholics. Such people may look forceful, but tend to cave in a bit more suddenly than you might expect. They just need practice floating in the mid-range of things -- the so-called "Middle Way" -- which is not mediocrity or "centered balance", but variable, floating self-regulation with capacity for the extremes.

and Chris Cross -- this is a very interesting person. Confuses right and left. Ask him to lift his left arm and he lifts his right, for a moment. Sometimes a long moment. You ask him to look right, he looks left, for a moment, then looks right. Catches himself. Feels dumb. This typically happens with new, non-habitual movements. Here's the news: four (4) out of five (5) people do this a few times during a session. It's very confusing for the person when I bring it to his attention -- and it is for that eventuality that the sayings, "the other right" and "the other left" were framed. This is a person who means to do one thing and does the opposite. Which can be handy -- if we're engaged in learning the way in and the way out. But also amusing.

Anyhow, you can see that these types together define a kind of ethic and more types could be added to make a more complex ethic.

But let's look again at what we have, here.

The Cooperative Helper MEETS Chris Cross
Half-Hearted Participants MEET Wooden Men
All-or-Nothing : It's Over Before It's Really Over
The Really Hard Worker : "Doesn't Know When to Quit"

Looks like we've defined some ethics, here, doesn' it?

Here's the last somersault: We contrast/relate the sets of ethics:

The Cooperative Helper MEETS Chris Cross | Directness OF Relationship
All-or-Nothing : It's Over Before It's Really Over | Comprehensive Relevance
The Really Hard Worker : "Doesn't Know When to Quit" | Getting More with Less
Half-Hearted Participants MEET Wooden Men | Focus with Consistency

http://somatics.com/somusic/Angels_in_Winter.MP3

We get information from both inside and outside,

in feeling and in understanding.

It goes "Inside-out" and comes "Outside-In".

Somatics has an inside.

Fun, huh?

The Integration of Unevolved and Evolved Views of the Body

2011-05-04T10:37:00.000-07:00

If people consider the matter of the body at all, we regard it in two ways: an unevolved view and an evolved view.

THE UNEVOLVED VIEW
The unevolved view of the body is as "vehicle of the self". So viewed, we are "within" the body, which exists to carry us around and bring us toward desirable experiences and away from undesirable ones.

This view of the body concerns us with conformity, the "hard body", political correctness, pain, pleasure, and mortality. It is the point of view of cosmetics, Western medicine, glamour magazines; hard drugs, tobacco and alcohol; corporate culture, social status, consumerism, dance competitions, "youth culture", and violent entertainment (including many video games, crime shows, and much "reality TV"). It is the unevolved view.

What makes the unevolved view, "unevolved", is that it regards the body as "object" -- "my body" -- something to be possessed, controlled and lost in death. This view considers mind and body separate, "I" being "my" mind (which, oddly, linguistically also considers the mind to be a possession, but one which we cannot reliably control, and which we hope continues after death).

The unevolved view of the body is unevolved because, while the faculties of external perception (awareness of the world and social relations) are more-or-less developed, the faculty for internal awareness is more-or-less undeveloped. The unevolved body-mind (soma) reacts to situations automatically and without all that much self-awareness.

THE EVOLVED VIEW
The evolved view of the body is as the tangible expression or manifestation of self. So viewed, we recognize the sense of self (physical, emotional, mental, and feeling-intuitive) as a bodily sensation, not "within" the body, but as sensations of the body. So viewed, we move toward desirable experiences and shy away from undesirable ones, as before, but with our inner life of self as observable as the outer world (psychological "shadow" aspects and unawakened faculties being "compost" for further evolution).

This view of the body concerns us with relationship, with will, integrity, fulfillment of our intentions in actual results, with walking our talk, with how we organize our lives and with knowing our own mind.

What makes the evolved view, "evolved" is that it recognizes that the body is not a "thing" -- or "object" that proceeds into the world as a "non-negotiable" self, but a living experience, the very location of self that changes moment-to-moment. In that view, death is recognized, not merely as a mystery, but as a transformation continuous with life, even as life is a series of transformations into new (mysterious) events of life.

This view of the body allows for something that the unevolved view does not: deliberate self-development and self-evolution. The unevolved view of the body wants to meet life merely as it is ("non-negotiable") -- take me or leave me, "That's just the way I am." The evolved view of the body recognizes that we can deliberately change to meet life more artfully, more smoothly, more intelligently -- and finds that ability intriguing, finds life's challenges and opportunities, its teaching moments, illuminating "grist for the mill" of self-transformation (whether through will or through surrender -- and with or without angst).

A DEEPER LOOK INTO THE INNER WORKINGS OF THE EVOLVED VIEW
To take a deeper look into the evolved view of the body, we find it helpful to look at the basis of what gives the body its characteristics: memory. Once we have done that, we will be in a position to consider how the body contains and distributes memory and the self-sense holographically.

The unevolved view of the body sees memory as a function of the mind and of the brain (regarded as an object-possession, even though no one has a direct experience of their own brain).

The evolved view of the body sees memory as embodied as the whole body -- holographically, meaning distributed among the whole, not contained within a part, such as the brain. Lest you think that I am speaking merely theoretically, I will bring this statement down to Earth.

One quality characterizes all of life: self-initiated movement. Plants have it, insects have it, and animals have it. Movement is life.

Inanimate objects also have consistent behavior patterns, (e.g., the consistent behaviors of atomic elements and compounds seen in chemistry and physics), but they are not self-moving (in the sense of being able to change behavior in mid-act by self-volition). The memory of inanimate objects is simply their predictable behavior -- though, in this view, the memories of inanimate objects are relatively "uneventful" and contain no mental or emotional content. (Note that computer memory consists of patterns of electrical charge stored in silicon circuits -- inanimate.)

In this way of seeing things, the whole Universe may be regarded as a vast system of memory -- interrelated, interacting memories that are changing and evolving -- anchored as patterns of physical reality with internal experience.

For life-forms less complex than humans, most movement consists of instinctual behaviors; the more complex the life-form, the more instinctual behavior is complemented by learned behavior. In humans, learned behavior dominates, by far, instinctual behavior. In either case -- instinctual or learned -- behavior is movement.

Movement carries with it an inner side -- experience.

Experience leaves its imprint on, in, or as memory. Experience becomes memory -- and a memory is nothing more or other than a lasting imprint of sensations and movements. Remembering how to do something (long-term memory) is remembering how to move in certain ways (patterns) and what experiences attend that movement; short-term memory is a tracing of patterns on the waters of consciousness, patterns that quickly fade -- but still have duration, however short. Memory is nothing more or other than the persistence of patterns of behavior (movement) and experience.

Predictability decreases (and unpredictability increases) with complexity, so that the more complex life forms are, the less they behave by instinct and they move they behave as they have learned. Higher complexity includes all of the characteristics of lesser complexity, and something more: room for more memory and something else -- the capacity to look at memory, itself, and to operate upon ones own memory, to change it: deliberate learning and also . . . . . emergent behaviors.

Emergent behaviors are upwellings of change unpredictable on the basis of previous behaviors -- and the formation of memories unpredictable on the basis of previous memories . . . . . creativity and evolution. Each new integration of two or more "behaving entities" into a new whole (each formation of a new relationship between two or more participants) brings forth emergent behaviors unpredictable before the integration occurred. That's emergence. ("Emergencies" typically involve the formation of new relationships on short notice!)

Having covered the span of memory from the most primitive to the most emergent life-forms, we're now prepared to look at how the whole body-mind (soma) contains and distributes memory holographically.

HOLOGRAPHIC MEMORY
I must first dispense with the notion that memory is distributed equally throughout the brain. This is not so. In the brain, as in the rest of the body, different locations have different functions. However, the interrelation of the different locations -- their synergistic cooperation and interplay -- produce the full range of behavior and memory.

Take an easy-to-understand example: balance.

Movement at balance requires coordination; lack of coordination is awkwardness. Coordination involves closely-timed movements among the "parts" of the entire body; the entire body is involved. Balance is the feeling we get when those closely-timed and coordinated movements result in a minimum of effort to move as we intend; awkwardness always involves a sense of excessive effort because some parts have bad timing. Coordination is a space-time experience of economical, intended movement. The brain controls and senses, the rest of the body acts; they are a functional unity. Seen as the body, we look (viewed from outside) a certain way at any moment; we feel (from the inside) completely different from we look; though different, they are the same event perceived from different viewpoints.

The basic unit of memory in the body is DNA, which makes healing of injuries (restoration of the memory of the whole-body sense) possible, and which is the most highly predictable (chemical and physical) aspect of memory.

However, as a whole we are far more complex than our cells are, our behavior is far more complex, and our individual memories are far more complex than those of cells. Cellular memory, as it is described, is not the deepest or most profound form of memory; it is the shallowest and most superficial. The profundity lives in the larger complexities of which cells, tissues, and organs are simpler parts. Human behaviors are far more complex than the behaviors of individual cells.

The memory of behavior exists as patterns of shape and movement that exist among cells and tissues throughout the whole body. Patterns of connection exist among neurons of the brain and as patterns of coordination (and feelings) among all of the muscles of the body.

Every thought that passes through us shows up as patterns of tension in the musculature. Dreams (an internal experience) can be measured (externally) electrically as changes of muscle tone and electrical potential and observed as eye movements. Voices heard by schizophrenic patients have been observed to coincide with electrically-measured micro-movements of their own vocal apparatus. People move their lips when they first learn to read. Thought is the body, thinking; emotion is changing physiology. The inner experience has an outer expression.

Memory consists of habituation in whole-body patterns of muscular tension and physiology -- generally, states of readiness to take action in familiar situations. Tension (and other physiological states) are the external side of memories, of which sensations are the internal side.

Back to coordination and awkwardness: there exist better and worse -- more and less economical -- patterns of organization as a person. In general, better patterns of thinking go with better patterns of coordination. (It's possible to have specialized patterns of coordination that work well for special situations and still to be incompetent in other situations -- just as some people may be geniuses in certain way and doofuses, in others -- or even "clumsy geniuses" and "absent-minded professors") However, in general, the better coordinated we are, the better we think, and the more ways in which we are well-coordinated, the more versatile our thought processes can be.

Likewise, memories depend upon the body. People commonly accept that sudden shocks to the body cause amnesia, though people don't commonly understand how that is so; they commonly think it has something to do with a blow to the brain. While that is sometimes so, the larger answer is, physical shocks that happen faster than the brain can register them create a discontinuity of memory, a gap in "how I got there." It's not just "amnesia", but "sensory-motor amnesia". People in sensory-motor amnesia have forgotten how to get from their altered state back to their familiar sense of self, mentally and bodily.

As more and more coordination develops in different ways, the person becomes both more complex and better integrated. As (s)he becomes better integrated, (s)he has more command of his or her own faculties -- attention, intention, sensation/feeling and movement. With each new degree of integration, new emergent (unpredictable) faculties appear (creativity and evolution).

This assertion may seem novel and questionable to you, and so must be tested to be verified (or disproven) to your own satisfaction. I can say that my own experience of Rolfing and of somatic exercises (both of which develop higher integration, higher coordination and higher efficiency of function) is the origin of this assertion. (Ida Rolf said, "Rolfing is not concerned with the palliation of symptoms, per se, but with the development of more efficiently functioning human beings.") The clarity and depth of my own thinking is evident in the writing of this article.

Thus, both the unevolved and the evolved views of the body (and its primitive and more complex functions) have their place in the human -- and the evolution of human beings is a tangible process involving both the bodily (external/objective) aspect and our mental (internal/subjective) aspect -- in processes of "complexification" and integration.

MORE:
article: Is the Body 'Self' or 'Other'?
article: Psychotherapy and Integral Somatic Education
article: on somatic exercises
video: about somatics
resources: available somatic exercise programs

Patients, Patience, and Impatience

2011-04-22T11:21:00.000-07:00

Hello, again, Folks,

Today, I speak of a peculiar paradox of somatic education -- something expressed in a Tibetan saying I heard, recently: "When things are urgent, go slower."

People in pain have a certain urgency. No surprise.

In their urgency, they go for the "quick fix" -- the pain med, the quick adjustment, the quick stretch, the hour of bodywork. These quick fixes rarely produce either a complete or a lasting result.

The reason: they don't address the problem as it is, but only the surface appearance.

Somatic education is peculiar in this regard: the processes we use during clinical sessions are mostly slow-motion action patterns -- we go slower -- but the changes that result come very quickly.

The reason: the changes sought through somatic education (generally, pain relief) come by means of an internalized learning process that involves new physiological adaptation. Adaptation and learning require, inevitably, at least two things: attention and intention.

Attention and intention go together. To exercise an intention, we must direct our attention to what we are doing.

The thing about attention is that it is not instantaneous; it fades in. Test for yourself. Look away from the screen toward anything and notice that it takes a good part of a second even to focus on it. The same is true of music. Turn on the radio into the middle of a piece of music and notice that it takes some seconds to recognize even one with which you are familiar.

When taking in new information, going slower helps you "catch" it and take it in.

Then, and only then, you can apply your intention to it.

Most forms of therapy require little or no attention on the part of a patient; result: little or no exercise of intention and little or no lasting change!

So, as a somatic educator, I find that one of the most common bits of coaching I have to give with my clients (/patients, although I don't use the word) is to slow down. Doing things too fast, too hard, and with too little attention ("mindfulness") is a common American fault (and a popular editing technique of advertising and the entertainment media which perpetuates and reinforces this fault-- sequences of "split-second video clips"). Too many people are "A-D-D" ! ! ! That makes them accident-prone (and generally, sloppy and error prone). They must slow down -- not because it's easier (generally, it's not), not because they need a rest (which is generally true), but because they need to pay more attention and to exercise intention more carefully. They need to work smarter, not harder.

If people don't slow down, they end up doing things the way they habitually do them and, by repetition, reinforcing the very thing they are wanting to get out of -- the movement patterns and functional habits that cause their pain. They have to slow down enough to do the things they do in a new way.

When it comes to somatic exercises (a way people can relieve their own pain without direct coaching by a somatic educator), people must exercise patience. In this case, the patience they must exercise is two-fold: (1) they must slow down in what they're doing (somatic exercises) enough to feel clearly what they are doing and to do it in good form (not merely count repetitions) and (2) they must persist in a somatic exercise program long enough to obtain its designed-in effect (entailing, generally, some days or weeks of practice -- and some hours of experience). The result: substantial and durable improvement -- faster and more durable than by conventional therapeutic, "low-attention" methods.

If patients are impatient for relief, they must be patient so they can get it more quickly than has previously been possible.

Only once they have slowed down and made the necessary changes can they return to "the speed of life" and keep their new-found freedom and well-being -- or even go faster than before and still keep it together.

"A man of true means,
whatever the day's pace
keeps his wits about him
and however a fine offer be presented to him
keeps a level head.

What ruler of countless chariots
would make himself laughing stock,
fool of the realm,
with pace beyond rein,
speed beyond helm?"
-- Lao Tzu

SEE MORE ABOUT SOMATIC EXERCISES
An Entirely New Class of Therapeutic Exercises (article)
Software for Your Body (instructional programs)

Religious Faces of Superman

2011-04-16T18:04:00.000-07:00

There exists an archetype in contemporary culture with which many generations present can identify. Every generation alive today knows Superman.

Superman who, having emerged from the midwestern farming tradition came to represent a person of virtue, of kindness and of strength, of benificent values, of positive intent -- and who hides a secret. His identity -- and a vulnerability that few others share.

Remembering that Superman was adopted by his midwestern farmer parents, his last name was not originally, "Kent" -- but Kantrowitz. Superman (pronounced with "super" rhyming "soup-pear") was a nickname his Kryptonian parents bestowed upon him after a visit to Paris, one spring -- "little Soup-pear-man" -- because that was all he would eat. It was on the note in the space capsule in which he arrived: His name was Kal-El, but his nickname was Little Soup-pear-man. You can figure out the rest. And, of course, they Anglicized the name. As a boy, he was big for his age, but very nice, an intelligent boy.

Another clue: His original name-at-birth was Kal-El -- "El", in Hebrew, meaning "God". Taking a Kabbalistic approach, the Hebrew name, Kal-El, can be spelled in three consonants (four letters), read right to left, "K""L""e""L", , the eleventh letter of the alphabet (English or Hebrew), K, the thirteenth letter (Hebrew) or the twelveth (12-English), L, and the nineteenth letter, a silent carrier for a vowel, "ayin", where in English, the nineteenth letter is, S -- "S", get it? Coincidence? I think not. The symbolic meaning of the numerical equivalents of "K""L""e""L" = "11""13""19""13" (or "11""12""19""12") is "Great Potentiality" and "Great Faith".

But what if Superman were Buddhist? What would he do differently? Since he strives to minimize harm to anyone and uses his powers beneficently, for the sake of all sentient beings, what would he do differently? Perform service even while in his dreams? What do you think he dreams about? Lois Lane? Lana Lang? Lex Luthor? Batman? -- feminine archetypes and masculine archetypes? Do you think he behaves differently in his dreams than he does in the waking state? Or do you think that, as he sleeps, he rests in the Source of Light and Life, the Silent Bliss-Being beyond the human mind and body? (the super-man state). Do you think that he rests in deep Silence (of which the Fortress of Solitude is a Metaphor), "silence" and "solitude" -- which also start with "S" -- the silent nineteenth Hebrew letter.

What if Superman was Hindu? Then what? What would he do differently? Well, for one thing, he probably wouldn't eat beef or wear cows-leather shoes. Those boots? They're patent leather. Other than that? Would he play the flute and seduce virgin cowgirls into a mass-"big one"? Would he transform his appearance to show the various powers and viewpoints and wonders of the Great Universe? And who knows what he does in the privacy of his own home with "company"? Would he declare, of himself, that "atman" (individual self-being) and "brahman" (silent, imageless, aware Groundless Ground of Being) are one? ("I and my Father are one"? -- again, getting a little ahead of ourselves). Would he appear as Krishna -- the avatar God-embodiment (emanation) of Godhead? flying around saving people from demons?

What if Superman was Moslem? Would he pray five times a day, facing Mecca? abjure alcoholic beverages? Not eat pork? He would eat beef -- but those boots? Still patent leather. Imagine if he were a fantasy/religion-crazed Muslim extremist who was sent on a suicide mission, but suddenly realized that he couldn't blow himself up and that there would be no "72 virgins" for Superman, so he gave it up. Could Superman "do" 72 virgins simultaneously? Maybe he could. Probably he could. That would be like Krishna.

If Superman were Tibetan Buddhist, he would live consciously emanating from the Clear Light as his embodied existence, radiating the force of benificence while fearlessly and peacefully present, attentive, intelligently responsive, compassionate, protective, empowering, and emanating silent wisdom and virtue not merely unto, but into, as and through all, serving all sentient beings. For him, kryptonite is the reminder of the mortal and transitory nature of things, even transitory even in his origins -- being sent into the unknown, "out there", and arriving at Earth -- ever-vulnerable -- even as he is eternally unchanging (primitively reduced to, "invulnerable") and super-regenerating and so in that sense invulnerable to much else by virtue of his exquisite embodiment in his transient body (Nirmanakaya) of the subtle self-organizing field of his subtle mind (Sambhogakaya), in steady intuition of his transcendent nature (Dharmakaya), the formless ground of being that persists even in the absence of activity or self-sense -- and so self-emergent, self-regenerating, self-equilibrizing with super-speed, e.g., invulnerable. Vulnerable and invulnerable. See? You didn't know that about Superman. Why would he talk about it? What's he going to say to everyone? "I'm vulnerable -- just as you are -- but I heal quickly"? Would he go around saying that? Why? On the other hand, who knows what he says, at home -- and he is emotionally vulnerable, same as any man.

If Zen Buddhhist, same as Tibetan Buddhism, but without the kryptonite.

In this respect, he is very similar to another personage -- Harold Somaman. Somaman is different from Superman, in that his special powers have manifested differently -- energy field transformations, sensitivity to probability pressure waves (leading to precognition and synchronicities), special ways of dealing with attention and intention. certain ways of biological self-regeneration and psychological transformation, occasions of remarkable telekinesis, things mysteriously disappearing from his life -- odd things like that.

If Superman were a Christian, would he address Jesus as "Father"? -- and how would that make Jor-El, his father, feel? But wait! What if Jor-El was a name for Jesus' father in Heaven? who sent his only-begotten son to save humankind? Kabbalistically speaking, the names Jor-El and Joseph have significance. Alphanumerically, either of those names is impossible to analyze -- there's no "j" sound in Aramaic, so their names would have had to have been "Yosef" and "Yor-El". Then, Kabbalistically, that would get interesting. Taking a Kabbalistic approach, again, "Yorel": YORL: four letters: "10" "6" "25" "13" (with a symbolic meaning of "Divine Conception"): and "Yosef": YOSF: four letters, "10" "6" "18" "20 (changeable with "P")" (symbolizing "the leap into newness, bringing memories of the past, along"). Confused? I am -- but back to Superman. With the benefit of time-travel, he would reach Earth when he was truly needed -- second time around. He would still save people, but still not be able to be everywhere at once, except in spirit. I don't think he would raise the dead; I think that was just a demonstration to make a point. Other than that, how would his character change? Maybe he'd be more loving? But then, we don't know how he is, at home, and his benificient actions certainly be seen as coming from a loving spirit -- wouldn't you say? But he wouldn't eat meat on Fridays, only fish. Or would he?

But remember -- his name is Superman -- 'ahaward" (Howard) Supermann, superhero and goodness-doer extraordinaire -- who loved his mother and who lived up to his father's dreams.

A-mayn.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For more on Superman and other topics from The Other Side of the Looking Glass, click here here.

Palpation -- One of a Somatic Educator's Essential Techniques

2011-04-13T08:13:00.000-07:00

Thomas Hanna said that palpation -- gathering information by touch -- is a lost art among medical professionals, and that we, his students, would become masters of it.

In the process of Hanna somatic education, palpation isn't just done at the initial functional assessment of a client's condition, nor is it only an information-gathering action. It's properly done at every stage of a clinical session of Hanna somatic education to evaluate the results of each pandiculation, and it provides information not only to the practitioner, but also to the client about his or her current condition. How else are we to know whether we are finished with a region and its movements?

In a previous writing, "Precision Positioning for Miraculous Results", I speak of this last point in some detail.

For now, I want to communicate some things about the art of palpation, itself.

PALPATION IS A FOUR-DIMENSIONAL ACT
Now, before you go bounding off screaming, "another New Age twinko!!!", I want to clarify. The fourth dimension, time, is not a Twilight Zone alternate reality or a mysterious abstraction (as implied by the term, "time-travel"). It's motion, itself, in the most ordinary sense.

We measure time by means of devices that move or display regular changes (watches and clocks) and we experience time the same way. The term, "second", refers to the period of time between two heartbeats, the second heartbeat defining the end of a second. It's an approximate term, the way the length of a foot is about one foot and the length of the first segment of the thumb is about one inch and one swallow is about once ounce. Time is motion.

In palpation, many people touch surfaces with their fingertips and think they are palpating. When such a technique provides little useful information, they abandon palpation as an investigatory act. It's not a shortcoming of palpation; it's a shortcoming of their technique and their understanding.

To do a decent palpation that actually provides useful information, you've got to feel, not for a surface, but for a volume -- three (3) dimensions. And you don't go rushing in, do a couple of quick presses, and move out. What you do is soften your hands, reach in, and feel for the first resistance for reaching more deeply; you feel for where soft space becomes firm contact. You go in slowly -- both out of respect for your client and for rich information. Then, you wrap your hands around what you feel to discern its shape. If you're squeamish, palpate in yourself until you learn the lay of the land and what it might feel like to your clients.

If you want to get more out of palpation, trace muscles from origin to insertion; that gives you something on which to anchor your attention and gives your client new sensory information that tells them in which direction, along what lines, to contract in pandiculation.

Once your client has done the pandiculation, or after you have done Kinetic Mirroring, you use palpation and movement to evaluate the completeness of the result. If some sensory-motor amnesia -- and muscular contraction -- remains, you either repeat the process or have your client adjust positions to reach what's left. Palpate -- Pandiculate -- Palpate. Continue until the involuntary tendency to contract is gone or it ceases to decrease, then move on.

Understanding the Sacro-Iliac Joints, Relieving S-I Joint Pain

2011-04-12T10:08:00.000-07:00

In investigating the conditions that can beset the sacro-iliac (henceforth, S-I) joints, I have arrived at a number of findings that make sense of the condition and point precisely to what we must do to relieve SI joint pain.

We will consider both one-sided and bi-lateral S-I joint pain.

SYMPTOMS OF S-I JOINT SYNDROME

pain across the low back (both sides)
pain just below the waistline (one side)
pain deep in buttock(s)
deep pelvic/abdominal pain (ache, "lightning"-like pain), sometimes with nausea
numbness in front or side of thigh
sciatica (if accompanied by other symptoms)
groin pain
testicular pain

THE BASIC UNDERSTANDING

In brief, SI joint pain arises from excessive muscular compression (tension) and twisting forces on the S-I joints originating both from below (legs) and from above (longitudinal muscles of the trunk) during walking. Those compression and twisting forces converge at the S-I joints, drawing the pelvic bones into a distorted arrangement that places strain on SI ligaments, causes pain, and triggers reflexive muscular contractions throughout the trunk and legs that themselves cause pain. This complex array of symptoms, we may call, S-I Joint Syndrome.

The SI ligaments are not the cause, but the victim of those forces.

To relieve SI joint pain, we

1) Return the resting tension levels of the involved muscles, which are habituated into a contracted, shortened state, back to complete rest/relaxation and complete resting length,
and

2) Cultivate/restore healthy, free, balanced patterns of movement and rest in those muscles

I will discuss how I do that, later.

Bi-lateral S-I joint pain simpler than one-sided SI joint pain. Bilateral S-I joint pain involves the compression and twisting forces named above (but not yet described). One-sided S-I joint pain combines compression and twisting forces with asymmetrical muscular pulls (pelvic rotation with elevation with one hip), caused by Trauma Reflex.

Everyone has experienced Trauma Reflex. Caused by pain, it’s a protective withdrawal response of the painful part away from the direction or cause of pain. Its other name is “cringing”.

Trauma Reflex (the cringing response triggered by injury) is almost always asymmetrical because any given injury generally occurs to one side.

Trauma Reflex is not a momentary muscular action like the stretch (myotatic) reflex, but one that lasts at least as long as the pain of injury persists -- and commonly much longer -- up to decades. When it lasts for decades, it's that the injury has left such an impression on the brain that it displaces the healthy, familiar body image so that it's as if the injury is always "happening right now" -- along with the reflexive pulling away (muscular tightening).

Asymmetrical muscle pulls (and asymmmetrical posture) place more stress on one S-I joint than the other.

Though one might be tempted to regard S-I joint pain as a ligamentous problem, it is not; it is a neuromuscular problem that produces ligamentous strain as a by-product. I am emphatic about this point and will explain, shortly.

THE STRUCTURE, FUNCTION, AND LOCATION OF THE S-I JOINTS

The sacrum is the meeting point of tensional and compressional forces meeting from above and below, as noted earlier. The sacro-iliac (or ilio-sacral) joints are the less mobile of the joints involving the sacrum (meeting of sacrum and ilia or "wings" of the pelvis); the other joint is the lumbo-sacral junction (meeting of sacrum and lowest lumbar vertebra, "L5").

In the healthy state, most of the sacral movement occurs at L5/S1; some movement occurs at the S-I joints. Said another way, because it is more tightly bound to the ilia than to L5, the sacrum is functionally "more part of the pelvis than it is part of the spinal column".

In the unhealthy state, the sacrum becomes (functionally) "somewhat more part of the spinal column and somewhat less part of the pelvis" and compression and twisting forces at the S-I joints strain the ligamentous connection.

Compression forces at L5/S1 come from muscles of the trunk in contraction, primarily the paraspinal and psoas muscles, and the quadratus lumborum. Additional compression forces from the trunk come from the muscles of the abdominal wall (obliques, rectus abdominus), involved in the asymmetrical pulls of Trauma Reflex.

Pulling forces at the S-I joints, themselves, come from muscles that run the span between the legs and the pelvis -- the psoas muscles, the hamstrings, hip joint flexors, buttocks, and femorii rectus (you like the Latin?) -- and combine with the movements of walking and the weight-forces of sitting to affect the S-I joints.

It is here that we pause to re-set our way of looking at what I am describing. To this point, I have described the situation in anatomical terms -- but anatomical terms are inadequate to understand what is going on with S-I joints; what is needed are functional terms -- terms that describe sensations and movement: somatic responses. The cringe response (Trauma Reflex) is an example of a somatic response.

In the remainder of this piece, I will use both anatomical and somatic perspectives -- anatomical terms so you can visually imagine what I am describing and somatic descriptions so you can imagine in yourself what that might feel like (assuming you have developed enough proprioceptive awareness to do that).

THE LIVING EXPERIENCE OF S-I JOINT PAIN

A number of life-conditions set the stage for S-I joint pain -- the most notable and common one being a sense of urgency. You know -- ordinary urgency, the feeling of pressure and the drive to haste (as the ads say, "Hurry!")

Urgency is made of two emotions or drives -- the drive to do something and fear.

Those two emotional states trigger two opposing neuromuscular reflexes of stress -- Landau Reaction and Startle Reflex. I'll describe them briefly.

In brief, Landau Reaction is an emotional, neuromuscular behavior of coming to a heightened state of alertness, of readiness for action, of hurry or of enthusiasm, and/or of driving yourself to do something you don't want to do; it tightens the paraspinal muscles, posterior shoulder muscles, buttocks, hamstrings, and calves in readiness for mobilization into action (movement). It takes those loosey-goosey vertebrae and wields them into a more rigid functional unit capable of supporting weight -- the "spine".

Startle Reflex is an emotional, neuromuscular behavior of shrinking away from experience, of making oneself small and immobile, and of curling into oneself -- in anxiety or fear.

When we become habitually triggered into Landau Reaction, as most of us are in this society, our back muscles tighten. Their pull compresses the lumbosacral junction (L5/S1) and stiffens us, there. Our sacrum becomes (functionally) somewhat more bound to the spinal column because it is being pulled into the lumbar spine. It's jammed. That describes things from above.

Now to describe things from below.

When the hamstrings tighten in Landau Reaction, they pull the legs back (into extension). Any movements of the legs forward, as in walking, then require additional muscular force from the hip joint flexors, psoas and femoris rectus muscles. Habituated Landau Reaction thus leads (by compensation) to habituated contraction of the hip joint flexors. This pattern of co-contraction makes the legs functionally "more part of the pelvis” -- binds and jams the legs into the pelvis, making them less independently free to move. The legs feel heavy and walking slows, dragging the ilia along with them in opposite, twisting directions.

When we tighten in Startle Reflex, the reflexive movement is into collapse and curling up. People rarely curl up completely, but the musculature tightens in that pattern and posture changes accordingly into a partial crouch.

That crouch pattern involves the abdominal muscles and the hip joint flexors, including the psoas muscles. The movement is into retraction (pulling in) of the legs in preparation for collapse and curling up. The hamstrings and hip joint flexors actually tighten in readiness to pull the legs in and collapse and curl up.

Now, how does that affect the S-I joints?

As the legs move in opposite directions when walking, walking induces a moving twisting motion into the pelvis right at -- you guessed it -- the S-I joints. When legs are jammed into the pelvis, this way, each step of walking forces the ilia (location of the hip joint/acetabulum) to move with the legs somewhat more than in the healthy state. (In the healthy state, the ilia move in a complex, round motion with each step, but rather less than when the leg-pelvis muscles are tight -- and within the tolerance of the S-I joints.)

Having fun, yet?

Now, what happens to the ligaments of the S-I joints with this kind of excessive motion? They get strained.

And what happens to tissue that is chronically under strain? It gets inflamed. Inflammation is nature's way of forcing fluids and nutrients into tissue that is strained (or injured) so it can heal.

THE VIEW FROM ABOVE

But wait! There's more!

We just described the effect of "tension from below" (the legs). What about "tension from above" (the trunk)?

When tight trunk muscles bind the sacrum more tightly to the lumbar spine, the ordinary, round pelvic movements of walking are no longer as free of the lumbar spine. The lumbo-sacral junction is "stiffer"; the round movements of walking must be re-distributed: less at the lumbo-sacral junction (L5/S1) and more at the S-I joints.

So, the S-I joints get strained by movements both from below and from above. They get it from both ends.

Gawrsh!!

How'd you like to be in the middle, mediating between two uptight parties intent upon taking action that affects YOU??

Now, the psoas muscles have a special part to play, here. They cross the span between "below" and "above", connecting "below" with "above" (from the lesser trochanters of the legs, through the abdominal cavity, to the spinal column as high as the tendons (crura) of the diaphragm). When they're tight, they "seal the deal" -- jamming both what's below and what's above into the sacrum.

So, with each step of walking, the S-I joints take the brunt of movement.

Fun, huh?

That's sufficient to account for bi-lateral S-I joint pain.

But wait! There's more!

ONE-SIDED S-I JOINT PAIN

Back to Trauma Reflex.

It's true that injuries usually occur to one side, isn't it?

What happens with any injury, as we've noted, is Trauma Reflex -- a tightening centered at the injured region and including all of the tensions involved in changing our movements to protect the injury.

An injury to one side triggers asymmetrical tightening that commonly shows up as a side-tilt ("C-curve" scoliosis) and a rotation (postural twist) -- typically with one hip up and the same-side shoulder down and back. With the side tilt and twist, weight distribution goes off-center and the musculature must compensate (for balance -- the essential meaning of the term "compensations"). In the trunk, the muscles above induce compression forces more into one S-I joint than the other. Below, the hip joint muscles contract asymmetrically, left-to-right and in different ways on the two sides. (In the healthy state, those muscles do not contract in a "unitary", all-or-nothing manner, but selectively, according to the position-in-movement of the legs.) In the unhealthy state, they stay contracted at all times in the asymmetrical pattern of injury-and-compensation, even in movement, and introduce drag, compression and strain into the situation.

And guess what that does to the sacrum.

If you can't guess, I'll tell you: it induces a twist -- and rather forcefully and for a long time.

S-I joint strain, anyone?

CLARIFYING COMMON DESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGE

Now, I want to take a moment to address the term used to describe deviations of the sacrum from its healthy, centered equilibrium: "up-slip".

There ain't no "slip" to the up-slip. The sacrum doesn't exist in an empty space like a laboratory skeleton and just kind of "slip" up -- and the S-I joint isn't slippery. The sacrum exists in a tensional/compressional equilibrium, and rather securely so, the meeting place of forces that change moment to moment and that affect its position. It doesn't “slip”; it is rather forcefully pulled, compressed and twisted -- and for a long time – it is drawn and "floats” into an altered position over time, in the midst of those tensional and compressional forces. It’s partially dislocated. Just some perspective.

OK. Now we have not only a compressed S-I joint (from above and below) but also a torqued/twisted sacrum felt as pain below the waistline -- maybe more on one side, maybe all the way across. Can you feel it?

What do we do, now?

ACTIONABLE UNDERSTANDING

Well, for one thing, we see that ongoing forces are inducing S-I joint strain and that those forces are coming from habituated neuromuscular reflexes -- meaning coming from and governed by the nervous system.

We also see that the strain on ligaments is not the fault of the ligaments, but of the nervous system.

That means that we can't correct the problem in any lasting way by addressing the ligaments (and to stretch or loosen the ligaments may reduce their strain, but it also de-stabilizes the joints they hold secure). It also means that we can't massage away the problem (have you noticed?). It means that we have to free the person from the grip of Landau Reaction, Startle Reflex, and Trauma Reflex and establish free, balanced, and well-coordinated movement that gives back to the sacrum, S-I joints, and lumbo-sacral junction (L5/S1) their healthy, centered equilibrium-in-movement.

Have I said it?

But here's the question: how??

I knew you'd ask.

THE PANDICULAR RESPONSE -- THE "WHOLE-BODY YAWN"

There exists a neuromuscular response, an action pattern, ideally suited for retraining postural reflexes and movement -- the pandicular response. Applied methodically to contraction patterns via controlled and regulated movement patterns, the pandicular response frees a person from involuntary muscular tensions, such as those that cause S-I joint pain.

The pandicular response works more in the spirit of a yawn than in the spirit of stretching. Like the Trauma Reflex, everyone has experienced the pandicular response. It’s the “morning stretch” – not the athletic stretch, by the way – but the sensuous strong contraction of muscles followed by an easy release. This action sends a cascade of sensory-nerves signals to the cerebral cortex of the brain (sensory and sensory-association areas) sufficient to forge or reforge the link of the sensory and motor areas of the brain – to awaken or improve voluntary control of muscles and movement – to shift control of muscles and movement from involuntary, habit-driven levels of the brain to the voluntary level. Muscles come free of contraction and so relax and lengthen.

The pandicular response is the action of awakening and refreshment of movement the way the Trauma Reflex is the action of withdrawing and protecting from pain or injury. It’s an action found among all creatures with a spinal column, including birds, horses, dogs and cats. It’s genetically inherent.

Everyone has experienced the pandicular response. What’s needed is to do it in movement patterns that involve the muscles of the trunk and legs that cause S-I joint syndrome.

For example, the action of the back muscles is to induce lumbar curve. To engage the pandicular response with these muscles, one may lie prone (belly down) and lift one leg (straight knee), then slowly lower it. The action engages the spinal extensors, gluteus maximus and hamstrings. Gravity creates the feeling of weight that causes a cascade of sensory-nerve impulses to the sensory neural network of the brain and allows us to feel the movement of lifting more vividly. The slow lowering takes allows more time, and therefore, more learning of the action of relaxation and lengthening of those muscles. Lasting changes occur rather quickly, rather than slowly.

In practice, we use a more fully elaborated movement pattern that engages more of the movement system at a higher level of integration (for faster, more complete changes). For S-I joint pain, we use an array of movements that addresses all of the muscles and movements involved in S-I joint syndrome.

Those movements instill healthy patterns of movement that cause the bones of the pelvis to float into a new, healthier position and that allow the S-I joints to heal.

Because of tissue changes and inflammation, healing from S-I joint pain, once the neuromuscular changes have been made, may take weeks. Aided and supported by somatic exercises, they do occur.

Because the movement patterns involved are complex, they don’t especially lend themselves to word-descriptions; it’s easier to show them than to describe them. I have posted examples of such movements on YouTube for public use.

low back muscles
hamstrings
simplified psoas maneuver

To get the full regimen for self-relief, please click here and send the resulting email message (blank). ("Regimen" means "list of recommended actions" -- not "body of instruction".) Email with the regimen will return to your email address, automatically.

RESOURCES:
SOMATIC EXERCISE PRE-RECORDED PROGRAMS
Consult with Lawrence Gold for an exact program to relieve S-I ioint pain.

The Somatic Codes

2011-04-10T16:57:00.000-07:00

There is a special meaning for that term -- The Somatic Codes.

It's more akin to Morse Code than it is to the Codes of Hammurabi. However there is virtue to it that would potentize the Codes of Hammurabi, if they were integrated together.

The Somatic Codes are rhythmic numerical sequences that beat a resonance through oneself -- using specific movement elements to create specific rhythmic and timed sensations.

This resonance of deliberately created self-sensations links or integrates memory, imagination, and sensation into an integrated, resonant, mobile faculty of intelligence.

(And what would that do for your golf game -- or your video games.)

I have detailed a portion of The Somatic Codes in my piece: The Diamond Penetration Pandiculation Technique.

These codes accelerate and deepen the effects of somatic exercises when incorporated with somatic exercises. There will be video in the near future on YouTube showing how this is done.

See many videos of pandicular maneuvers. Here's the general channel of (some) of my videos.

Hypothesis on Developing Obesity

2011-04-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

Just a summary entry:

Anciently, during periods following famine (and also, at the harvest), there followed periods of feasting and celebration. Understandable.

What do people do, when feasting? Overeat. Consider Thanksgiving.

Now, that's not the end of the story; it's where something new makes it interesting.

What happens to the size of the stomach, when we overeat? It enlarges.

And what happens to the abdominal cavity, as the stomach enlarges? It enlarges, to accommodate.

And what happens when the abdominal cavity enlarges? The muscles of the abdominal wall relax.

And what happens when the muscles of the abdominal wall relax? They make room not only for food, but for the additional blood circulation needed needed for the stomach to digest all that food (particularly, the proteins).

Well and good. Sounds healthy.

However, what happens when a person habitually overeats? The muscles of the abdominal wall come to stay habitually relaxed.

And what's below (or just interior to) the abdominal wall? It's called, "the greater omentum". The greater omentum is a body of fat that drapes, like an apron (apropos) over the abdominal organs.

And what do you think happens to all those nice, juicy nutrients from habitual overeating, with habitually relaxed abdominal wall muscles and all that increased blood circulation and with the greater omentum nearby, through which some of that circulation circulates? By George! That greater omentum, which has lots of nice space around it, is just waiting for all that nice excess nutrition to fatten it up. The body adapts to our way of life and changes shape accordingly; ask any fitness nut. We become how we live.

The fault doesn't lie with the greater omentum.
The fault doesn't lie with the increased circulation.
The fault doesn't lie with those relaxed abdominal muscles (that everybody wants to tighten).
The fault doesn't lie even with all those nutrients.
The fault lies with the fact that the person habitually eats too much at one sitting.

If (s)he ate less, the stomach would not enlarge, so much, the abdominal wall would not distend as much, and there would be less room for the greater omentum, and less circulation. And less belly fat gain.

After times of famine, it's understandable that people might feast. And it seems somehow "naturally sound" for people feasting after famine to get fatter -- as a way of "putting somthing away" in case of future famine -- a protective evolutionary development.

And in fact, what has been observed is that people who starve themselves to lose weight end up gaining more weight, than before, after the starvation diet ends. That's one reason why it's being said, "Diets don't work." It's the evolutionary program for famine.

Maybe I've just described more about how that works -- and why it's better to eat many small meals and snacks than it is to eat a few large meals -- as, in some people's case, one big meal each day.

Now, it's also understandable why some people overeat. Famine is a "stressor". And under stress, our belly wall does tighten ("Startle Reflex"). Feasting after fasting is a way of relieving that stress and also of forcing that tight belly wall to relax, simulating relief from stress.

Does the nature of the stressor matter, when it comes to relieving stress? Do we really differentiate one stressor from another at the feeling-level? or do we just go for the all-purpose stress-reliever, the traditional one, the ancient one, that one that was appropriate after the stress of famine (or deprivation) -- food.

Could it be, that is why people are seek to relieve stress by overeating? Why we might eat when depressed? or lonely?

And what does it say about our times?

Obesity is a symptom of a distressed society and of ignorance about stress and eating (including poor choices/quality of food/quantity).

Just a hypothesis.

"Never eat anything bigger than your head."

~~ R. Crumb

a few resources:

Calmly Energizing
Somatic Breathing Training to Reduce Stress

The Cat Stretch
Somatic Exercises to Reduce Neuromuscular Stress

free instructional somatic exercise video:
to reduce Startle Reflex

5 Movement Exercises to End
TMJ Syndrome in about
Two Weeks

Hypermasculinity, Habituation, and the Apparent Spirit-Matter Split

2011-04-08T07:25:00.000-07:00

Habituation leads to pain through inadequacy of adaptation (dysfunctional behaviors), and this pain goads us to the Spirit-Matter Split, as dissociation ("I am not the body; I am pure subjectivity," -- the absurd Eastern error) and as materialism ("I am the body; I am objective, without personal biases," -- the pathetic Western error). These are not mental ideals, but pervasive moods, our very underlying logic of life.

One way disowns material existence and the body; the other disowns or is oblivious to subjectivity, or ones inner, personal life; one disowns the "outer", the other ignores or disowns or is oblivious to the "inner".

Interesting point: when "outer" and "inner" perceptions (and identification with either) are differentiated (observed individually), equalized (made equally observable through practice), and integrated (observed simultaneously), formless Spirit appears as ones own nature. (Jesus' saying, "If your 'eye' be single, your whole body will be full of light."). But even habituation in that equalized state, as an effort, is impractical as a moment-to-moment life practice.

Habituation shows up as being set in our ways, as resisting change, as persistent wounds, as persistent dysfunction, as fear, as force (forceful idealism or aggressive materialism), as bogged-down politics, as hypermasculine "spirituality" (celibacy, imposition of ideals upon oneself, striving to overcome self), as "final" knowledge, as the (presumed or apparently actual) inaccessibility of transcendental intuition, and at last as at first, as self-identification and our repressed and unconscious "shadow material" that goes with identification. (We hide or resist aspects of ourselves, which become shadow material, entrenched, unconscious, as subconsciously controlled states of stress and compulsive behavior in-and-as our very bodily existence. It does not hide in transcendental Spirit, but in our "immanent" selves).

The problem is, habituation is the very vehicle of the transmission and survival of civilization from generation to generation (knowledge and tradition), and this present generation unwisely (and habitually) rejects habituation (via post-modern deconstructionism of knowledge and views) -- rather than recognizing habitual habituation as the problem and choosing habituations wisely! (or we tend to think our habituations are wise and so reinforce them.)

Thus, the global crisis of transformation and ("first tier") culture wars so often spoken of in integral circles come down to the drag of habituation upon necessary evolutionary transformation.

Transcendental intuition makes transcendence of habituation possible (or easier), but transcendence without conscious embodiment (and people typically underestimate what that is), is dissociation, subject (vulnerable) to our own "shadow" influences -- the very Spirit-Matter Split. And, of course, the work of conscious embodiment is limited without self-transcendence, which makes shadow material palatable enough (and witnessable enough) for differentiation and integration.

The problem may be seen as incompetence in regulating habituation -- full spectrum.

Getting to Sleep and Life's Big Squeeze

2011-04-07T08:52:00.000-07:00

This entry is about the 'why' and 'how' of overcoming insomnia and getting to sleep. It's technical. At the end, I offer an effective way to overcome your own insomnia.

Two great polarities exist in every life: activity and rest.

In humans, because we live and move in an upright position (rather than on four feet), a particular postural reflex mediates or shifts us between those two great polarities. It's called, "The Landau Reaction."

The Landau Reaction

The Landau Reaction comes into play at about three months of age, when, as an infant, we first arise from our back or belly into a sitting position, then to standing, then to walking and running. It tightens the muscles of the back of the body -- spinal muscles, back aspect of our shoulders, buttocks, and backs of our legs -- to hoist up our front, supported by our spinal column and to erect our spine upright. It brings our head up, placing our sensory organs -- eyes, ears, and nose -- in the optimal position for getting long-range information about our environment. That's the "objective" side, the mechanical side, of Landau Reaction. Here's the "subjective" side: the sense of "readiness for action" -- put another way, heightened alertness. Another term for Landau Reaction is "The Green Light Reflex" -- as in the green light of a traffic signal.

Perhaps you can already see, just from that description, the role Landau Reaction has in sleep.

Let's flesh it out.

In the healthy state, Landau Reaction comes and goes according to circumstances. The more circumstances call for heightened alertness, the more intensely Landau Reaction gets activated -- and the tighter we get. Our back arches, our shoulders pull back, our chest lifts, and our buttocks and hamstrings get tight -- we get a "swayback", where the "sway" is forward (giving rise to the expression, "on our toes"). When circumstances pass, and the need for heightened alertness passes, we return to a rest condition -- more or less -- and the muscular side of Landau Reaction eases. We relax.

The thing is, an unhealthy state of Landau Reaction exists -- habituation. The more time we spend in Landau Reaction -- in traffic, at work, in competitive activities -- the better we get at going into Landau Reaction. Our brain, which provides and regulates the Landau Reaction, learns to be more and more ready to go into Landau Reaction. Eventually (and commonly) we stay in Landau Reaction in a perpetual state of readiness for action.

Is it obvious, yet, the effect Landau Reaction has on sleep?

The two states -- readiness for action and rest -- oppose each other. Where sleep is concerned, Landau Reaction wins. Insomnia, chronic thinking, muscular tightness, and even soreness and stiffness (ready for that new, expensive "Sleep Number" or "Tempurpedic" bed?) become our nighttime experience.

Now, it's also true that our circumstances in life may provoke anxiety in us -- and anxiety shows up as another reflex of stress -- the opposite to the Landau Reaction, called Startle Reflex (or "The Red Light Reflex").

The Startle Reflex

In Startle Reflex, we tighten in the front of the body. It's a protective, primitive response from the life-threatening, "eat or be eaten" times of eons ago, when to curl up was to protect our soft, vulnerable parts. It's the position of "playing dead" -- and a good strategy for going immobile and escaping the notice of a predator. This primitive response continues, today, even though the threats these days are more psychological and social than physical.

All creatures with a spinal cord have Startle Reflex behavior -- even shrimp and insects. With humans, it takes a specific form.

Startle Reflex, by tightening our frontal muscles, prevents deep, diaphragmatic breathing, reduces our overall mobility, and by pulling us into a curled-forward shape, causes us to shrink down and to withdraw our sense organs -- eyes, ears, and nose -- from our environment. It's the shape of "hiding".

In the healthy state, Startle Reflex comes and goes according to circumstances without lasting effect.

However, an unhealthy state of Startle Reflex exists: habituation. It forms the same way as habituation in Landau Reaction -- by repetition and intensity.

However, in our current age, we can't get by being curled and withdrawn from experience; we have to function, to be ready, to be active.

And so, Landau Reaction comes into play anyway.

However, being opposite to and opposed by Startle Reflex, Landau Reaction activates at an even higher level than if Startle Reflex weren't in play.

The result: "stress" -- a combination of readiness for action and anxiety -- and a feeling of being trapped in life -- The Big Squeeze. Sound familiar?

And so, insomnia, chronic thinking, muscular tightness, and even soreness and stiffness (got your Ambien, Lunesta, nighttime cocktail, or whatever?) become our nighttime experience.

What's a human being to do? How do we deactivate Landau Reaction and Startle Reflex so we can sleep? How do we decondition ourselves from our lives, so we can rest?

Ah! The Essential Question!

Getting Out of The Big Squeeze so We Can Sleep

Let's summarize, so our answer can be concise.

Both Landau Reaction and Startle Reflex are mind-brain-body states. Both states get habituated. Habituation is a learned state of being and acting a certain way, on automatic. The term, "learned state", is key. We learn our way into those states ("taught" by life); we must learn our way out of those states with the same kind of learning -- experiential learning.

By now, you may be feeling mystified. What kind of experiential learning can teach us to disarm habituated mind-brain-body states?

Hitherto, we have gone into and stayed in those states automatically. We have to shift from "automatic" to "voluntary". "Voluntary" refers to anything you do because you decide to -- and also to anything you don't do because you haven't decided to.

How do we get from "automatic" to "voluntary"? By cultivating "voluntary".

This is an entirely new way of thinking about and approaching a situation -- given our culture of "fighting" -- "Fight Cancer", "Fight Drug Abuse", "Fight Terrorism", "Fight Domestic Violence" . . . etc., etc. Instead, we cultivate voluntary control of what we would otherwise fight; we get into it (like a hand in a glove) and control it from within it.

This approach works for sleep (and for many other mind-brain-body conditions and stress-related disorders, such as headaches and certain breathing disorders). We cultivate voluntary control over Landau Reaction and Startle Reflex so that, when we rest, we rest.

The way into such cultivation is to re-create the muscular actions and feelings of those states deliberately. When we do, a very interesting thing happens: our voluntary control supercedes (or overcomes and replaces) automatic habits. We replace automatic, involuntary states with easy, voluntary control of those states.

The result: the excessive habituation in these states quiets and they recede to coming and going only as present circumstances call for, instead of dominating our lives. With reduction of excess, we have more "cushion" , more tolerance for conditions. Even in stressful circumstances, our stress level is less. Sleep returns -- to reduce our stress level further.

Since few people are familiar with these reflexes of stress, it's helpful to have guidance for assuming control of them.

For sleep disorders, I have created this program to guide you, step by step, through coming out of excessive, habituated Landau Reaction and Startle Reflex. It's to be used consistently for a week or two, upon retiring for sleep, and then (once you know the steps), as needed -- such as on occasions when you awaken in the middle of the night or when you are experiencing the effects of heightened stress.

Sleep-inducing drugs have side effects for some people -- daytime drowsiness, hallucinations, mood changes, suicidal thoughts; the drug companies say so in their advertising. Special mattresses do nothing to address stressful emotions. This program also has side-effects -- sometimes (at the very beginning), temporary soreness, and then increased flexibility and heightened physical energy. Which side effects do you prefer?

The 'proof' of the 'pudding' is in the 'eating'. Test the program for yourself. Get free of The Big Squeeze and get to sleep.

OTHER ARTICLES

OTHER PROGRAMS FOR STRESS-RELATED DISORDERS

The Varieties of Sensory-Motor Amnesia

2011-02-23T11:06:00.000-08:00

Sensory-Motor Amnesia (SMA), as Thomas Hanna defined it, is a state of habituation in which patterns of muscular tension and movement formed during trauma or under stress displace (make amnesic) the memory (and availability) of free and balanced (healthy) functioning. One memory of a functional pattern displaces another, resulting in chronic pain and changes of movement ("chronic injuries"), and a life is altered.

In my work, I have discerned more than one expression or form of SMA.

This article details those findings, which apply when we assess the condition of a client and when we work with him or her.

I identify three variations:

Chronic Contraction (chronic desire - "rajasic" SMA, for those who know yogic terminology)
Restricted Free Range of Movement (chronic limitation - "sattvic" SMA)
No Control/Substitution (chronic differentiation - "tamasic" SMA)

I explain each variation.

CHRONIC CONTRACTION
In assessment, palpation reveals hard, contracted, ticklish or sore muscle. Kinetic Mirroring (passively moving a body segment along the involved muscle's line of pull (doing the work of the muscle for it), followed by a lengthening movement) reveals an indisposition to lengthen (muscle stays contracted or involuntarily, sporadically contracts in fits and starts, or "rachets" on the way to length). This is the most obvious form of SMA. (If they're not floppy, they're contracting.)

I describe this form of SMA as "rajasic" because it involves chronic activity.

RESTRICTED FREE RANGE OF MOVEMENT
A lengthening movement, either active (by the client) or passive (by the practitioner) reveals free movement up to a point, beyond which no movement is possible without forcing - hence, "restricted free range of movement". This form of SMA may be (and probably often is) confused with restriction by adhesions.

I describe this form of SMA as "sattvic" because the person has no pain in the involved muscles when at rest and believes (s)he has free control. (S)he's "fine" when (s)he stays within the "healthy"/"normal"/"anatomically correct" range of motion, but exists in a state of chronic (unconscious) limitation that shows up only in movement (as pain or restriction).

This is the same mentality, by the way, that blames pain on "having slept wrong" or "moved wrong".

NO CONTROL / SUBSTITUTION
This form of SMA, I feel, is more correctly described as "Sensory-Motor Obliviousness" (SMO). (Please see related article.) Muscles are relaxed and lengthen freely, but the person has little control or coordination involving them; (s)he is oblivious to them. There's a "hole" in his/her control. This form of SMA/SMO is easily missed if the practitioner identifies SMA as a state of contraction, rather than of habituated dysfunction.

I describe this form of SMA as "tamasic" because it involves chronic non-responsiveness of certain muscles in movement or the inability to move in a certain way, altogether. The person substitutes other muscles to accomplish movements more properly and better done by the muscles to which (s)he is oblivious and/or involuntarily distorts the movement.

The first two forms of SMA respond well to the three basic techniques of Hanna somatic education: Means-Whereby, Kinetic Mirroring, and Assisted Pandiculation.

The third form, SMO, requires a completely different approach, which I will outline.

Addressing "No-Control/Substitution" (SMO)
Isn't it aggravating when you ask for one thing and receive another? This is how people in SMO live. Everything seems fine until they do something; then, unexpected, mysterious pains appear. They may not know why things go wrong. But we do.

In SMO, because the person isn't in a painful or restricted state (at least when at rest and when moved passively), we may not know how to interpret their pain when they move.

The pain comes from the substitution of muscular actions that are ordinarily synergistic (helpers) to the "prime mover(s)" -- but without the prime movers. It's "going through the motions" -- but badly. It's "taking action without a leader or clear sense of purpose." It's awkward. If awkward enough, it's painful, particularly if they are as incompetent in controlling the substituting synergists (helper muscles) as they are oblivious to the synergists' prime movers. (The terms, "prime mover" and "synergist", are terms from kinesiology. If necessary, "Google" them for understanding.)

The answer for SMO people is somatic exercises. They need to awaken control of certain muscles and develop well-coordinated movements. Then, the synergists relax and their painful excesses diminish into a healthy, well-coordinated grace; joints are no longer put into awkward positions. When such people take action, things no longer "go painfully wrong"; instead, they get a healthy experience and a sound result.

Avoiding Pitfalls
The pitfall of practitioners during assessment is failure to check for full, free range of motion and so to miss the SMA.

During working sessions, the pitfall is failure to achieve full, free range of motion. In Assisted Pandiculation, this failure to achieve full, free range of motion shows up as carrying a pandiculation only through the range of free motion evident upon initial functional assessment -- the restricted range of motion -- stopping before achieving full lengthening, as if going past the restricting limit would hurt the client. (We assume that the practitioner knows the full range of motion available to a healthy individual and does not fall prey to the "everybody is different" cop-out, but rather understands the kinesiology of the human design and the limitations imposed by pathological joint changes.)

The virtue of Assisted Pandiculation is that it frees movement beyond any previous limitation (within the range of movement determined by joint structure) with no pain or sense of stretching, and this is the "miraculous" appearance of the work to which Thomas Hanna referred in his Wave 1 training. The only dangers of hurting the client are by (1) forcing, by imposing stretch upon the client, rather than relying strictly upon the pandicular response, or by (2) poor (poorly controlled/poorly regulated/awkward) pandicular technique.

When working with a client, never accept a response or action other than the one you asked for. Coach persistently until you get it. That's how we teach.

Another "never": Never accept a movement out of contraction that goes along a line different from the movement into contraction. That's like changing the subject in the middle of a line of inquiry. ("Thank you for the answer, but that answers a question other than the one I asked.")

The only exception is pain, and for that you do "prep work" to clear up the interfering pain until they can comfortably do what you ask.

Related Articles

"Decompensating Compensations Safely"
"Sensory-Motor Amnesia is Not a Disease" (deeper, wider understanding of SMA)

click for:

other articles for practitioners
The Guidebook of Somatic Transformational Exercises, 70 Somatic Exercises for Practitioners and Movement Teachers

Synergetic Somatic Exercises -- Integration

2011-02-18T09:17:00.000-08:00

Somatic exercises

are synergistic action patterns . . . . .
movement patterns
composed of numerous simpler movement elements
that combine together
into larger, more complex, integrated movement patterns
that make sense . . . . .

movement patterns . . . . . as integrations of smaller movement elements
. . . . . elements that naturally coordinate together

that wake up and organize your brain in a certain way
. . . . . that allows stretching
to move beyond stretching
with no experience of stretching
as you come out of the grip of musclebound back muscles
and elongate into a more relaxed state.

You learn to control the tight places first
by tightening into tension
that is already tense,
then by slowly relaxing into relaxation
that is release . . . . .

Tension and release,
control in both directions,
getting tighter and letting looser,
deeper into relaxation than before, deeper.

You get a grip and then let go.
You assert control and then rest
and that is control.
By repeatedly practicing each movement pattern
you awaken it,
put it together,
develop it,
and end with deeper,
more balanced equilibrium.

You get a feeling for what
"well-organized" and "well put-together"
feel like.
You gain freedom of movement so natural
that you will soon start
to take it for granted.

Naturally well-coordinated, well-balanced and easy-moving,
such are the lasting improvements of this approach
. . . which begin immediately
... and become more and more ...
the more you do it.

You develop good unity of movement and balance
without danger of cramp or spasm
. . . you get free of the grip
more reliably, more durably, more completely
than by being manipulated
or "worked-on" by somebody else.

Because you are controlling it from within
rather than being done to
you can own it,
keep it and refresh it.

The 'proof' of the 'pudding' is in the 'eating'.

more on somatic exercises
see somatic exercises (Get Started for Free)
buy somatic exercise instruction
back pain somatic exercises (free)

Racism is a Racist Term

2011-02-14T13:47:00.000-08:00

To begin, there exists only one human race whose members genetically adapted to life in different locations of the planet, whose skin colors are fairly uniform, according to the latitude, planetwide, from which they come (light-skinned from more polar latitudes and dark-skinned from more equatorial latitudes, according to the intensity of sunlight).

So, right away, to describe those with different skin colors or ethnicities as belonging to different races is racist.

Let's take, for example, the labels, "Black" and "White".

On the face of it, these labels are absurd. "Black" (formerly Negro, which in Spanish, also means "black") people are not black. They're brown. And "White" (also "Caucasian", as in the Caucasus Mountains of Russia) people are not white. They're beige or tan or something similar. Sometimes, they're indistinguishable from each other!

So, these very labels are not only inaccurate, they exaggerate the differences among people of different skin colors (i.e., places of origin on the planet) -- exactly the underpinnings of racism.

The correct labeling would be "Brown" and "Beige". Rather closer and more like each other, aren't they? A bit less "racist"?

People of Color
Once, again, racism expressed in language, this time in a term considered "politically correct" -- "people of color".

What? Are Caucasian people transparent?

I had no idea! I'll have to check, next time I look in the mirror.

As far as I can tell, Caucasian people are, as I said, beige. We've been left out of the category, "People of Color"! Sounds like unfair discrimination, to me. I have color! I want to be included!

In this case as in so many others, "political correctness" is incorrect, even politically incorrect.

Why not be accurate, at least, and use the term, "people of dark color"? That is what's meant, isn't it?

Discrimination
And now, that favorite word coupled with the word, "racial".

Let's be rigorous about our use of words. "Discrimination" means "the process of telling or noticing a difference between two things." It doesn't necessarily mean that one is better (although it may), just that the two are in some way different. (Sometimes, a value judgment is warranted. A criminal is someone who fails to discriminate between "right" and "wrong" behavior.)

Discrimination is not, by definition, bad. Unfair discrimination is bad. Unintelligent discrimination is bad. Inaccurate discrimination is bad. Sloppy discrimination is bad. No discrimination at all is bad (or at least haphazard and possibly dangerous).

Those who use the word, "discrimination", are usually discriminating against bad, unintelligent, or inaccurate discrimination. Unfortunately, their use of language is not so discriminating. Actually, it's sloppy use of a term for something that we need on a moment to moment basis to make healthy choices: discrimination. To make any kind of discrimination seem wrong is a blunting of intelligence.

Ethic Cleansing
Need I say more?

It seems that the answer to that question is, "yes".

Officially sanctioned by the news media, this term blatantly implies that some ethnicities are "unclean".

Really.

How about this, more accurate term, demonstrating the more careful use of language that we should expect of our news commentators: ethnic purging -- accurate and descriptive, without bias.

That's closer the mark, isn't it?

Racial Profiling
Here we go, again.

ethnic profiling

If we recognize that differences exist among individuals of a given ethnicity, then we are obliged discriminate fairly between and among people who share an ethnicity.

There's no denying that, statistically, some ethnicities have more than their share of social problems. To deny that such is the case, again, is to blunt our own intelligence. However, to fail to discriminate fairly between individuals of a given ethnicity is laziness and sloppiness -- a weakness of intelligence. The world needs more wise discrimination.

So, Then What?
We need to rehabilitate the word, "discrimination" -- and we need to use the term, "ethnocentrism" or "ethnism" in place of racism. At least it's accurate.

Observe those who use the term, racist. See if they, actually, are themselves racist, painting entire groups of others with a broad brush -- lacking intelligent discrimination.

Don't come back with, "It's popular parlance," or "everyone knows what it means". Use language responsibly. Discriminate soundly and wisely. Exercise your intelligence and expect others to do the same.

Women's Cosmetics and Sexual Harassment (pronounced "har-ass-ment", not "harris-ment")

2011-02-13T12:37:00.000-08:00

Just a quickie:

Ever wonder why "rouge" (french for red) is also called "blush"?

It's because women's cosmetics duplicate the facial coloration of sexual arousal -- cheeks, lips ... blush.

Eye make-up is designed to draw attention to the eyes -- the 'window' of engagement of mutual attention.

Women who wear make-up at work, then, are drawing attention to their sexuality in the workplace.

Casts another perspective on sexual harassment, doesn't it?

One solution?

Obvious. No make-up in the workplace.

Wearing make-up? No right to claim sexual harassment.

TMJ/TMD Treatments

2011-02-13T12:05:00.000-08:00

Common Methods of Treatment

This brief piece outlines both conventional and alternative TMJ treatment approaches.

mouth guards / appliances / splints
neuromuscular dentistry
reshaping tooth surfaces

mouth massage

Mouth Guards / Appliances / Splints

The principle and hope of these kinds of devices is that by separating the teeth, they are prevented from grinding each other. However, from the very name, "mouth guard," we infer that this kind of device doesn't solve the problem, but only hopes to prevent tooth damage as the problem -- tight jaw muscles -- continues. It's obvious -- what the mouth is being guarded from is ... the mouth! "Appliance" and "splint" are other names for "mouth guard"

Neuromuscular Dentistry

Neuromuscular dentistry takes a more sophisticated technological approach to the use of dental appliances. By measuring electrical activity of the muscles of biting and chewing, practitioners of this approach identify patterns of movement, of position, and of dental stress and then prepare an appliance to retrain the nervous system's control of those muscles. The desired outcome common comes in a few months; cost ranges from $5,000 to $25,000.

Re-shaping Teeth

Dentists have found that by changing the fit of upper and lower teeth, they can alter neuromuscular control of the muscles of biting and chewing and thereby alleviate TMJ Syndrome. This approach posits that the cause of excessive jaw tension is poor fit between upper and lower teeth. Its method is to reshape tooth surfaces by a polishing process to improve the fit. This method does get results. By changing the fit between teeth (by removing contours that prevent uniform contact among teeth), the process changes ones experience of biting and chewing. This change introduces such a new experience of biting and chewing that habitual patterns of muscular control are interrupted, allowing new movement patterns to form. However, it's an indirect approach involving ongoing dental surgery in a series of steps to a good fit. While its effects are beneficial, it misses the role of dental trauma in the formation of dental stress.

Mouth Muscle Massage

While the approach sounds relevant, given what I have said above, the limitation of this approach is that jaw muscle muscle tension is maintained by the brain -- it's conditioning -- not by the muscles, themselves. So, the results of mouth massage tend to be short-lived.

A New TMJ Therapeutic Approach

Understanding that we are dealing with conditioned postural reflexes that govern muscular tension, one way to cure TMJ Syndrome/TMD naturally would be to retrain those conditioned postural reflexes -- in effect, to eliminate residual trauma reflex and to ease dental stress. The video on this page demonstrates exactly that process -- called Hanna Somatic Education^®. The video shows changes in real-time -- painless, fast, inexpensive, and lasting -- produced by dispelling automatic, reflexive contraction patterns and re-awakening control of free movement.

The various symptoms of TMD/TMJ Syndrome -- headaches, earaches, bruxism, poor bite, tinnitis, postural changes, limited ability to open or close the jaws -- resolve into normal function.

SEE VIDEO on TMD/TMJ SELF-RELIEF:
SEE A TMD/TMJ SYNDROME SELF-TREATMENT PROGRAM

Common Causes of TMJ Syndrome/Bruxism

2011-02-10T10:08:00.000-08:00

TMD/TMJ Syndrome is a collection of diverse symptoms caused by reflexive actions of the muscles of biting and chewing. It comes from brain-muscle conditioning acquired by trauma or stress.

As with all conditioning problems, it can be changed with proper training. An accelerated training process, clinical somatic education), dramatically reduces the time needed for conventional dentistry to correct TMD by means of a technique nicknamed, "The Whole-body Yawn".

Dentists commonly regard TMD as being of different types: joint arthritis at the temporo-mandibular joint (TMJ), muscular soreness (myalgia), articular disc displacement, misfit of the upper and lower jaws, or of traumatic origin.

However, all of these conditions reduce down to the same cause: tight muscles of biting and chewing, and therefore the same kind of treatment can resolve them all (except for "disc displacement without reduction", which is a surgical situation).

Let's see how.

Degenerative Arthritis
Degenerative arthritis of the TMJ does not just "happen by itself", nor does it result from outside influences, like an infection.

It results from excessive compression forces upon the TMJ, imposed by chronically tight muscles of biting and chewing. The joint breaks down under pressure.

Treatment must therefore retrain those muscles to a normal, low tension state, to be effective.

Muscular Soreness (Pain)
Chronically tight muscles develop muscle fatigue -- the common "burn" that people go for in athletic training.

That "burn" disappears nearly instantly, once muscles relax. For a lasting reduction of muscle tension and burn, a training process is needed. Faster and slower training processes exist.

Articular Disc Displacement
The articular disc of the TMJ is a pad that rides between the lower jaw (mandible) and the underside of the cheek bone (zygomatic bone), which goes from below the eyes, in front, to just before the ears on both sides. The TMJ, itself, is located just in front of the ears, and although the TMJ is the "home" position for the lower jaw, the TMJ is a very free joint. The cheek bone acts as a kind of rail along which the lower jaw rides forward and back during jaw movements, out of and back into the temporo-mandibular joint. The articular disc pads the contact between the lower and upper contact surfaces, connected to the lower jaw by a ligament with some elasticity.

When jaw muscles are chronically tight, the articular disc gets squeezed between the two surfaces, upper and lower, and may get dragged out of place by jaw movements (displacement) -- a very painful condition.

If the displaced position of the disc is within the rebound capacity of the attaching ligament, the disc can return to its home position ("disc displacement with reduction"), once excessive compression forces ease. If the ligament gets stretched past its rebound capacity, the disc stays out of place ("disc displacement without reduction").

Misfit of the Upper and Lower Jaws
This condition is not, in itself, a cause of TMD. However, when combined with excessive tension in the muscles of biting and chewing, the sensation of this condition gets magnified, as the sensation of "misfit"; grinding motions (bruxism) are actually a seeking for the comfort of a fit in a rest position, which is unavailable due to upper and lower jaw misfit.

While something radical like surgery may seem to be a necessary option, actually what is sufficient is to bring the jaw muscles to rest. To do so increases the tolerance (i.e., comfort) of the mismatched situation to the point where it is not disturbing.

Trauma
The underlying condition for the others, trauma (a blow to the lower jaw or dental work) triggers the muscles of biting to tighten ("trauma reflex").

Gum chewing is not a cause, in itself, of TMD.

I say more about trauma, below.

Conditioning Influences
The jaw muscles, like all the the muscles of the body, are subject to control by conditioned postural reflexes, which affect chewing and biting movements. The reason people don't go around slack-jawed and drooling, for example, is that a conditioned postural reflex causes the muscles of biting and chewing always to remain slightly tensed, keeping their jaws closed. People's jaw muscles are always more or less tense, even when they are asleep -- but the norm is very mildly tense -- just enough to keep the mouth closed and lips together.

The degree of tension people hold is a matter of conditioning.

For brevity, I'll discuss only conditions that lead to TMJ/bruxism and not the normal development of muscle tone in the muscles of biting and chewing.
These influences fall into two categories:

Emotional Stress
Physical Trauma

I can't say from empirical studies which of these two influences is the more prevalent, but from my clinical experience, I would say that physical trauma (and tooth and jaw pain -- which induces people to change their biting and chewing actions, and which becomes habitual) is the more common causes of TMJ Syndrome, and also dental surgery, itself. (Consider the jaw soreness that commonly follows dental fillings, crowns, root canals, etc. -- soreness that may last for days.)

Emotional Stress
Ever heard the expressions, "Bite your tongue"? "Grit Your Teeth"? "Bite the Bullet"? "Hold your tongue"? "Bite the Big One"? They all have something in common, don't they? What is that? To someone who regularly represses emotion or the urge to say something, these expressions have literal meaning.

Such repression, over time, manifests as tension held in the muscles of speech -- in the jaws, mouth, neck, face, and back -- the same as the muscles of biting and chewing.

Physical Trauma
Although people experience trauma to the jaws through falls, blows, and motor vehicle accidents, the most common form of physical trauma (other than dental disease) is dentistry, itself, and it's unavoidable. Dental surgery is traumatic. The relevant term is "iatrogenic" -- which means "caused as a side-effect of treatment". Every dental procedure (and every surgical procedure) should be followed by a process for dispeling the reflexive guarding triggered by the procedure. (See the video.)

No doubt, this assertion will cause much distress among dentists, and I regret that, but how can we escape that conclusion?

Consider the experience of dentistry, both during and after dental surgery (fillings, root canal work, implants, cosmetic dentistry, crown installation, injections of anaesthetic, even routine cleanings and examinations). Consider the response we have to that pain or even the expectation of pain: we cringe.

We may think such cringing to be momentary, but consider the intensity of dental surgery; it leaves intense memory impressions on the nervous system evident as patterns of tension. (Who's relaxed going to the dentist? -- or coming out of the dentist's office?) The physical after-effects show up as tension in the jaws and neck, and often in the spinal musculature, as well -- and as a host of other symptoms.

Let's go back to our fond memories of dentistry.

If you've observed your physical reactions in the dentist's surgery station, you may have noticed that during probing of a tooth for decay (with that sharp, hooked probe they use), you tighten not just your jaw (can you feel it?) and your neck muscles, but also the muscles of breathing, your hands, and even your legs. It's an effort to remain lying down in the surgery station when, bodily, you want to get up and get away from those instruments and the dentist or hygienist wielding them.

With procedures such as fillings, root canal surgery, implants and crown installations, the muscular responses are more specific and more intense. For teeth near the back of the jaws, we tense the muscles nearer the back of our neck; for teeth near the front of the jaws, we tense the muscles closer the front of the throat, floor of the mouth and tongue.

This reflexive response has a name: Trauma Reflex.

Trauma Reflex is the universal, involuntary response to pain and to expectation of pain.
It gets triggered in relation to the location of the pain and to our position at the time of pain. Muscular tensions form as an action of withdrawing, avoiding, or escaping the source of pain.

In dentistry, with the head commonly turned to one side, in addition to the simple trauma reflex associated with pain, we have the involvement of our sense of position, and not just the muscles of the jaws are involved, but also those of the neck, shoulders, spine.
All of these conditions combine into an experience that goes into memory with such intensity that it modifies or entirely displaces our sense of normal movement and position. We forget free movement and instead become habituated or adapted to the memory of the trauma (whether of dental work or of some other trauma involving teeth or jaws). Our neuro-muscular system acts as if the trauma is still happening, even though, to our conscious minds, it is long past, and the way it acts as if the trauma is still happening is by tightening the muscles that close the jaws.

Since accidents and surgeries address teeth at one side of the jaws or the other, the tensions occur on one side of the jaws or the other. Thus, the symptoms of such tension -- jaw pain, bite deviations, and earaches -- tend to be one-sided or to exist on one side more than on the other.

The proof of the role of trauma reflex? -- the permanent changes of bite and tension of the muscles of biting that have behind them a history of dental trauma -- and the changes you see in the video that occur as this man is relieved of those conditioned postural reflexes.

AN OFFERING: See how"The Whole-body Yawn" reconditions the muscles of biting and chewing to normal levels -- ending all symptoms of TMJ Syndrome / TMD. CLICK HERE

VIDEO:
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RELATED ARTICLE: Symptoms of TMJ Syndrome
DIRECTORY OF ARTICLES: click here.

TMJ Syndrome TMD/Bruxism Symptoms

2011-02-10T09:13:00.000-08:00

earache
tinnitus / tinnitis
jaw joint pain on one side
orofacial pain
bite deviations
inability to open the jaws fully
bruxism / teeth grinding
headaches
neck pain
spine pain
postural changes

To discuss each of these symptoms, we will have to discuss a little bit of anatomy.

This simplified explanation obviously does not discuss the various muscles of jaw movement individually -- but you'll get a basic, clear understanding.

Earache

The jaw joints -- the TMJs or temporo-mandibular joints -- exist just in front of the ears. The excessive compression caused by chronically tight jaw muscles causes pain in just that location, which triggers muscular contractions in the muscles surrounding the ears. The net result -- muscle and joint pain.

Tinnitus / Tinnitis

Tinnitus is "ringing in the ears." Compression of the TMJs induces or increases tinnitus. One explanation is that the muscles of the middle ears, which attach to and tune the resonant frequency of the three sound-transmitting bones of the middle ears (hammer, anvil and stapes), reflexively tighten with jaw tension. You may have noticed that, while you yawn, your hearing fades. That indicates the reflexive connection.

Jaw Joint Pain on One Side

As I said, earlier, most dental trauma occurs on one side. The trauma reflex triggers muscular contractions -- and pain -- on that side.

Orofacial PainThe trauma reflex triggers muscular contractions -- and pain -- in the muscles of the face.

Bite Deviations

Uneven muscular contractions alter jaw movement and bite.

Inability to Open the Jaws Fully

Since those muscles are constantly held reflexively in contraction, they limit how far the jaws can open.

Bruxism / Teeth Grinding

Jaw clenching and grinding are the behaviors of tight jaw muscles. Nocturnal bruxism may be associated with speech and emotion during dreaming. Just as rapid eye movement (REM) during dreaming is a recognized phenomenon, the muscles of speech also move during dream-speech. Combined with hightened jaw tension, such movements could account for nocturnal bruxism. This is a point of reasoning, not of empirical studies -- but it does make sense.

Headaches

One set of muscles of biting -- the temporalis muscles -- connect from the sides of the jaws to the sides of the head, near and behind the temples. When tight, these muscles compress the bones of the head, producing headache at the sides of the head. Other muscles, the suboccipital muscles that connect the rear of the head to the neck, reflexively tighten with mouth-opening movements and may become conditioned to a heightened state of tension that goes with the heightened effort needed to open jaws held tight by muscles of biting. Tension headaches at the forehead and in the eyes result from such tension.

See On Headaches

Neck Pain

The jaws have connections both above and below. The muscles below go to the neck. When tight muscles above the jaws displace movement from center, the muscles below tighten reflexively, pulling the head, which weighs about twelve pounds, off-center, causing muscle fatigue and pain in the neck.

Spine Pain

When the weight of the head gets displaced off-center, the muscles of the spine tighten as part of the counter-balancing act. Fatigue and pain result.

Postural Changes

Patterns of reflexive tension thus to all the way from the jaws down the spine and throughout the trunk, changing posture and movement.

See video on TMD/TMJ Syndrome Self-Relief.
See exercises based upon The Whole-body Yawn that Relieve TMD/TMJ Syndrome -- CLICK HERE

next article: Causes of TMJ Syndrome
directory of TMJ articles: Treatment for TMJ Syndrome

The Uplifting Feeling of an Erect Spine

2011-01-20T15:32:00.000-08:00

Ida Rolf wrote that the characteristic of a well-integrated body is a sense of lift.

What does that mean?

This post contrasts the effort to be erect with no-effort to be erect and in so doing, debunks misconceptions about good posture.

The Myth of Spinal Curves
Yes, the spine has four natural curves. However, the significance of those curves isn't that the spine has them, but that the spine can have them. The curves change with movement and general tension level. What makes the curves change is muscle tension in the spinal muscles, which pull on the vertebrae and change their positions, and in the legs, which pull on the pelvis and change spinal curvature at the connection of spine-to-pelvis, above.

Here's the thing: Your spine consists of vertebrae that are not square, but trapezoidal (except for one: L4, which is "square" -- meaning that the upper and lower surfaces are parallel). "Trapezoidal" means that the upper and lower surfaces have different slopes. It is the meeting of the upper and lower sloped surfaces of neighboring vertebrae that gives the spine its curves -- but those slopes are separated by discs that have a certain elasticity, so the curves change with movement. So, the myth is that the spine has a certain amount of curve or that their is a "normal" amount of curve. Curve, in a healthy person, changes from moment to moment; only in an unhealthy person are the curves fixated.

Now, even though the spine has curves, the spine can feel straight. That happens when the upper and lower surfaces of neighboring vertebrae meet squarely, and that happens when the spinal muscular tensions are balanced to arrange them that way and to make that arrangement the "home" position to which a person naturally returns in movement.

The feeling is of being effortlessly supported, balanced, and uplifted -- poised. In the literature of Tibetan Yoga, the description is of the spine "feeling like a stack of coins" -- a description that applies to sitting or standing positions, but not to action. So, the description has that limitation and in any case, these words can't mean much of anything to you unless you've experienced the feeling, so we have to leave it at that.

Now, here's an oddity of human beings: In order to feel strong or supported, people adopt efforts or various kinds. We tend to think we have to.

What happens, then, is that spinal muscles contract, pull on vertebrae, shorten the spine by compressing discs, and change the alignment away from effortless support or equilibrium.

In that way, people substitute "strength" for balance.

So, whereas a person whose back muscles are balanced feels supported and balanced from within, the person whose back muscles are tight feels "strong" -- at the expense of that sense of support, balance or effortless lift. They also feel tired, sore, and stiff.

People are endlessly trying to conform to various ideas and standards, and in so doing, they are adding stress to themselves, to their back muscles, and sacrificing balance, effortless support, and lift.

People are also endlessly experiencing stress, anxiety, guilt or shame (variations of cowering), all of which trigger the muscles of the front to tighten and the spine to bow forward. In order to counter that condition of cowering, people must tighten their backs, and counter cowering with "indomitable will" or "self-righteousness".

That condition (co-contraction of front and back), shortens the spine, literally compresses discs, and robs people of their sense of support, of equilibrium, of lift; their spine is not fully erect. We're left with pressure and stress, the experiences of "indomitable will" and "self-righteousness", which we may take as inevitable, right, or necessary.

It's clear that back pain is as much psychological as it is physical. Both aspects must be addressed for a fully erect spine -- for a person to stand at full stature, which is to say, feeling supported, balanced, and uplifted. It is also clear that departures from "good alignment" or good posture are as much a matter of misguided effort evident as muscular tensions as of objectively observable misalignments and their clinical consequences.

Although the psychological aspect I've noted above must be addressed on its own terms, the residual effects of stress and back tension can be dispeled. For more information on that topic, please see

http://somatics.com/back_pain.htm
http://somatics.com/chronic_back_pain.htm

which have audio and video links.

An Advance of Somatic Education Technique | The Diamond Penetration Technique

2011-01-11T12:49:00.000-08:00

CAN BE APPLIED TO ANYTHING YOU SEE AT RIGHT, FOR ENHANCED BENEFIT

The Diamond Penetration Maneuver is a way to get more done with less effort and less time, in clinical sessions of Hanna somatic education(R) or with somatic exercises. The maneuver enhances or potentizes pandiculation ("Whole Body yawn") technique.

In his original instruction to us, his students of his 1990 Clinical Somatic Education training, Thomas Hanna showed us how to use The Pandicular Response to free people from the grip of The Landau Reaction, which tightens the back/posterior side of the body and, when excessively activated for long periods of time, causes back pain, sciatica, tight shoulders and tension headaches.

In Lesson One (Green Light lesson) for Landau Reaction, he showed us how to coach our client through a Whole-body yawn (pandicular maneuver), beginning with a lifting action of one leg and its opposite shoulder, arm and hand, and head, as in the video, below -- to lower them by stages in steps of relaxation, with a mini-in-breath with each mini-lift . . . . . before lowering some more.

First, the video, so you know for sure the maneuver to which I refer.

I have found that "staged" or "stepped" relaxation can be made more powerful by a technique that I have named, "The Diamond Penetration" maneuver. The reason I have named it The Diamond Penetration maneuver will become clear to you once you start doing it. For now, I say that it makes use of The Power of Recognition, as I have described it in the linked article, "Attention is a Catalyst", to amplify the effectiveness of pandiculation, or any other therapeutic or educational technique, for that matter. Assisted Pandiculation is accelerated learning, and learning involves recognition and development, based upon memory. Memory, learning, recognition, function and development are five development stages of a single function. There's one more.

Memory -- the ground function, memory -- persistence of pattern, memory
Learning -- modification of the ground function into a durable pattern of memory
Recognition -- the closely approximate match of some memory with an experience happening now
Function -- initiation of action, memory activated and applied to this moment
Integration -- facility to move freely and functionally among different remembered patterns
Evolution -- expansion of attention beyond both memory and the moment -- the space of emergence of newness, for patterns newly emerging into the moment, to be remembered into existence.

Take the starting initials of each, and you get MLRFIE! Well, that's as far as we'll go with that one, folks -- at least for now. We'll come back to that strange, unpronounceable acronym, later (or not).

In his demonstrations to us, Thomas Hanna had the person on the table lower the leg part way, then lift a bit, then lower some more, repeating by stages, to complete rest. He even commented that that same maneuver was what Joe Montana did, spontaneously, after his back surgery and commented ruefully about to what the rapid improvement was attributed -- namely, surgery and physical therapy!

Here's the "inside" of that maneuver: The lifting action produces a sensation. By re-lifting after lowering part way, the client re-locates the sensation of lifting (contracting the muscles of lifting the leg). To re-locate the sensation activates the power of recognition, which is central to all learning. (No recognition -- no learning.)

That's the central principle of The Diamond Penetration Technique.

Here are the advantages of using The Diamond Penetration Technique. It:

rapidly penetrates Sensory-Motor Amnesia
rapidly awakens sensory awareness and motor control that has never been awake, before (penetrates Sensory-Motor Obliviousness)
speeds integration of multiple "movement elements" into a single coordinated action
increases the result of a single pandiculation -- relaxation and control
decreases the number of repetitions needed for pandiculation to get the desired result
shortens the time needed to get a good result from a somatic exercise lesson

Obviously, these benefits are interrelated and just a tiny bit useful when working to transform yourself.

I have elaborated that principle into a very powerful technique that merits the name, "Diamond Penetration". Very powerful. Clinical practitioners can apply this technique to assisted pandiculation maneuvers; clients can apply it to somatic exercises, and to free-form pandiculations you may do when working out pains or restrictions for which no somatic exercise currently exists.

I have developed several increasingly powerful variations of The Diamond Penetration Technique, which I outline, here.

"The Quick Return"
"The Quick Return and Sustained Hold"
"The Two-Movement-Element Combination"
"Twos and Threes"
"The Diamond Pattern"
"The Multi-Movement-Element Combination Sequence"

As you can see, these variations increase in complexity. The way to learn them is to do them, not to memorize them as instructions.

Now the instruction. I'm going to spread things out in detail, so stay with me.

The Quick Return
Repetition is basic to recognition.

In The Quick Return, we contract into movement and feel the sensation of the end-point of movement ("where we end up in the movement"), then relax part-way for an instant, then re-contract and re-locate the exact same sensation.

Contract and feel what's tight.
Relax part-way.
Re-contract to feel the exact same thing.

That's a Quick Return. It activates The Power of Recognition (familiarity). We might call each repetition "a pulse of sensation."
An example from Lesson One could be,

"Lie on your belly, head turned, with your thumb in front of your nose, your hand flat on the surface. Lift your elbow to the limit. Feel what that feels like in your neck and shoulder.
Now lower it a bit, and immediately lift again. Find the exact same sensation at the same place. That's called, 'a Quick Return'. Remember that for use, as we go along."

"Mini Quick Returns"
During the relaxation phase of pandiculation, you can do "mini" Quick Returns on the way to complete relaxation.

PRINCIPLE
It takes two incidents or occasions to activate memory; prior to that, it's just sensory awareness or cognition -- no recognition. In fact, without recognition, something happening is identical to nothing happening; we don't know what it is, other than that it's "something but we don't really know what", which makes the experience somewhat evanescent.

Now, the thing that makes one occurrence different from two occurrences of the same thing is the contrast between "happening" and "not happening". "Not happening" has to separate the two occurrences. That's the principle, "Somas perceive by contrast," or "Somas can perceive only changes." In somatic education practice, the common contrast is between activity and rest -- which is why I instruct clients, "Come to complete rest between repetitions." Without "not happening", there's only one long incident.

The Quick Return and Sustained Hold
We know that for a sensation to emerge, and for attention to steady on a sensation, takes time. Quick things escape our noticing.

So, after the Quick Return, we sustain the action ("sustained hold") to let it "fade into view". Attention steadies in and on the sensation. The sensation becomes more vivid.

To apply a sustained hold, you do a series of Quick Returns (however many) then hold the final Quick Return; during that holding time, remember the pattern and timing of the Quick Returns that got you there, i.e., brought you into this holding pattern. Then, you slowly relax, taking time at least equal in length to the memory . . . . . or longer . . . . to complete relaxation.

Thus, you

first sense and do the movement, and hold, then
remember the movement while holding its pattern, then
back out (ease out) of the movement slowly and deliberately to complete rest.

You come to know the beginning of the movement, its middle, and its end -- initiating it, sustaining it, and letting it go.

How useful do you think that might be for learning to occur?

The instruction would be:

"Do a Quick Return and hold. Now, slowly relax."

PRINCIPLE
Experience takes time.

Sustain the hold for the total amount of time it took to do all the Quick Returns. For two Quick Returns (three movements into position), sustain the hold for a "count" of three -- equal to the time it took to contract and then do two Quick Returns -- then relax during a count of three. (That doesn't mean, "Relax and then count to three." It means, "Take a count of three to go from contracted to relaxed.")

Comparing Memory to Action
Integrating the flesh-body and the subtle-body (mind).

Having done a Quick Return and Hold, you now remember the sensation of movement and then do the movement, again, to compare it to the memory. Are they the same?

You might then repeat the movement and compare to memory until the movement and the memory closely match.

PRINCIPLE
Memory is the root of action.

The Two-Movement-Element Combination
Coordination develops when we combine two actions ("movement elements") into one.

In the Green Light lesson, we lift the elbow-hand-head-shoulder with the opposite-side leg, as in the video. Those are the two movement elements.

Using the Quick Return, the instruction could be:

"With your hand flat on the surface, lift your elbow to the limit. Now do a Quick Return (relaxes and re-contracts) and hold.
Now, lift your straight leg. Now lower it a bit, and do a Quick Return.
Now, do a Quick Return of both, together." (combination Quick Return)

When doing the Quick Return of both, together, the movements should be synchronized to start and end together. That develops coordination (integration).

HIGHER INTEGRATION
I have discovered another kind of "three" that rapidly integrates two movement elements. It goes beyond The Equalization Technique.

It goes like this.

Do a Quick Return of the first movement element and hold.
Do a Quick Return of the second movement element and hold.

Both movement elements are now active. Now, integrate them with each other in a three-part maneuver:

Pulse the first movement element to firm up the second movement element.

You'll feel it. If you don't feel it, you've partially lost the second movement element. Bring it back and pulse the first movement element, again, until you feel it make the second movement element stronger.
Pulse the second movement element to firm up the first movement element.
Pulse the first movement element to firm up the second movement element.

You've now forged a better connection between the two movement elements. That's the other kind of "three" maneuver, an integration maneuver.

You can use this "three" maneuver with any two synergistic movements of any somatic exercise ("synergistic" means that the two movements help each other).

Twos and Threes
Now, we get a bit more sophisticated.

Once you or a client have done a combination Quick Return, you're in a position to do two Quick Returns. That makes for, not two quick experiences of the same thing, but three.

If that's confusing, lie on your belly with your thumb by your nose and do two Quick Returns. You'll see it creates the same sensation three times. Just do it.

Here's the thing: If, with a single movement, you alternate between one Quick Return (to complete relaxation) and two Quick Returns, you alternate creating two experiences of a sensation with creating three experiences. That's a contrast, in itself.

When done as a combination Quick Return, it's a very powerful way of creating learning that I have found causes a series of internal shifts of sensory-motor organization.

The instruction could be:

Lift your elbow. Now do a Quick Return and hold.
Lift your leg. Now do a Quick Return and hold.
(two movements at the same time)
Now, do two combination Quick Returns (a "three"). Relax completely.
Now, do one combination Quick Return (a "two"). Relax completely.
Alternate doing two and doing one. Continue until you get better coordinated.

PRINCIPLE
Changes of patterns awaken the Power of Recognition and trigger learning.

The Diamond Pattern
Here's a "diamond" pattern:

< . > < . . > < . . . > < . . . . > < . . . > < . . > < . >

1 2 3 4 3 2 1

. . .

. . . .

. . .

The instruction could be:

Do (some action, such as lifting the elbow) and hold. Now, relax completely.
Do one Quick Return (2 experiences of a sensation) and hold. Now, relax completely.
Now, do two Quick Returns (3 experiences of a sensation) and hold. Now, relax completely.
Now, do three Quick Returns (4 experiences of a sensation) and hold. Now, relax completely.
Now, do two Quick Returns (3 experiences of a sensation) and hold. Now, relax completely.
Now, do one Quick Return (2 experiences of the sensation) and hold. Now, relax completely.
Now, do the action without a Quick Return (1 experience of the sensation). Hold before relaxing to complete rest.

The experience "backs a person out of contraction" and gets them able to feel more and more with less and less stimulation.
To see the value, try it with any movement or combination.

PRINCIPLE
Bucky Fuller pointed out that four incidents or occasions of an event were the minimum needed to recognize a stable pattern.

It goes like this:
one incident or occasion:
internal experience: "Something has happened."
(capture of attention)

two incidents or occasions of the same thing:
internal experience: "This seems familiar."
(recognition)

three incidents or occasions of the same thing:
internal experience: "There seems to be consistency."
(building upon recognition - "There is something to learn, here")

four or more incidents or occasions of the same thing:
internal experience: "There's a consistent pattern, here."
(development of knowledge)

Test this out in yourself through introspection.

APPLICATION
The Diamond Penetration Technique can be applied to single movements, to simpler somatic exercise lessons (e.g., those of "The Cat Stretch" or "The New Seated Refreshment Exercises"), to more complex somatic exercises that involve as many as seven movement elements in combination (e.g., "Free Yourself from Back Pain" or "The Five-Pointed Star"), or to inherent action patterns such as those of walking ("SuperWalking"), twisting, or wriggling.

This technique lends itself to The Equalization Technique, discussed in The Evolution of Clinical Somatic Education Techniques. In a combination Quick Return, match (by feel) the effort of one movement to the effort of the others; equalize them. Read the article.

The Multi-Movement-Element Combination Sequence
In general, it goes like this:

Do a Quick Return of the first movement element, and hold.
Do a Quick Return of the second movement element, and hold.
Do two combination Quick Returns of the two movement elements, and hold.
Do a Quick Return of the third movement element.
Do two combination Quick Returns of the three movement elements (with Equalization Technique).
Do a Quick Return of the fourth movement element (if there is one).
Do two combination Quick Returns of the four movement elements (with Equalization Technique).
Keep adding movement elements that fit together (synergistically) until they are all assembled into one Grand Coordinated Movement.

You can do Mini-Quick-Returns with the entire movement pattern, through the relaxation phase to complete rest.

Calibrating Memory (Subtle Body) to Sensation (Dense Physical Body)
Having done any of the variations, above, you can end a sequence by alternating a single quick return with a moment of rest (or a moment of holding the contraction), during which you remember (or imagine) and compare what you just felt with what you remembered.

You alternate a single quick return with remembering/imagining until your memory matches the experience very closely.

Then, you do a final contraction, hold and remember, then relax very, very slowly.

When the memory matches the experience, you have integrated your subtle and dense physical bodies. Relaxing at that point enables you to come out of contraction much more completely than otherwise.

PRINCIPLE
We perceive by means of contrast; we correct things by making a comparison. We gain control by means of the memory of action combined with the memory of sensation.

SUMMARY

Each pulse of movement creates a sensation that you locate as your "target" for Quick Return.
In each repetition of a pulse, you locate the identical sensation in the identical location.
In combination Quick Returns, you locate the identical feeling of the whole movement each time you do the combination movement.
Each pattern of repetitions (2's, 3's, "diamond pattern") magnifies the Power of Recognition.

I know this is complex. That's why you start simply, at the beginning. Internalize each level of complexity until you have it all under your belt.

Then, teach your clients to their capacity, but not beyond. If they "lose it", coach them until they've mastered what you've covered, before going further.

COPYRIGHT 2011 Lawrence Gold ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
reproduction by permission, only

Education is More Than 'Learning New Things'

2010-12-07T11:51:00.000-08:00

People confuse teaching or training with education. The difference accounts for the deficiencies of public (and private) education and for the potential of somatic education.

Teaching and training involve learning new things about the world or new things to do.

Education is more fundamental than that kind of learning. The root of the word, education, "e ducare", reveals something. Those two words mean "to draw out". What is being drawn out?

Etymology of the Latin word educare
the Latin word educare (bring up; train; educate)
derived from the Latin word educere (lead out; draw up; bring up)
derived from the Latin word ducere (to lead; to lead or draw; to lead, dim; to lead, carry; lead, command; think)
derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *deuk- (to lead)
using the Late Latin prefix e-

What is being drawn out are ones faculties. Education is the awakening of our faculties. By faculties, I mean basic functions. Examples:

attention management
dedication and regulation of effort (intention) -- to act or to refrain from acting (rest)
the ability to listen
the ability to learn deliberately
the ability to deliver communications
the ability to teach
the ability to internalize ideas (primitively expressed as the ability to follow instructions)
the ability to turn ideas into functional, tangible actualities
discernment

Notice that these faculties exist independently of subject matter. They are generalizable.

Education (as the awakening of ones basic faculties, not as "learning new things") makes people teachable, able to teach themselves, and able to function at any level of excellence they wish. Without education, people are hard to teach/train, and those who receive training either (one or more):

don't learn well
can't follow instructions
are incapable of developing beyond their training
are incapable of adapting what they've learned to new situations
can't pass on what they've learned to others
can't instruct others well
can't tell whether an action adequately embodies an idea
are knowledgeable incompetents (can talk the talk, but not walk the talk)

Sound familiar?

In public education, common curricula include

history (faculty: memorization)
math (faculty: abstract reasoning)
science (faculty: correlating ideas (theory) with actualities (observable evidence); cause-effect reasoning)
the arts (faculty: the ability to turn internal perceptions into tangible actualities; aesthetic sense)
languages: (faculty: the ability to use language well; the ability to get to the heart of things and to convey intentions clearly and economically in words)
literature (faculty: the ability to assume viewpoints other than ones own; listening/comprehending and speaking/writing)
physical education (faculty: the ability actually to do what you intend to do or to recognize when you have not done so -- accountability -- and a better-awakened mind-body connection)
education in general (faculty: developing freedom through developing responsibility for ones own faculties)

However, education, in general, has become confused with teaching/training, which is heavily memorization-intensive -- memorizing being only one faculty -- and the faculties awakened by non-memorization subjects are missed in favor of the subject matter, itself, which is only the vehicle for awaking those faculties. It's somehow hoped that the faculty relevant to the subject matter will awaken via efforts of study, but few teachers make a direct effort to awaken the relevant faculty.

Unless educators recognize that the subjects they teach are merely vehicles for awakening a person's faculties (actually, for a person to awaken his or her own faculties, which is the only way it can be done), such people are not educators, but merely teachers. And the inadequacy of public education can be traced to the confusion between education and teaching/training.

A person in whom the faculties named above are well-developed can more easily be taught (or self-teach) and functions better than one in whom those faculties are only rudimentarily developed.

Most basically, education involves physiological changes in the individual (and I mean physiological, not psychological) -- inevitably so because it is via the body that (s)he carries out his or her ideas, and the skill with which (s)he does so depends upon the ability to make fine distinctions and carry out refined actions.

Most basically, the physiological changes that occur, occur at the (sensory-motor) level -- sensation and movement. We can easily see that fact in the earliest years of school, when students are expected to develop their movement skills (P.E. and writing); just as moving ones lips when one reads indicates ("sub-vocalization") that the mental act of reading activates muscular activity, just as rapid eye movements during sleep correspond to dreaming activity, just so, all thinking involves a play of subtle modifications of muscular tensions, and the ability to think depends upon the adequate awakening and integration of those movements.

To make this point, let me illustrate in a way that you can test for yourself. I say that you can't count to ten in your mind any faster than you can count to ten out loud. That means thinking each number as clearly as you would say it.

Test yourself, now. Do it.

See?

Much is made of the mind, these days, while the body is treated as if it were nothing but meat to strengthened and stretched, or enjoyed and suffered.

Big mistake.

The body is fundamental, even to abstract thought.

Most people develop only relatively crude movement skills and crude perceptual skills and are of average intelligence. Artists develop fine movement skills and fine perceptual skills and, lo and behold, artists are generally of higher intelligence.

I'm not saying that higher intelligence leads to finer movement skills. I'm saying the reverse: developing finer movement skills and finer perceptual skills raises intelligence. Well-coordinated movement supports well-organized thinking; poorly coordinated movement suggests poorly organized thinking. And the kicker: improving coordination (refining movement) improves thinking.

That's something for you to test. Here's how.

The field of somatic education (here, the word, education, is used properly) develops finer movement skills and finer perceptual skills, faculties that involve changes of brain organization. The process of somatic education develops the faculties of paying attention, listening and internalizing information, acting with intention, cause-effect reasoning, discernment, aesthetics, and memorization.

Read the following article, "An Expanded Understanding of The Three Reflexes of Stress" (or listen to the audio), and then test my words. Send for the somatic exercise sampler (free) and notice the changes the exercises put you through. Since a developmental process is involved, the changes are cumulative. Still, by doing the exercises some mornings and seeing how you function during the day, and then by not doing the exercises some mornings and seeing how you function during the day, you'll discern the effect of somatic exercises on your overall functioning.

That will be a hint about something bigger.

VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9pxT32uh2w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bReYpZs46nc

Psoas Muscles | Core Integration | The Dolphin, Part II

2010-09-17T09:57:00.000-07:00

Psoas Muscles | Core Integration | Free Somatic Exercise: The Dolphin, Part I

2010-09-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

The Magnetic Walk

2010-09-12T13:15:00.000-07:00

The four people who attended my most recent offering, "Trauma Lesson Calibration and Pandiculation Extravaganza", as I came to think of it, saw demonstrated and then learned and practiced a walking pattern I call, The Magnetic Walk.

This movement pattern efficiently recycles kinetic energy (movement) through the body in a rhythmic way that increases walking speed for the same amount of walking effort -- or -- that reduces effort while maintaining speed -- or somewhere in between.

They learned the first emergent pattern of that walk in a four-step, cyclical process:

See.
Prepare.
Do.
Refine.

That first emergent pattern ("iteration" -- as in creating a new 'it') involves arm movements (while walking ) of a stylized kind that keep the palms of the hands facing the hip joints in a swiveling action, whether the arms are swinging forward or backward. Try it; you'll understand.

That action pattern, when arms are swinging in walking, produces a sensation in the hands and arms of containing a ball of force -- which is, of course an outward inertial (anti-centripetal, or anti-"gravitational" (mind the " ")) force contained in a dynamic moving pattern. Don't think about it.

Now, there are three iterations, maybe more, that come after this one.

Here's the first:
bouncing that 'ball of force' forward and backward in the palms of the hands with each step

See what I mean about "iterations"?

Another is
exploring the Magnetic Walk at different speeds

There's something to be discovered, there.

And there are more -- but I think that's quite enough to chew on, for now.

Lawrence

PS: Oh, here's an afterthought ..... just a little happenstance one. Listen: We can use the Magnetic Walk, when combined with the Scotsman's walk, to re-set our idling speed and to tune up our walking movements, whole-bodily.

Just in case you don't know what I mean by, 'idling speed', the higher the idling speed, the higher the tension level overall in that individual -- also known as "stress level", "being somewhat wound up", you know, "all over the place"... and the ever recommended and approved of, "toned."

We can use the Magnetic Walk, when combined with the Scotsman's walk, to learn to re-set our idling speed so that we can explore and find the "idling speed" and/or "tone" we like best.

The "tuning up your walking, whole-bodily" part is something for which you need satisfactory experience with the Magnetic Walk in order to understand discussion.

PPS: I wrote this message for Hanna somatic educator colleagues.

If you are not a Hanna somatic educator, these words: To do the magnetic walk, you must already be free and well-coordinated enough to set up a movement rhythm in yourself; stiff places and pains interfere, so some somatic education so you can get yourself free may be "helpful".

Freeing Tight Hamstrings

2010-08-18T09:01:00.000-07:00

To free tight hamstrings, it's important to understand their four movement functions.

leg extension at the hip joint
leg flexion at the knee
rotation of the lower leg at the knee joint
stabilization of the pelvis when bending forward

To free hamstrings, we must free them (gain control of tension and relaxation) in all four movement functions.

If we do not gain (or improve) control in all four movement functions, one or more of those movement habits will dominate control of the other movement(s).

In addition, the hamstrings of one leg work alternately with those of the other -- as in walking; when the hamstrings of one leg are bending or stabilizing the knee, the hamstrings of the other leg are extending or stabilizing the other leg at the hip. In those movements, the hamstrings coordinate with the hip flexors and psoas muscles. (Co-contraction of hamstrings and hip flexors/psoas muscles leads to hip joint and ilio-sacral (SI) joint compression.) So our approach (being movement-based) must take those relationships into account. Otherwise, we never develop the feeling of free hamstrings in their familiar movements.

LEG EXTENSION AT THE HIP JOINT
That's the "leg backward" movement of walking. The hamstrings are aided by the gluteal (butt) muscles, but only in a stabilizing capacity. The major work is done by the hamstrings. In this movement, the hamstrings, inner and outer, work together in tandem.

LEG FLEXION AT THE KNEE JOINT
That's the "getting ready to kick" movement and also the "pawing the ground" movement. In these movements, the hamstrings, inner and outer, also work together in tandem (same movement).

To the anatomist and kinesiologist, it may seem incomprehensible ("paradoxical") that the hamstrings are involved in both movements -- leg forward and leg backward -- but that's how it is. Though the hamstrings are involved in both cases, different movements cause a different feel.

LOWER LEG ROTATION AT THE KNEE
That's the turning movement used in skating and in turning a corner. In this movement, the inner hamstrings (semi-membranosis and semi-tendinosis) relax and lengthen as the outer hamstring (biceps femoris) tighten to turn toes-out and the inner hamstrings tighten to turn toes-in as the outer hamstring relaxes and lengthens.

STABILIZATION OF THE PELVIS WHEN BENDING FORWARD
The hamstrings anchor the pelvis at the sitbones (ischial tuberosities) deep to the 'smile' creases beneath the buttocks (not the crack), so one can bend forward in a controlled way, instead of flopping forward at the hips like a marionette. In this movement, the hamstrings coordinate with the front belly muscles (rectus abdominis).

In most people, either the rectus or hamstrings dominates the other in a chronic state of excessive tension, so freeing and coordinating the hamstrings involves coordinating and matching the efforts of the two muscle groups. When the hamstrings dominate, we see swayback; when the rectus muscles dominate, we see flat ribs.

TRAINING HAMSTRING CONTROL
In training hamstring control, it's convenient to start with the less complicated movement, first. That's the anchoring movement that stabilizes bowing in a standing position. To see an exercise that cultivates hamstring control this way, click here.

After we cultivate control of "in tandem" hamstring movements, we cultivate control of "alternating" hamstring movements. To see an exercise that cultivates hamstring control this way, click here. (That link opens an email window to request a preview of The Magic of Somatics, an instructional book of somatic exercises. The preview contains the somatic exercise we are discussing.)

By cultivating control of "in tandem" and "alternating" movements, we fulfill the requirements of functions (1.), (2.), and (4.). The exercise linked in the paragraph above indirectly addresses function (3.) (lower leg rotation at the knee). Other exercises that have this effect exist in the somatic exercise programs, "The Cat Stretch" and "Free Your Psoas", for which previews exist through the preceding links.

Manual manipulation vs. neuromuscular training

2010-07-16T10:22:00.001-07:00

A basic understanding of muscle tone recognizes that the seat of control of muscles and movement is not muscles, but the brain, not "muscle memory" but "movement memory", not "posture" but habitual or learned movement patterns.

Lasting changes in muscle tone require movement training at the neurological (i.e., brain) level, something that manual manipulation of muscles accomplishes, at best, slowly, but which can be achieve quickly by somatic education, a discipline that rapidly alters habitual posture, movement, and muscle tone through an internal learning process.

More at http://somatics.com/movement.htm and http://somatics.com/stretch.htm along with clinical applications.

in reference to: What is Neuromuscular Therapy? (view on Google Sidewiki)

Trigger Point Therapy

2010-07-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

This writing will interest you if

You've had unsuccessful trigger point therapy.
You have chronic muscle tension.
You have mysterious pains that defy diagnosis.

The "new and entirely different" approach I describe here can dissolve trigger points permanently in minutes, restore your comfort of movement, and make you independent of therapy and therapists.

In this piece, I'll explain what causes trigger points, discuss the common therapeutic approaches used to eradicate trigger points, and present a newly available approach to trigger points that works quickly and decisively where other methods produce slow, partial, or temporary improvements. Then, I'll show where you can get access to the newly available approach.

TRIGGER POINTS EXPLAINED

Trigger points are pressure points in muscles that are very tight and sufficiently sore to to trigger tension and pain in other muscles linked to them in patterns of coordination. That's what makes them "trigger" points. "Patterns of coordination" means complex movements (e.g., walking) that involve multiple muscles. Simple enough?

The term, "trigger point", was coined by Dr. Janet Travell (physician to President John F. Kennedy, who had chronic back pain from an injury sustained during wartime on the boat, PT-109). Dr. Travell did a masterful job of mapping out the relation of these points to pain felt at distant points in the body. However, only in the past twenty years has a clinical approach been available that equalled Dr. Travells insights, and that approach has yet to become mainstream.

TECHNIQUES FOR ERADICATING TRIGGER POINTS
The common techniques for eradicating trigger points are based upon a mechanical view of the body and of muscles. Muscles with trigger points are considered by therapists to be "stuck" and certain common therapeutic techniques used are said to "break" trigger points, generally by working on the muscles or trigger points, themselves.

This approach to trigger points fails to apply the basic facts of muscular control -- that the center of control of muscle tension (tone) is the brain (not muscles, themselves) -- and that muscle tone is learned and alterable by experience, and that once learned, becomes so automatic that it may seem to be permanently set. However, it's understandable since, until relatively recently, no effective way existed to apply neurophysiological knowledge about muscular function to a therapeutic approach, and all that was available were more primitive approaches based upon massage techniques and drug therapy.

Common therapeutic approaches to trigger points operate as if the source of muscular tension is the muscle, itself; therapeutic approaches based on this view produce poor and unreliable therapeutic outcomes that lead to the need for repeated therapeutic interventions.

Here's the correct understanding of trigger points: they are pressure points in habitually tight muscles -- caused to be tight by brain-conditioning (generally from injury or stress). Trigger points are caused by brain conditioning, not by muscles, themselves. So, muscles are not "stuck", but responding actively and in the moment to what the brain is telling them to do; trigger points do not exist as a result of mechanical stuckness of muscles; they exist as habitual states of muscular overactivity.

A therapeutic approach based upon this understanding acts not upon the muscles, themselves, but upon the brain-level conditioning that causes chronic muscle tension and trigger points. Such an approach produces decisively reliable results that typically do not require repeating.

Let's review the common therapeutic approaches to trigger points.

Therapeutic attempts to eradicate trigger points take two approaches:

mechanical pressure
injections of salt water (saline solution)

MECHANICAL PRESSURE
Therapists using the "mechanically stuck" model attempt to get trigger points to release by applying manual pressure to trigger points. The idea is to deprive "triggered" muscles of blood flow, and by so doing, to get the muscles to a state of fatigue, so they let go and lose their trigger points.

Such an approach produces a temporary disappearance of a trigger point. The trigger point re-appears soon thereafter (much as with ordinary massage) because no change of brain level conditioning has occurred. (The one advantage of "trigger point therapy" over massage is the recognition of the relation between trigger points and pain at a distance from them.)

SALINE (SALT) SOLUTION INJECTIONS
Injections of this type produce heightened sensation in the involved muscles, which sends a signal to the brain that the muscle is more contracted than it really is. The brain, which regulates muscle tension "by feel" (sensation), allows muscle tension to decrease to the level or intensity of sensation to which the brain has become accustomed. At this lower level of tension, trigger points disappear.

For obvious reasons, the results of this approach are also temporary.

Both methods (manual pressure and injections) treat the muscle as the problem and the trigger point as the target of therapy; both overlook the fact that, since the basic function of muscles is to produce movement, a change of how the brain regulates movement is necessary to change how the brain regulates muscle tension.

The answer to trigger points may be an unexpected one, but it's obvious from a moment of consideration: movement education. Movement education teaches regulation of muscle tone (tension) and of coordination.

However, most methods of movement education are primitive and inadequate to decrease the conditioned level of muscle tone. A more sophisticated approach is needed.

That's where somatic education comes in.

WHAT'S "SOMATIC"? WHY "EDUCATION"?
The term, "somatic", derived from the Greek word, "soma" -- meaning "living body" -- means having to do with the living body, as experienced and controlled from within -- your experience of yourself, as you are to yourself.

"Education" means, "the process of developing our faculties or abilities".

So, "somatic education" means the process of developing our faculties as a living, self-aware embodied person.

Its special meaning, in the context of the discipline of clinical somatic education, has to do with gaining control of our own living processes, those otherwise treated with medicine or therapy.

The meaning of "somatic education" is different from a doctor or therapist "working upon" another or administering some treatment such as a drug, electrical stimulation, or injection, which are the methods of medicine and therapy.

Where trigger points are concerned, somatic education brings about improved self-control or self-regulation of our muscular system and movements. The practical outcome is alleviation of condition muscular contractions that create trigger points to begin with, through gaining better control of our faculties of strength and movement.

THE TECHNIQUE
We learn control of muscles and movement, starting with learning to crawl and creep, stand and walk.

The techniques of somatic education make use of this natural process of learning and to it, add techniques powerful enough to override and replace conditioning that keeps muscles tight and creates trigger points. The process occurs far more quickly than the natural learning processes of movement -- and than the therapeutic approaches commonly applied to trigger points.

One of the major techniques involves an action pattern similar to yawning, but applied to varieties of movement and coordination. In the clinical techniques, a lasting shift of muscular control and relaxation of muscular tensions occurs in less than one minute, for any movement pattern addressed. A few repetitions over a period of minutes can restore highly contracted muscles to comfortable, natural rest, comfort, and full strength without the usual methods of manual manipulation, injections, stretching or strengthening -- and the changes are durable and long lasting.

Examples of the clinical techniques can be found on YouTube.com, channel "Lawrence9Gold"; a specific example, used to alleviate back pain, can be seen here.

ACCESS TO SOMATIC EDUCATION -- INFORMATION | PRACTITIONERS | PROGRAMS

You can find access to articles on specific conditions involving trigger points here, practitioners here, and self-help/self-care programs here.

From here, nothing remains to be said, except, "The proof of the pudding is in the eating."

True and False Teachings about Good Posture

2010-05-25T09:24:00.000-07:00

While "good posture" is considered a sign of good movement health, there are true and false teachings about how to achieve it.

The popular view of good posture is that it is something you have to maintain; it's a "good" holding pattern. The concepts, "neutral spine position" and "alignment", fall into this category. "Shoulders back, chest up, stomach in" are typical instructions for maintaining good posture.

The popular view and the typical instructions I have described constitutes a false teaching about good posture -- and by false, I mean detrimental.

Here's why: It adds strain to an already strained muscular system and unnaturally restrains movement.

The common teaching about good posture assumes that good posture is not the natural or free condition and that one must therefore do something to maintain it. This view may seem reasonable and inevitable; "If you don't do something to maintain good posture, you're left with the poor posture you had, already."

But an unrecognized truth underlies this assumption: Most people are beset by habitual muscular tension patterns that drag them down from good posture, tension patterns of which they are unaware because they are so used to them, tension patterns formed at the time of injuries or of emotional stress (i.e., nervous tension).

In actuality, good posture is the easiest condition to maintain -- if you are free of habitual tension patterns. If not, then you must do something to counteract those tension patterns, to restore good posture. That's the condition most people are in.

This assertion may be hard to accept until you have experienced the reality of what happens when you get free of your habitual tension state.

Massage and bodywork typically seek to alleviate habitual tension, but with rare exception, they do not alter a person's postural set because to do so would require a second step: to develop better coordination.

Coordination is the basis of good movement, good posture, good alignment.

Posture, viewed another way, results from moving into a certain shape and holding it. It's a function of movement.

Most movements are developed by learning. So is posture.

The difference is that injuries and stress change movement patterns in lasting ways that are commonly beyond the ability of people to change; these movement patterns persist on automatic. That's why teachings about posture recommend counter-actions to those movement patterns.

So, what's the answer? Are we forever destined to poor and worsening posture as we grow older?

The answer is, no. But what is needed is a way to undo habitual muscular tensions formed by injuries and stress, not to counteract them (either through "good posture" disciplines or through strengthening of muscles).

Such a way exists. The discipline of clinical somatic education teaches and employs exactly such a way.

All animals with a backbone do a certain action instinctually upon arising from rest, as they become active. This action, commonly mistaken for stretching, involves a strong muscular contraction followed by a leisurely relaxation; different animals have different patterns, but all do it in some form. This action pattern called, "pandiculation", refreshes the brain's body image and purges accumulated tension. Birds do it by shrugging their wings back, reaching their legs back, one at a time, and then flapping their wings; cats and dogs do it by first bowing, arching their back, and then shaking. Humans do it in the natural "yawn and morning stretch" (different in performance from the calf or hamstring stretches athletes do).

Clinical somatic education uses techniques that activate this genetically-present action behavior methodically and in a magnified way to free people from the grip of tension patterns formed by injury and stress. In the case of clinical somatic education, we apply the contraction/relaxation behavior to places where the person holds tension; with injuries and stress, these tensions always exist in patterns, so it's not a matter of "releasing muscles", but of releasing entire patterns of tension. The result is a lasting release of muscular tension. Then, we teach movement patterns that link muscle groups together in certain inherently well-organized patterns of coordination, to replace less well-organized pathological patterns. It's a lower-effort, easier, more efficient condition of living.

No longer is the person dragged down from good posture by habitual muscular tension. (S)he is free to stand and move at her or his full stature and in the easy balance that free and well-coordinated movement permits.

The results of pandiculation distinguish the good posture of freedom from tension from the 'good posture' maintained by pitting one muscle group (used to maintain good posture) from other muscle groups (held tight by the lingering effects of injury and stress).

Easy balance is the natural state, whether at rest or in movement. Good posture isn't something you maintain; it's nearly effortless, the product of good balance and good coordination.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Read a research article on pandiculation.

To see and hear how we apply pandiculation to back trouble, view Back Exercises for Lower Back Pain. See other examples of pandiculation instruction in the somatic exercises shown on YouTube channel "Lawrence9Gold".

Read articles on movement health conditions, such as sciatica, stress conditions, such as headaches, and on postural distortions, such as unequal leg length, at Somatics on the Web

Core Exercises -- What is Core?

2010-05-14T13:59:00.000-07:00

A common misconception exists about core exercises or core workouts -- even, or particularly, among some athletic trainers. The misunderstanding of which I speak is, "What is 'core'?"

Commonly the muscles of the abdominal wall are considered, "core". This is incorrect. Those muscles are surface, the way the skin of an apple is surface to the apple core.

The core muscles are the deepest muscles; they lie closest to the bone (or body center) and exert the greatest control of balance and coordination. Among them, the psoas muscles, the quadratus lumborum, the diaphragm, in the the trunk, and the scalene muscles of the neck and the muscles of swallowing in the throat, as examples -- all of which affect spinal alignment, and thereby, balance. Strength is not their primary contribution, and so the notion of "core strengthening" is inherently misguided.

What is sought through core strengthening is usually stability, but stability doesn't come from strength; it comes from balance.

Balance is a consequence of close coordination between opposing muscles and between muscles and their synergists (helpers).

When a person gets musclebound, as often happens in physical conditioning programs and in cases of injury, close coordination gets distorted, as one muscle or muscle group overpowers another.

Easy balance is impossible when one is in that condition; the person is inherently unstable and muscle tone must shift throughout the body to compensate for those imbalanced in a less-easy stability.

More than that, a person cannot strengthen what they cannot feel, and one can't feel the core if one muscle group overpowers the other. The core can be sensed only when muscles are closely coordinated in a condition of easy, dynamic balance.

Even if core strengthening exercises give equal attention to strengthening all muscles in the (supposed) core group, they don't necessarily give attention to both freeing musclebound muscles and developing balanced (i.e., equal) control/coordination of all of those muscles.

More than that, if muscles of the peripheries of the body, e.g., legs, arms, neck, are musclebound or poorly coordinated, they cause unbalancing pulls from the peripheries of the body to the core. They cause instability that cannot be corrected by core strengthening; they can be corrected only by restoring suppleness and balance among opposing muscles and among muscular synergists (mutual helpers).

So, approaches at core conditioning must have the following two elements present:

alleviating musclebound conditioning
developing balanced coordination

That said, I'd like to point you to an example of a core conditioning program that does just that: called, "The Five-Pointed Star", one of a number of programs people use to alleviate pain, to recover from injury, and to cultivate balance and suppleness.

Another program that has garnered special interest concerns the psoas muscles, Free Your Psoas, also has that effect. Recognizing that the peripheries affect the core, this program presents a whole-body approach to freeing and integrating the psoas muscles.

Articles on psoas muscle functioning can be found at Somatics on the Web (somatics.com). Other core-workout programs can be found there, as well.

RELEVANT ENTRIES:

Psoas Muscles | Core Integration | Free Somatic Exercise: The Dolphin, Part I

Psoas Muscles | Core Integration | The Dolphin, Part II

Free Somatic Exercise: Loosening a Tight Neck...

2010-04-30T09:13:00.000-07:00

Therapeutics and Somatics

Big, Bad Government -- the Decoy of the Political Far-Right

Constipation of the Rich and Trickle-Down Theory

There is No Mind-Body Connection -- There is No Mind-Body Split

We Cannot Stop our Minds -- nor Need We

Back Spasms -- The Inside Story

Esoteric Somatics and Tibetan Buddhism

Intrinsic Action, Extrinsic Action and "The Controlling Moment"

Agency in Communion | Somatic Integration

Imagination

The Vibrant Mystery of "We"

More on The Pair of Complementary Walking Patterns

Shake Your Booooty!

Being and Doing

Hanna Somatic Education -- a look at the larger picture

PTSD -- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

The View from Inside The Big Bang (or The Big Flash)

On Deep Creativity

Somatic Spiritual (Evolutionary) Practice -- The Big Pandiculation

The Immortal Harold Somaman -- What Keeps Him Going?

Somatic Ethics

The Integration of Unevolved and Evolved Views of the Body

Patients, Patience, and Impatience

Religious Faces of Superman

Palpation -- One of a Somatic Educator's Essential Techniques

Understanding the Sacro-Iliac Joints, Relieving S-I Joint Pain

The Somatic Codes

Hypothesis on Developing Obesity

Calmly Energizing

Somatic Breathing Training to Reduce Stress

The Cat StretchSomatic Exercises to Reduce Neuromuscular Stressfree instructional somatic exercise video: to reduce Startle Reflex5 Movement Exercises to End TMJ Syndrome in about Two Weeks

Somatic Exercises to Reduce Neuromuscular Stress

free instructional somatic exercise video: to reduce Startle Reflex

5 Movement Exercises to End TMJ Syndrome in about Two Weeks

Hypermasculinity, Habituation, and the Apparent Spirit-Matter Split

Getting to Sleep and Life's Big Squeeze

The Varieties of Sensory-Motor Amnesia

Synergetic Somatic Exercises -- Integration

Racism is a Racist Term

Women's Cosmetics and Sexual Harassment (pronounced "har-ass-ment", not "harris-ment")

TMJ/TMD Treatments

Common Methods of Treatment

mouth guards / appliances / splints

neuromuscular dentistry

reshaping tooth surfacesmouth massage

Mouth Guards / Appliances / Splints

Neuromuscular Dentistry

Re-shaping Teeth

Mouth Muscle Massage

A New TMJ Therapeutic Approach

Common Causes of TMJ Syndrome/Bruxism

TMJ Syndrome TMD/Bruxism Symptoms

The Uplifting Feeling of an Erect Spine

An Advance of Somatic Education Technique | The Diamond Penetration Technique

Education is More Than 'Learning New Things'

Etymology of the Latin word educare

Psoas Muscles | Core Integration | The Dolphin, Part II

Psoas Muscles | Core Integration | Free Somatic Exercise: The Dolphin, Part I

The Magnetic Walk

Freeing Tight Hamstrings

Manual manipulation vs. neuromuscular training

Trigger Point Therapy

True and False Teachings about Good Posture

Core Exercises -- What is Core?

Psoas Muscles | Core Integration | Free Somatic Exercise: The Dolphin, Part I

Psoas Muscles | Core Integration | The Dolphin, Part II

Free Somatic Exercise: Loosening a Tight Neck...

The Cat Stretch
Somatic Exercises to Reduce Neuromuscular Stress

free instructional somatic exercise video:
to reduce Startle Reflex

5 Movement Exercises to End
TMJ Syndrome in about
Two Weeks

free instructional somatic exercise video:
to reduce Startle Reflex

5 Movement Exercises to End
TMJ Syndrome in about
Two Weeks

reshaping tooth surfaces

mouth massage