Somatic Intelligence: The Conversation Every Body Wants to Have with You [Paperback ed.] 1530985269, 9781530985265

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How to Release Each Major Muscle in Your Body in 5 Minutes or Less

by Suresha Hill, M.S., Ed.S., H.S.E., D.O.M.T.P. Volume 5 – Color Edition

Disclaimer Although these techniques and exercises are very gentle and meant to be done slowly taking every precaution into consideration when incorporating something new into your system, there may be acute or flared up chronic conditions that the movements or positions won’t work well for. It’s a good idea to double-check with your doctor, chiropractor, osteopath, or physical therapist if you have any doubt or concerns whether or not the suggestions will be appropriate for your body at this time. Somatic Education is not meant to replace medical supervision for serious conditions.

Interior Graphic Design by Jody Levitan Cover Design by Suresha Hill and Michigan Yang with Graphics Assistance by Michigan Yang

All Rights Reserved © 2015 No portion of this text, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in an electronic retrieval system,or transmitted in any form, by any means - electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the expressed, written permission of the author and publisher: One Sky Productions, P.O. Box 150954 San Rafael, CA 94915

Acknowledgments................................................................................ i Forward: Dr. Steve Sanet...................................................................iii Preface: Journey to the Senses....................................................... iv

Chapter 1................................................................2 Who Are You Talking To? Mechanoreceptor Proprioceptor System..............................2 Intrinsic Layers of Muscle Fibers...................................................4 Bone Constituents...........................................................................6 Bone Remodeling............................................................................ 7 The Structure of Long Bones........................................................9 Sensory-Motor Cortex.................................................................. 11 The Fight or Flight System...........................................................12 Glands and Hormones..................................................................13 The Endocrine System and Energy Centers.............................15 Consciousness: The Importance of Awareness......................18

Chapter 2............................................................. 20 Gathering Your Baseline The Effects of Sleep Positions.....................................................21 Assess Yourself............................................................................... 23 Body Planes.....................................................................................25 The Importance of Postural Adaptations................................. 26 Early Influences Upon Posture....................................................27 Posture and Health....................................................................... 29

Chapter 3 ............................................................ 30 Rebalancing Our Support Systems Releasing Forces in the Feet....................................................... 32 Techniques for Your Heel............................................................ 32 Techniques for Your Arch.............................................................33 Techniques for Your Instep..........................................................33 Integrating the Feet with Each Other....................................... 34 Integrating the Feet with the Legs.............................................35 Techniques to Release the Lower Legs and Thighs...............37 Releasing the Hamstrings, Knees, Tensor Fascia Latae and IT Band.................................................... 38 Techniques to Release the Quads............................................. 39

Chapter 4..............................................................42 Releasing the Center of Gravity Releases for the Hips and Pelvis................................................ 43 Integrating the Pelvis with the Spine........................................ 45 Tuning in to the Anatomy of the Thorax.................................. 48 Integrating the Posterior Chain of Fascia................................ 49 Integrating the Frontal Plane with the Midline........................51 Integrating the Saggital Plane with the Midline.......................52 Integrating the Core with Multiple Planes................................55 Releases for the Arms, Neck, and Shoulders...........................57

Chapter 5..............................................................62 Resetting with Tiny Touches Steps to Using Tiny Touches to Reset the Hamstrings......... 64 Using Tiny Touches to Reorganize Posture............................ 65 Integrating Tiny Touches with Other Exercises....................67 Releasing the Hands.......................................................................... Releasing the Arms....................................................................... 68 Releasing the Knees..................................................................... 68 Releasing the Back ....................................................................... 69 Releasing the Spine...................................................................... 70 Tying it All Together.......................................................................7 1 Author/Dedication.........................................................................72

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acknowledgments Gratitude to my Grandfather, and to all my teachers and clients over the years who have contributed so greatly to this body of work that promises to offer tremendous potential in resetting balance and restoring freedom of motion in every body.

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Forward Dr. Steve Sanet, D.O

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am an atypical physician. I went to osteopathic medical school, which in the United States is identical to allopathic medical school with the addition of osteopathic philosophy and manipulation, but it is still medical school. We mostly learned about drugs and surgery and it is a rare osteopath, in the United States, who breaks free of the gravitational pull of traditional medicine. During my exposure to osteopathy I got drawn in by the manipulation side of medicine; healing people without drugs and treating surgery as a last resort. Suresha Hill is anything but typical. Her unique background in psychology meshed together with many non-traditional bodywork approaches gives her a vantage point of healing and understanding the body in disease and in health. Somatic Intelligence and Neurosomatic Integration are complex and avant-garde approaches that Suresha makes easy for the reader to understand. Understanding illness and the choices that are available for health is the difference between life and death today. We have a saying in medicine that “if your only tool is a hammer then everything you see looks like a nail.” For me, that describes the medical surgical approach to disease. It is not that I do not see the utility of the aforementioned, I do, but rather medicine is conditioned to look at only what is pushed by massively influential drug companies. For optimal health it is imperative that the patient open their eyes to other possibilities today. What Suresha has been working with and easily explains is nothing short of epiphany. It has been my greatest honor to know Suresha. For my part, she is a visionary and embodies the spirit of what caught my interest so many years ago.

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Preface

C

Journey to the Senses

hronic and acute pain from a series of lifelong injuries became teachers of mine and led me to Hanna Somatics, which was instrumental in creating a major turning point in my system. A few years of trial-and-error rehabilitation with exercise and dietary changes returned my body to a stable, stronger place. The Marin Center for Somatic Education was founded in 1992 along with the work that I called, NeuroSomatic Integration™. The grace within the injuries was that it deepened an inquiry that was already in place for my chronic and acute clients at the sports medicine clinic where I worked, as to what was causing their pain, and what would work best to reset their systems. Pain and discomfort awakened me every night, but being a practical person, the time spent awake was put to good use. Sleep deprivation can be a huge motivator! Like trying to find the hidden button to a trap door, I searched my system for how to make a difference in the discomfort, since working directly on the symptomatic areas hadn’t been working. Because the source was usually not in the area that was hurting, I became interested in functional relationships in the body. For example, working inside my mouth around the masseter (chewing muscle) often helped ease the migraines, and taking pressure off my thighs always helped my back. Classes that were either directly, or indirectly based in osteopathic principles and techniques, led to a series of ‘ahas!’ that re-opened the doors in my system to greater and greater release, balance, strength, and sensitivity. I couldn’t help but explore with my clients the functional connections I was learning in the middle of the night along with the techniques from the classes. After a few hundred

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responses I could feel comfortable that the relationships revealing themselves might be correct for most people, but more than that, the body always points to and leads the way to its own release and rebalance. As Dr. Barral used to say, “The body hugs the lesion.” After a few thousand responses, I felt like I was onto something. Things reliably shifted in just a few minutes in the initial ‘target’ area, or another source was responsible that either followed a line of force, or was shown by the body to be connected. We all have the same dots, but there are many varieties of ways to connect them. Meditation, contemplation, and light participation in chi kung revealed a different dimension of relationship to the sensations arising in my system, which, due to the ever-increasing sensitivity, continued to wake me up every night for 30 years. Layer upon layer of insights about the body’s restrictions, its responsiveness, layers of intelligence, and its web of engagement, continued to open up, to unpack itself, peal out of what it was digesting, and return to a ‘dynamic’ resting state. For as many revelations as there have been over the years which I am glad to be able to share for others to enjoy, I must admit that there is still a tremendous amount of mystery that permeates what the body is capable of and just how deep the rabbit hole goes. You’ll probably discover the same thing as you begin dialing into your body and it begins to answer the call. The most important thing is to get the conversation started and to develop a closer relationship with your system. Your body stays plugged in to the switchboard 24 hours a day and is ready with the headset on to speak with you about absolutely anything and everything. The conversation it wants to have with you is about how you want to proceed, where are you going exactly, what is your intention when you arrive there? If you try to go ‘alone’, it will of course take you, but it will be similar to driving at night without your lights on. The information available to you about your environment will be greatly reduced, making it a little more hazardous, and a lot less fun. You’ll be missing so much along the way that would have been remarkable if not sensational! Each body is made of the same constituents, but the intelligence that flows through it will be touching in on its own unique history as it opens up. Each door that you open together holds a potential of richness, of power, of magical moments and subtleties that draw you more and more deeply into the actualization of your vision in a spirit of health and healthy choices. The information that the somatic journey has for you will be yours alone, and likely just as fascinating and rewarding as it’s been for me. As you begin to listen to your body’s language and feel how it fills in the blanks of your questions, it will have many secrets to share that will benefit you for your entire life.

No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable. ~ Socrates

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Chapter 1

Who Are You Talking To? I am not saying that by understanding the bodymind relationship you will be able to cure all your physical difficulties but what I am saying is that such an understanding adds an essential, and invariably overlooked, component to your healing process. ~ Deb Shapiro

Mechanoreceptor and Proprioceptive System

Somatic IntelligenceTM

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t might be helpful to learn exactly what you’re communicating with in terms of what structures are processing the information that you give to your body. Who’s listening when you speak? Many, many structures immediately become engaged when you call upon your body to act, so we’ll just cover the main ones. First of all, your body wants to know where you are in comparison to where you want to be. There are parts of the brain in the parietal lobe that will be telling itself where your body is doing in relation to itself (interoceptors), as well as what’s happening in relationship to its surroundings (exteroceptors). This information is further refined by the mechanoreceptors dedicated to tactile or kinesthetic information located in your skin, joints, ligaments and tendons in different layers. The epidermis is the most superficial layer of skin, followed by the dermis where most of the receptors are, then the hypodermis just above the fatty layer before muscle tissue. Each receptor has a specific thing to sense. Pacinian corpuscles act like a filter that inhibits certain impulses, and allows only frequencies between 250-350 Hz to activate nerve endings. They mainly respond to tickling, sudden, high velocity changes in pressure, or slight vibrations. Meissner’s corpuscles are tactile, cutaneous receptors found on smooth, hairless surfaces of the skin, like the palms and soles of our feet, and stimulate rapidly adapting action potentials with minimal depression of the skin.

They are most efficient in picking up lower frequency stimuli at 30 – 50 Hz, to fine touch and discrimination. Rapidly adapting receptors tune in mainly to dynamic stimuli that might be changing as the contact continues, so that each change can register quickly. By adapting rapidly, they allow ongoing stimulation from clothing or eye glasses to not constantly be noticed. Free nerve endings are nociceptors that respond to temperature, lack of O2, pain and inflammation, alerting the brain when something’s wrong in that category. They also release neuropeptides locally, can dilate blood vessels, increase nutrition and influence immune function in response to the chemicals released by damaged tissues. Ruffini endings (as well as Pacinian corpuscles) are found in connective tissue such as muscular fascia, tendons, ligaments, aponeuroses and joint capsules. They are also in deeper layers of tissue in spinal ligaments, abdominal fascia, plantar (soles of the feet) and palmar (palms of the hands) tissue as well as the peritoneum. Ruffini bodies are in the more dense tissue related to slow, continued stretch such as superficial layers of joint capsules, peripheral joint ligaments, and the Dura mater in the cranium. These endings also respond to lateral or tangential stretching (Kruger, 1987), and have a relaxing effect on the local tissues as well as the whole organism (van den Berg & Capri, 1999) causing a down-regulation of the sympathetic nervous system. Who Are You Talking To? / Chapter 2

4 This supports the notion that moving slowly during exercises in yoga or Feldenkrais sequences is calming and generates more release in the system, and also why it feels so good to have our hands and feet rubbed. It also relates to slow, purposeful stretch by a practitioner being able to communicate release to the tissue fields in striated, voluntary muscle. (The heart, bladder, and blood vessels, for example are made of smooth muscle.) Krause’s end bulbs also respond to continuous pressure or stretch and to cold, and are located in skin, lips, tongue and in the conjunctiva of the eye. The muscle spindle cell, which wraps around intrafusal fibers within muscle tissue doesn’t activate with

the Alpha motor neuron which innervates and power the action of any given muscle fiber. These proprioceptive, sensory cells sit in the interior of the muscle parallel to the activating extrafusal fibers that generate movement. The spindle cells are sensitive to stretch so are near the tendinous portion of the muscle so contractions or stretch can be sensed, protecting the muscle from being overstretched. There are two types of intrafusal fibers that contain a feedback system that is self-regulating. The bag fibers and chain fibers in the muscle belly deliver information about the rate of change, whereas the static fibers signal an unchanging stretch.

Intrinsic Layers of Muscle Fibers When the extrafusal (outer) fibers of muscle are activated by the Alpha motor neuron, there is a co-activation by the gamma motor neurons at the ends of the inner intrafusal fibers. The gamma motor neurons keep the intrafusal fibers taut which keeps the sensory portion of the fibers more easily able to sense and adapt to changes regardless of muscle length. This feedback mechanism also helps to match and Somatic IntelligenceTM

adjust output with the initial intention of how you want to use the muscle. There are both static and dynamic fibers, the former reacting to sustained stretch, and the latter to sudden stretch. The dynamic fibers initiate the stretch reflex when the stretch is too fast and sends a signal directly to the spinal cord in a subcortical loop commanding the muscle to pull back quickly to prevent injury. That’s why bouncing

5 stretches are counter-productive, and another reason that slow, gradual motion is better for the reeducation of the system. The golgi tendon apparatus is also a proprioceptive organ at the ends of muscles embedded in tendons that connect to bone. Proprioception means ‘sense of self ’, and related to the body’s ability to know and sense what it’s doing so that all systems can be on board in a coordinated, cooperative effort. While the spindle cells signal information about stretch, the golgi organs signal the degree of tension or contraction in the muscles they are adjacent to. While the receptors and the sensory nerves sending information to the brain about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, those type I and type II sensory nerves from the Golgi organs, Pacinian corpuscles and Ruffini endings account for just 20% of sensory nerves. The type III and IV sensory nerves discovered in 1977 by Mitchell & Schmidt, are not as often mentioned, even though these interstitial receptors found abundantly in fascia account for the other 80%. The majority of these type of receptors are unmyelinated and arise from free nerve endings, establishing that free nerve endings also respond to tension and pressure. The two types of interstitial receptors are the extremely sensitive low threshold pressure (LTP) and high threshold pressure units (HTP). Many of these receptors can function both as high pressure units and pain receptors, and also have autonomic functions that can change heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration, acting as a feedback mechanism for blood flow based upon local needs. An increase in static pressure on muscles lowers blood pressure (Mitchell & Schmidt) as can happen with Shiatsu, even though this technique is mainly directed towards the meridians. Hearing that these

interstitial receptors are directly connected to the autonomic nervous system and can behave like either pain or proprioceptive messengers, it seems likely that they would be involved in fibromyalgia, and possibly issues with the skin. The brain, heart, belly, CNS, vascular and emotional systems, having both physical and physiological overlap, could account for many symptoms tied to stress. The other side of these interconnections is that many symptoms can be abated by having a calming, balancing therapeutic conversation with these messengers. For example, either type III or type IV interstitial receptors can increase blood pressure. Deep mechanical pressure to the belly (Folkow, 1962), as well as sustained pressure to the pelvis (Koizumi & Brooks 1972) produce parasympathetic responses, synchronized EEG patterns, decreased myofascial tension and increased vagal tone. These remarkable effects of working in the abdominal and pelvic area have the ability to change fluid dynamics, tissue metabolism, global tissue relaxation, as well as reduced emotional and mental arousal (R. Schleip, 2003). Mechanoreceptors in the knee have a weak effect on Alpha motor neurons, but a strong effect on gamma motor neurons, which are more directly related to subcortical, postural muscles connected to the hindbrain, where chronic emotional programs are also often linked with musculo-skeletal habits (Juhan, 1987). There are many implications that can be derived from this data that supports working with the information capacity of balancing the joints and working with techniques that stimulate joint receptors, such as Trager, osteopathy, and movement therapies that are gentle and conscious. It also can possibly suggest that emotional issues can land in the knees or back, and that balancing the knees can help support posture. Who Are You Talking To? / Chapter 2

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Constituents of Bone In addition to the soft tissue fields of muscle, layers of skin, fascia, ligaments and tendons, we’ll be communicating with bone as a way of signaling the brain to reset the body. They have both a support function and a protection role as in the bones of the cranium that protect the brain. Information from the angle of a joint, the velocity or exact position of any given bone provides a wealth of information to the spine and brain about how to organize support and movement options. Length and tension relationships will be changing momentto-moment as we decide to sit, lie down, reach to open a drawer, stand, climb stairs, do yoga, hold a plate of food, and countless

Somatic IntelligenceTM

other activities performed each day. One of the simplest ways that Somatic pioneer, Elsa Gindler, recommended to transform habits was to just be aware of how each task is accomplished. She guided her students in sensing each movement to discover what was happening all over the body as the action was being carried out. That attention to somatic detail in and of itself was transformative. Our bodies respond differently if we attend to soft tissue than they do if we pay attention to bone. It’s like noticing the frame or axle of a car instead of the body that the frame carries around. The mechanisms are tied together structurally, yet functionally they use separate phone numbers to contact them.

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Bone Remodeling Process Bone cells communicate with themselves to regulate the balance between bone resorption and bone formation, called bone remodeling. There are four general categories of bone cells: osteoblast, osteoclast, osteocyte, and osteogenic cells. Osteoblast cells lay down bone by synthesizing and secreting a collagen matrix that includes calcium salts - a crystalline complex of calcium and phosphate called hydroxyapatite. Bones also include about 5% water. Osteoblasts have receptor sites for vitamin D, estrogen, and parathyroid hormone. These cells secrete a protein which controls the amount of phosphate excreted by the kidneys, as well as a substance that activates osteoclasts. Osteoclast cells break down and absorb older or damaged bone cells that are then used to repair injured cells, or are released as calcium. Osteocytes secrete enzymes to help maintain the mineral concentration of the matrix and also communicate along the canaliculi (small canals or ducts within the bone). The osteocytes use the lacuna-canaliculi network in the bone matrix to converse with the osteoclasts and osteoblasts. Lacuna are small openings, or little pits in the bone. The fourth type of bone cell - osteogenic cells – that arise from the deeper layers of the periosteum and bone marrow are the only ones that can divide and

replicate themselves. They are able to sense the mechanical forces that act on our bones, and are responsible for the formation of osteoblasts which may morph into lining cells. Lining cells have receptors for the hormones and other factors that initiate calcium and bone remodeling. They also protect the bone from chemicals in the blood that may be harmful. Bone cells produce proteins – growth factors and cytokines - that act as local regulators as they communicate with other cells to control cell division, differentiation, apoptosis, and survival. This dynamic reshaping process is ongoing, responding to external demands for use, and internal communication as to the status of existing cells. There are also stem cells in the bone marrow that generate red and white blood cells, and platelets. Both types of marrow have a large amount of blood vessels to carry nutrients in and waste out of bone. There is a storage function of our bones for extra supplies of fats or minerals, distributing them throughout the body as needed. The dense, outer surface of our bones is called compact, or cortical bone which is joined with a lighter, spongy, inner layer called cancellous, or trabecular bone. We all have long bones, like the femur, short bones, like the carpal bones in the hands, irregular bones, like the pelvis or Who Are You Talking To? / Chapter 2

8 vertebrae, flat bones like the scapula, and sesamoid bones, such as the patella that doesn’t have a periosteum. There are pneumatic bones which are a type of irregular bone that are found in the skull and have more air space than other bones. This feature allows them to act both as a sound chamber and air conditioner, but also makes them lighter so the head isn’t so difficult to carry. Understanding the function of bones has grown over recent decades from them providing structural support and internal organ protection, to a being involved with numerous interactions throughout the system. Karsenty and Ferron reported in their 2012 article, “The contribution of bone to whole-organism physiology” in Nature magazine about discovering a wide range of secretions by bone cells. Those secretions include ATP (energy), prostaglandins (involved in mediating pain, inflammation and bone homeostasis), osteocalcin (bone matrix protein containing 49 amino acids plus glutamate), Mepe (matrix extracellular phosphoglycoprotein, a renal hormone and vascularization modulator), calcium, as well as Nitric Oxide (signaling molecule that can interact with almost all proteins, including those that open blood flow and help relax the heart muscle), and others. Somatic IntelligenceTM

Red bone marrow is mainly in the flat bones like the sternum, ribs, or scapula and produces red blood cells from its hematopoietic cells in adults, whereas young children have red bone marrow almost everywhere in their bodies. Red bone marrow is gradually replaced by yellow bone marrow composed of fatty tissue containing triglycerides that can be stored and used for energy. Yellow bone marrow is often in long bones, and while the ratio of red to yellow is 50/50 in middle age adults, by old age there is almost all yellow bone marrow. In a February, 2012 article of Bone Magazine, Beata Lecka-Czernik wrote an article entitled, “Marrow fat metabolism is linked to the systemic energy metabolism” where she describes the ability of bone cells to produce and regulate energy. She mentions that bone marrow stores adipocyte cells which produce adipokines, leptin and adiponectin, all known for their role in regulating energy metabolism. Czernik goes on to delineate one of the roles of the bone hormone, osteocalcin, as possibly being able to regulate insulin production in the pancreas, and adiponectin in fat tissue. The fact that osteoblasts and adipocytes have insulin receptors also supports the theory that bone plays a role in the endocrine system.

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Structure of a Long Bone There is already evidence that the hypothalamus is connected to the signaling that is related to bone mass. There are also adrenergic receptors in bone which are controlled by the sympathetic nervous system that regulate bone formation and resorption (Elefteriou, et. al., 2005, and Fonseca, et.al., 2011). The interrelationship of muscle and bone has also been reviewed more recently with new answers and new questions as a result. The physiological interface is being presumed partly because inflammation of the muscle has been seen to spread to the bone, and injury to bone has been helped to heal with intervention from muscles, called ‘muscle flaps’. In these instances, when there is a compound fracture and a slice of muscle is wrapped around the bones, they heal significantly faster. On the other side of the equation, osteocyte cells in bones secrete over 1,000 times more PGE2 – the prostaglandin that mediates inflammation – than muscle cells do, and have been found to help injured muscles to

heal more rapidly. In a 2012 article by Proske and Gandevia published in Physiology Review, “The Proprioceptive Senses: Their Roles in signaling Body Shape, Body Position, and Movement, and Muscle Force”, they report that a volley of afferent information rather than input from particular receptors tell the brain what’s happening with the body. So a combination of signals from skin, muscle, joint receptors and load gives an impression even without peripheral nerve input, where the body is in space. They cite that the distention of lungs, intestines, vestibular system, or change in shape of blood vessels can also provide a map of where the body is and how to maintain stability and balance. According to these authors, the proprioceptive system’s sensitivity can decline with age, leading to more falls and injuries. That being said, somatic pioneer Charlotte Selver was still teaching sensory awareness at age 104, so this deterioration is not a foregone conclusion. Other things can produce error messages or illusory position Who Are You Talking To? / Chapter 2

10 sense, such as vibration, head injuries, vertigo or hearing loss, and certain forms of exercise and muscle fatigue can throw off the accurate feedback of position in space. In addition, the signaling capacity for joint receptors is weak and insufficient to supply a global kinesthetic picture. Some long-term practitioners find that bone can be one of the deeper places in the system that holds trauma, so working at the level of bone can be deeply healing. Since exercise and bodywork will be adding a lot of new input that will need to be integrated, it’s usually recommended to take an easy stroll afterwards so the body can process the input and retain the desired changes. Traditionally, chi kung practices were designed to build energy and strength in the bones and their marrow. One theory the ancients hold is that “most chronic illness is stored in bones”. There are reportedly 5 levels or layers of energy flow that the chi kung and kung fu practitioners attempted to master. The external martial art used the energetic development to become a more effective warrior, and the internal art used it for health and well-being or to help heal others more effectively. The first practice incorporates moving energy over the superficial layer of the skin to increase sensing abilities, the next level moves it through the muscles for strength in attack or defense. Being able to move energy through the meridians means that the energy can be directed more easily to a particular area of the body, including to the hands for healing injuries. The next layer to move energy through is that of the organs, which also supports greater health and strength for combat, or for healing injuries there. The deepest and most important layer was thought to be generating energy along the bones, the bone marrow, and their connection to the nervous system, providing the pracSomatic IntelligenceTM

titioner with a great deal of internal force and clarity of mind. It also “gives a person courage and moral integrity, which is very important in high level martial arts.” Even if you’re not involved in fighting, these practices afford good health, overcoming pain and illness, longevity, vitality, mental freshness, and spiritual joys. They also enable practitioners to better sense, understand, and effectively facilitate change in their clients. These ancient practices were kept secret for 1500 years, only in recent decades becoming available to the public. The traditional teachers understood that the bone marrow becomes less able to produce red blood cells or energy as the body ‘ages’, and saw the marrow as being ‘dirty’. The deepest level of practice channels energy through and washes the marrow and enables it to produce red blood cells again, producing “fresh, healthy blood,” so the body can restore and rejuvenate itself to the “glowing health of youth”. It seems that people intuitively recognize when they are ‘bone tired’, or feel depleted ‘to the bone’. There are also methods to restore the muscles, tendons, and internal organs by filling up the main reservoirs of energy, namely the governing and conception vessels at the midline, as well as chi kung practices. Bones have a huge interactive effect on our system and, as every other system, have links into the sympathetic nervous system, vascular and endocrine systems along with their many interfaces with soft tissue fields. They are responsive to emotional and other forms of stress, which can alter the signaling process for the maintenance or regulation of bone remodeling. Like other cells, they are continually in a renewal process and have their own storage systems for energy both for their own processes, as well as to assist other systems. They

11 have their own forms of intelligence, and are receptive to communication from other fields of awareness or energy. They are as remarkable as any of the body’s structures with functions that are in open cooperation with every level

of what we are. In each category of release, the skeletal system will be included as an aspect of what gathers and distributes forces in the body that help to strengthen, balance, and reorganize the whole.

Sensory-Motor Cortex The impulse transmitted by the sensory cells – various mechanoreceptors or proprioceptors in layers of skin, in connective tissue or joint receptors – travel very quickly along nerve cells to the brain. Just behind the central sulcus in the brain’s sensory-motor cortex, is the area where sensory information arrives from all over the body. Just in front of the central sulcus is the primary motor cortex, where the motor nerves that are responsible for executing the information about the impending action down the line to the spinal cord and out to the appropriate muscle groups originate. Along the way, additional input is arriving from other areas of the brain related to past experiences and their outcomes, emotional content, spatial information about where the current location is compared to the desired end goal, and an analysis of the most efficient way to get there.

In the 1870’s a couple of forward-thinking German researchers attached electrodes to the primary cortex of animals and discovered that specific muscles would contract depending upon where the electrodes were placed. When those same cells were destroyed, those muscles became paralyzed. When later experiments confirmed the same to be of humans, a somatosensory map called the ‘homunculus’ was born. Responsive to and reflective of the usage of the body, these bundles of nerves were found to be in the largest numbers for the functions of the hands, the eyes, mouth and tongue. The brain is automatically adaptive to changes in usage, as evidenced by the blind having more neurons generated in other sensory areas to compensate for the loss of vision. Without sight, they are still able to remain upright, discover a sense of balance, and navigate through space. Who Are You Talking To? / Chapter 2

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Fight or Flight (Sympathetic) System Everything we do towards an expressed need engages numerous systems to help us accomplish that goal. In addition, the body is scanning each experience for relevance to our needs and according to the information on file about similar experiences. When a perceived threat is contacted, whether real or imagined, a huge cascade of biochemistry is activated to signal glands and organs to reroute their normal activities to prepare for the possibility of confronting or fleeing from the conflict. In either case, the release of those stress chemicals and the consequential increases in blood pressure and heart rate, along with reduced motility of the intestines, heightened levels of energy and muscle tone become triggered. These chemicals can’t be processed and released from the system as quickly as they become invested, and as the system ‘ages’ it’s even slower. An over-

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load of a sense of not feeling safe or of feeling overwhelmed for whatever reason can lead to states of anxiety that the body will need to be reassured about. This image omits the pituitary gland that sends the signal to the adrenals to release their cortisol, and the fact that many of the organs are triggered into activation by the nervous system, whereas the hormonal messengers are delivered through the bloodstream. From our body’s point of view, self-preservation and survival are priorities, but it is reading the information already imprinted in your memory storage systems to ascertain whether or not to be worried. This is why emotional content is included in memory, but cognitive input can trump or guide emotional content, and our conscious presence helps determine what goes on in our cognition. Everything is amenable to consciousness.

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Glands and Hormones Our glands are responsible for countless coordinated secretions of the hormones that regulate functioning in our bodies. They work with the central nervous system in mediating countless activities. The glands that participate in maintaining growth, homeostatic and metabolic balance in our bodies include the pituitary, thyroid, pancreas, pineal, adrenals, and the gonads. The hypothalamus, although not a gland, is a major coordinator for the endocrine system in the way that it secretes hormones that signal the glands to release their own hormones. Hormones are also directly connected to the expression of emotions, and because emotions are wired into every part of us, we are very

responsive to emotional forms of communication. Gentle touch has a calming effect on the nervous and endocrine systems, and also carries a wealth of information that, according to researchers, Hernstein and Spezio in 2012, is more “nuanced, sophisticated, and precise when communicating emotions.” It may affect the recipient subconsciously, but if asked for an evaluation afterwards about a brief encounter that could even be business-related, the evaluation is higher if slight (non-sexual) touch is involved. The chest bumps and high fives among sports teams are not gentle, but are surprisingly predictive of better performance throughout the season than the teams with less contact. Who Are You Talking To? / Chapter 2

14 Physical contact strengthens the bond in relationships by the release of oxytocin, but it can also lower stress hormones, blood pressure and heart rate, while improving the perceptions within any communication dynamic. Hugs can strengthen the immune system of both the hugger and the huggee by the gentle pressure on the sternum which is adjacent to the thymus which regulates the production of white blood cells. Hugging or holding hands can reduce anxiety, reduce any sense of threat, and gentle touch often speeds the healing process after surgery. The brain craves stimulation of various types, and the sensory input with touch is satisfying, uplifting, and calming. For an infant, it can literally mean the difference between life and death, between being well-adjusted or becoming a sociopath. It’s also calming to massage yourself and make physical contact with your own body. England and the United States have the least amount of physical touch between friends than anywhere else in the world. The popular study in the ‘60’s by Jourard recorded that while Brits had no physical contact within an hour of conversation, Americans may have touched each other twice, compared to 110 times in France, and 180 times in Puerto Rico. Our tactile and kinesthetic senses are full of healthy socio-emotional benefits when they are engaged with kindness. Competition turns into cooperation, pregnant women have less pain and less post-partum depression, students participate more freely in class, and improves connections for those with Alzheimer’s or autism. Ancient traditions realized many ways in which the subtle, spiritual and energetic aspects of how we are organized influences our gross, physical form and function. Similar to the ways in which the Buddha Dhamma describes thought as the smallest particle of consciousness that can be imprinted with a myriad of qualities, Somatic IntelligenceTM

the energies that circulate through our chakras and energetic pathways can also. Energy carries information. As discussed in volume 4 of this series, every cell in our bodies is capable of communicating using several different languages. We know that our cells use an electrical language in the nervous system, an electromagnetic one as in the field of the heart, light frequencies through biophotons and photoreceptors in our eyes and in our DNA, sound and vibrational frequencies system-wide, as well as the frequencies of brain waves to transmit information. They also use shape or configuration, energetic impressions, tactile and kinesthetic la nguages, thought, emotion, and more. Our systems are transducers and transceivers of the most sophisticated and eloquent kind. Science and theoretical physics is making great strides in catching up with the infinite dimensions of intelligence our beings are capable of, and beginning to explain some of it is almost beyond comprehension. We are literally capable of miracles, which some day may seem more normal once we’re able to more fully understand how consciousness works.

15 One key factor in what we can become capable of, is in the degree our consciousness is awake or aware of its subtler nature. Our automatic imprints will prevail if we live in relative unawareness of our subtler nature, wherein life will proceed according to its imprints in a nor-

mal way, yet there is this opportunity to thrive rather than just survive. There is a possibility to realize a bit more of our potential through the gateway of sensory awareness and mindful presence that is worth its weight in the gold of peace of mind and physical well-being.

Seven Main Chakras and the Endocrine System Every part of our physical and physiological makeup is connected to and influenced by an energetic system. Volume 4 describes several of these systems in detail, but this text will cover just a general overview so that it is included in your context when you use the movements or release techniques provided later on. It’s important to continually recognize that whether it’s a bone, an organ, a gland, or a ligament, there is an energetic aspect to it that may actually be a significant reason for the discomfort you’re feeling. Systems that are open and moving energy through easily, like young children, don’t

experience much pain or if they do, it’s not for very long unless they have a serious degenerative condition. Let’s look at one of the most ancient energy systems that has been make popular through the yoga movement – the chakra system. There are over a hundred minor chakras, but we’ll just focus on the major ones along the spine. Consider them as you stretch, or exercise, and include what they represent when you think about where you tend to gather tension or restriction. The descriptions, meanings and physiological connections of the energy centers along the spine can Who Are You Talking To? / Chapter 2

16 vary with the source of the information, but the ones listed here are the most consistent. The root chakra at the perineum relates to our primordial energy and to the adrenals, governing our fight/flight response, which is connected to survival issues. The base chakra also includes the spine and kidneys (just beneath the adrenals) which relate energetically to sexuality, mental stability, and spiritual security. The second chakra which is just below the navel relates to the male and female sex organs (ovaries and testes), and governs reproduction, the lymphatic system, and liver. Mentally it governs emotional balance, creativity, attention and pure knowledge, is connected to the source of inspiration and the perception of beauty. The third chakra at the solar plexus relates to the spleen, liver, and pancreas, which support digestion and the regulation of blood sugar, mentally relates to the expression of will and personal power, but also expansiveness and contentment. Some say there is a ‘void’ surrounding the second and third chakras, which offers the opportunity for self-mastery in overcoming bad habits or attachments and becoming your ‘own guru’, your own dispeller of darkness. The thymus is associated with the fourth chakra, initially serving physical growth, then supporting immune function later in life. Some theories have this center governing the lungs, heart and circulatory system physically, passion mentally, love and compassion emotionally. Spiritually it is an important energy center that connects us to our higher selves, the universal ‘unstruck’ sound, and a responsibility for pure behavior towards others. The thyroid and parathyroid glands are related to and adjacent to the fifth, or the throat chakra. There is an enormous amount of hormonal messaging that is carried out by these Somatic IntelligenceTM

glands, working in concert with signals from bone cells regarding calcitonin levels, as well as regulating metabolism. When the primordial kundalini energy is able to move through this chakra freely, the expression of pure, playfully detached relationships with others becomes possible, along with clear, diplomatic communication, balance between the head and the heart, fluent thought, emotional independence, and a secure connection to the whole. The sixth chakra is situated behind and between the eyebrows, and is often considered to be the master gland. It secretes substances that are vital to the balance between several systems in the body, particularly the other glands and the nervous system. It is the center that can dissolve misidentifications, false ideas and conditionings, facilitating forgiveness and receptivity to messages from our higher power. Each of these centers can be under or overactive, either of which will lead to dysfunctions in the organs or systems they are related to, along with mental or social imbalances in kind. On the other hand, when these centers are open and balanced and able to distribute energy in an unrestricted way to their plexus and associated endocrine structures, an unparalleled ease of emotional, mental, and physical well-being accompanies the conductivity of spiritual force. The seventh center, related to the pineal gland, represents the union of Shiva and Shakti, the end of the perception of duality and union with the Godhead, the thousand petalled lotus, blazing with the glory of a thousand suns. This chakra “integrates all of the chakras with their respective qualities, and is the last milestone of the evolution of human awareness,” according to Dr. Rita Khanna. Sri Mataji states that, “This new realm of perception, which is beyond our limited mind and concepts… gives us the di-

17 rect, absolute perception of Reality on our central nervous system.” The central nervous system and endocrine system are at the core of how well our bodies function on a daily basis, and they are each in direct relationship to how well our energetic systems are able to flow. The fundamental life force being able to reach these systems with ease will in large part determine how we experience our musculo-skeletal reality as well. Our joints and bones are energetically connected to the kidney energy in the same way our muscles reflect liver function. Kundalini yoga expert, Guru Rattana describes the potentials of the chakra systems energetic expression, just like any of the other systems, as being determined by whether they are “open or closed, balanced or unbalanced, aligned or misaligned, honored or suppressed, conscious or unconscious.” They impact how we perceive and respond to ourselves and our environment, and are also effected by the same, just

like all of our other systems. Everything in us is imbued with consciousness that is exquisitely sensitive, responsive and aware. One of the main purposes for kundalini yoga is to gently and specifically open, balance and align these centers using asanas (postures) that not only benefit health and contribute to calm, balanced mental and emotional states, but that also lead to the ascension of the life force up to and through the Godhead. In a somewhat different fashion, chi kung does the same thing using another energetic system that also seeks to improve and sustain health by circulating chi freely and storing it intentionally. Avid practitioners know that steady practice can lead to self-realization, or the direct recognition of our divine nature. Even if you don’t aspire to these lofty heights of consciousness, a tried-and-true door to well-being tends to include the capacity of the subtle energy systems, which are always engaged when we become self-aware.

Each of these centers can be under or over-active, either of which will lead to dysfunctions in the organs or systems they are related to, along with mental or social imbalances in kind.

Who Are You Talking To? / Chapter 2

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Consciousness - The Importance of Awareness Volume 4 of Somatic Intelligence detailed many of the ways that awareness and consciousness are a significant, if not key factor in the reeducation and reset process. It is the over-arching, guiding principle that informs the rest of the system throughout all of its constituents and mechanisms what the intentions are of the actions you’re about to take. From your initial intent, resources are mobilized and reorganized to fulfill those goals that you have set out for yourself. Each cell is listening to your beliefs and intentions, which may possibly have some subconscious forces that are stronger than your conscious efforts. This is another reason that tuning in to the deeper layers assists your exercise or reset effectiveness, because the energetic systems assist the clearing and healing of early imprints or traumas. They also help you to mindfully rest in a

Somatic IntelligenceTM

place that is not impacted by their memories or influence. Making the movements conscious, gentle, and specific also serves to reorganize the nervous system, which is in touch with every other system including energetic pathways and centers. As the system reorganizes into the new conscious request for action, it relinquishes or renders less important the former, habituated patterns that may have formed with the earlier imprints. As all the systems begin to settle into the new configuration, a new posture may emerge along with an ease of coordinated expression and fluidity. When the body lives and moves with greater ease, most often the mind does also. Mental and emotional states settle as the nervous system settles, and greater focus, insight, and performance of every kind follows as a result..

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Chapter 2

Gathering a Baseline Your body is the physical expression of your existence, it holds your life history in every cell. Every thing that has ever happened is stored as tissue memory and is reflected in your flesh, blood and bone . ~ Grianne-Freya Hammond

J

ust like any new skill, you will need some parameters in order to get a frame of reference on what you’re learning. The same holds true for sensing your body’s systems and being able to interpret its language. Spend some time exploring how you’re using your body in normal daily activities, including when you’re just sitting down or standing in line, walking from your car, or getting something out of the fridge. As Somatic IntelligenceTM

you’re noticing how you’re holding and moving your body, check for any sensations that you’re aware of as they begin to stand out to you. Many sensations fall beneath the radar in regular activities, and those are the ones we want to begin to pay attention to. There’s going to be a wealth of information available to you in gathering a baseline on what your body normally feels like that will set the stage for being able to discern any changes.

21 They say that the mind goes where the energy goes, and the energy goes where the mind goes, so when the mind is focusing on the traffic, or whatever’s on the computer screen, it’s not likely it will also be noticing your body. It will take practice to include both. When you have an understanding of the type of sensations your body produces when it’s just humming along, it’ll stick out like a sore thumb when a little blip happens on the screen of awareness. Then you can pick

up on the little inklings that come into your hip when your leg is crossed, or in your neck when your head is bent down for a while. If all the concentration is placed on the object of our attention, then the discomfort that was creeping in all along seems like it came out of nowhere when it begins to scream at you. Your body will effort to keep you going as long as possible until that ‘last straw’ move pushes it through the threshold into a loud, obvious symptom, that could by then be tissue damage.

The Effects of Sleep Positions Several times a week clients come in with aches and pains that seem to have suddenly come on, with no recollection of what happened. The top three that clients are aware of that are not injury or surgery related are from long hours at work where they’ve been stand-

ing or sitting at a desk, from stress, or from ‘sleeping funny’. A lot is going on in the body and in the mind while we are in a sleep state, much of which is being expressed during REM sleep or as we toss and turn in response to REM. Deep Gathering a Baseline / Chapter 2

22 sleepers have found themselves half on and half off of the bed when they wake up, with quite a few kinks in their neck and spine. In a similar way that you can suggest to yourself to become aware of your dreams, you can intend to notice the discomfort you experience when you’re over-rotated or have too much pressure on an area for too long at night. The same applies when you’re awake during the day, but equally unconscious of what your body is doing and how it feels doing it. The body does have a life of its own, and will naturally use its intrinsic programming to accomplish whatever it deems pressing at the time, whether we’re asleep or awake. If there’s a disturbance in your sleep, that’s a time to be even more aware of little changes then and during the day and what they could mean. During the first few minutes of sleep muscles can twitch and discharge tensions as they start to relax. The next phase that lasts about an hour or less is when the physiology begins to slow down and prepare for deeper rest. During our deep, or restorative sleep phase, tissue

Incorrect

growth and repair happens, the brain removes waste materials, the liver begins synthesizing substances and hormones are released. It’s a busy time. This is a very important phase for maintaining our health. The last phase is the REM phase of sleep. Many feel that psychological issues are being worked on, reflected, or explored during the dreaming part of sleep, and some feel the unconscious, universal part of consciousness can most easily communicate with us at that time. Answers to questions we have during the day and even prophetic dreams often pop through during the night. Notice if there’s a correlation to the day’s activities or input – even if it’s what you had to eat or who you spoke to – and how you sleep. It could be how much time you spent on your cell phone, or what kind of exercise you did that afternoon. Sometimes you sleep better after a good workout, and sometimes it’s worse, but either way it’s helpful to know what your system is responding to. Gathering your baseline means knowing what the norm is for you, so that deviations can easily be distinguished.

Correct

Take care to keep your head and neck in neutral position while sleeping, so that your head isn’t higher or lower than your neck whether on your side or on your back.

Somatic IntelligenceTM

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Assess Yourself Sometimes a store of toxins or emotional holding can have a numbing effect on your system. It’s amazing how re-sensitized your system can become after fasting for a few days. If you’re not used to fasting it might be better to start with just one day of drinking juices, water, teas, and broth. Lead into that day with lighter meals like salads. After you see how that goes, you can add a day without eating solids and check out a couple of books or articles on fasting to really inform yourself of the best way to do it for your own system. I fasted one day a week for a year before doing longer ones, which then grew to three days, then seven. I also used to do stimulation fasts where I went out to remote areas of the desert to give my sensory systems a rest in the deep silence. There are some homes that are in incredibly quiet neighborhoods where you can pick a time in the early morning or late evening when things are more settled to check in with yourself. Before getting out of bed is an excellent time to take inventory when you just lie on your back and listen. Listen to whatever slightly uncomfortable sensation stands out,

then gently lift or rotate that area and sense it again. Take a deep breath and sense it again. Sing a few notes of your favorite song and sense it again. After your morning shower, sense it again. This is a simple, amazing way to get an idea of how a single sensation responds to a variety of input from you, and that can be easily incorporated into your day. It’ll give you a wealth of information about your baseline and what works best for the reset of particular signals your body sends you at the beginning of the imbalance. It’s easier to get a read on how you’re doing if there’s more quiet without and within, so the nuances in your system can more easily be sensed. Using a mirror in the beginning is fine and can be helpful to check your internal sensors with visual confirmation, then adjust your posture according to what you actually see. So if you feel there’s pain or tension in your right shoulder, for example, look in the mirror and notice what changes have happened in your body when the shoulder’s bothering you. Is that shoulder a little higher, more pulled in Gathering a Baseline / Chapter 2

24 toward the center of your body, is it pulled forward toward your chest? Has your overall posture changed? Do you know what your usual posture looks like? Try to feel how you might be holding yourself, then look in the mirror and compare that against how you actually are holding yourself. Your internal sensors can be wrong initially, because when things are stagnant or ‘cloudy’ and imbalanced inside, your sensors will often relay incorrect information, or they will have adjusted out of compassion to tell you that ‘straight’ is wherever you are. So bend over a few times and see if you can bring yourself to an upright position where your ears are just above your shoulders, then look in the mirror and check it. Lean back and come back to center and check it again. Bend sideways to the right and to the left, come to center and recheck. When you have it, and your kinesthetic sense is matching what you see in the mirror and you’ve been able to tell when your posture is correct, walk around the room and come back to the mirror. Are you still straight? Try it a few times and even for a few days until you can tell while you’re in motion that you’re still holding the best posture. If not, notice when you began to give in and what the circumstanc-

Somatic IntelligenceTM

es were. Figure out what you can change during the day to support your system when it can no longer hold itself up. Try using methods that open spinal energy, or drink some water and see if either of those efforts are helpful. We’ll go over positions that open the energy along the spine later in the text, and in general yoga and chi kung as well as chiropractic are designed to facilitate opening there. Now check where your weight is on your feet. Do you have a tendency to lean forward onto the balls of your feet, or back onto your heels? Are you weighted more on one foot than the other, or more on the outside or inside of your feet? See if you can find a balanced place on your feet while you’re holding the effortless upright posture and stand there for just a few seconds until that sensation of ease and integration registers fully in your system. If there’s a glaring place in your body somewhere that feels heavy or sore that’s taking energy to sustain or that won’t let you hold the posture, that’s valuable information to realize about your system. Keep it in mind as you move through the release techniques and integrative movements we’ll go into later in the text. If you observe a two year-old, their body mechanics are so efficient and effortless. They naturally keep a straight line in their spine when they bend down, which is generally by squatting. Appreciate this little girl keeping a straight line while trying to move the cart, using the back leg to add force through the pelvis like I was taught to do in martial arts. Even if she’s just leaning on the handle to teethe, she’s got impeccable posture. We can all get back there, notwithstanding congenital or structural abnormalities, with a little sensory awareness and practice.

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Saggital

Transverse

Frontal

Body Planes It’s useful to get a spatial sense of your body so you have a more global orientation of how to relate to it. We tend to focus in isolation on whatever sticks out in the moment, but when you consider it in terms of planes, it immediately broadens your perspective and approach to it. The saggital planes views the body in terms of the right and left sides, the transverse plane looks at superior and inferior perspectives, and the frontal plane orients toward the front (anterior) and back (posterior) sides of the body. When you view the body as being connected on all sides, you get a sense of how one side impacts the other, such as how forces coming through the feet affect the knees and hips. Being forward-facing creatures, using our arms and hands in front of us has a huge im-

pact on the posterior muscles that attach to the spine and neck. Similarly, very often tension on the right side of the body can pull and create symptoms on the left side. When you begin to think spatially in terms of levers and pulleys and the structural loads certain muscles and bones are negotiating, you can consider the many ways that a slightly imbalanced load in one area can generate strain in a related area. You can also visualize and imagine, for example, that if your pelvis is slightly rotated or twisted out of alignment on the saggital plane and your belly button is no longer at the midline, all kinds of stresses are going to land on your low back, onto your knees, and your rib cage, head and neck are going to counter-rotate in an effort to take pressures off higher up.

Gathering a Baseline / Chapter 2

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The Importance of Postural Adaptations Your body will always attempt to recreate a type of balance for you. Whether the posture is formed from repetitive actions, from carrying weighty objects, or from emotional dispositions held over time, your body will adjust itself to compensate. Take a look at the profiles of the individuals in the image above and see what you notice. One of the most common shifts in our culture involves the head and neck forward, often related to shoulders rotated forward and a dropped chest, but not always. It can also happen because the chest is thrown back behind the ears, like the fellow in the grey sweatshirt, which is compensated for with a chest dropped onto his diaphragm, putting a strain on both his anterior and posterior neck muscles. The lady in the pink shirt also leaned back with her upper chest, but to compensate she’s protruded her abdomen and created a huge lordotic curve in her

Somatic IntelligenceTM

low back, thereby tightening her hamstrings and locking her knees to counterbalance. These adaptations are all within the flexion (bending forward) and extension (leaning or reaching backward) plane, while also having an effect on the transverse plane as the flexion patterns begin to compress the areas below. Our bodies always try to work in relationships that are complimentary. For example, if the quads need to contract so we can lift our leg to take a step forward, the hamstrings know they have to relax in order for that to happen most efficiently. That’s why if a person sits all day tightening the hamstrings then goes out for a run, there’s a risk of straining the hamstrings that won’t be able to fully release during that phase of the leg’s action. Here’s where tuning in and loosening the hamstrings beforehand could be a smart move to retain balance and avoid injury.

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Early Influences upon Posture One you’ve established a baseline, you’ll be able to notice if your hamstrings tightened after sitting and take care to open them out again. If you think you won’t be able to get a sense of what ‘normal’ could be because you have many cumulative tensions, scars, and imbalances, then notice that as a baseline. Have a professional session or two to return your system to balance and sense the change from where you were. Just stand there in the room for a few seconds to feel the difference, then feel it again as you begin to walk to your car. Gradually you’ll be able to tell what your

body feels like when it’s healthy, whole, and feels enlivened, alert, and calm at the same time without having pain. Posture can be a significant factor in cumulative forces and biomechanical stresses. Most toddlers start out with impeccable posture with great body mechanics. A few things in a child’s life that helps their posture remain optimal include: the healthy variety of physical activity, the security in being cared for that reduces stress, restorative sleep, and a good diet. It also helps a great deal that they’re naturally able to remain open energetically. Most playgrounds and even some back-

Gathering a Baseline / Chapter 2

28 yards have equipment that kids can climb on, crawl under, jump with, balance upon, swing on, slide down, and play with in so many ways that continues to use the body fully, continually, and in novel ways. All of this enhances somatic intelligence, resiliency, responsiveness, dexterity, and integration that helps keep the musculoskeletal system working in a balanced, evenly distributed way. Loving support is a factor in well-being and maintaining an open posture to face the world. There is much to be learned in any new environment and here’s where some emotional and social intelligence come into play, literally, and figuratively. Additional demands are made upon children when they enter school that has them fitting into a schedule of activities that may or may not agree with their body’s timing or flow. Hours are spent sitting on firm chairs doing classwork bent over a desk, then carrying heavy books in backpacks, with their arms, or both. Some will form just as you’ve seen the adults do in the page before this, where the chest leans back with the weight, sending the head and neck forward. After a while in this posture the ribs will drop and compress the diaphragm, limiting the breath. The other alternative is the young boy in blue who replicates the lady in pink on the prior page, where he hyperextends his pelvis and his chest, locking

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his knees compressing his low back and loading his hamstrings. The six year-old in the striped sweater is able to keep her chest high with her ears over her shoulders while not carrying a load, and probably hasn’t spent enough time in school to develop bad habits yet. The little girl on the end with the backpack is retaining good posture with some effort, which is worth the effort for short periods of time. Maintaining the muscle usage that will prevent her from leaning with the load and avoiding compensatory patterns will eventually place the stress on her spine, which leaning back avoids, but then creates other issues. Some children also carry bottles of water and their lunches in those packs, and one little boy told me he carried his sister’s lunch in there as well. Backpacks that roll are a better option, but kids will resist anything the other kids aren’t doing. The other way that posture can begin to alter is from internal motivations. By puberty when children begin to suddenly grow so fast, they become self-conscious and many will begin to slump or slouch on their frames to avoid sticking out. As girls develop breasts in adolescence, they also feel self-conscious and pull their chests in. What starts out as physical forces may later be joined by emotional ones.

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Posture and Health This position of the thorax on the abdomen is estimated to reduce lung capacity by as much as 30%, reducing oxygen to the heart, brain, and tissues and leading to shortness of breath, fuzzy thinking, and possibly vascular issues. The compression on the liver and stomach can generate digestive problems, along with neck and back pain, jaw tension, and headaches. An Australian study discovered that slouching while sitting not only increases the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease by 147% even if they also exercise, but every hour doing so takes another 20 minutes off of life expectancy (Prevention Magazine, 2016). Good posture communicates confidence socially, and internally changes our biochemistry. A group of researchers at Harvard found that open shoulders and straight spines increases testosterone by 20% and lowers cortisol (stress hormones) by 25%. Your posture has a messaging apparatus that tells your system how you think you’re doing, and it re-

sponds in kind. We have all seen what happens when senile posture kicks in and the loss of energy and strength make it so much more difficult to correct. Remember that there are several energetic channels that run along both the anterior and posterior of our bodies, a few of which are very near or on the spine. The open flow of the energy through these channels can help immensely to keep the spine upright with minimal muscular effort. Using gentle slow movements that are small and specific for the paraspinal muscles alongside the vertebrae also help to reset the postural muscles so that they are working more efficiently and more in concert with one another. The paraspinals, along with the head and neck muscles, are in constant contact with the receptors in the feet to let them know how they need to adjust and correct posture, so having your feet be relaxed and articulating properly within themselves as well as through the ankle joint will be very helpful. Gathering a Baseline / Chapter 2

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Chapter 3

Rebalancing our Support Systems Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. ~ John Muir

Somatic IntelligenceTM

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O

ur bodies are set up like a biomatrix, or like an intricately interlaced and unfathomable network of liquid crystalline living intelligence. When you conceive of it in its numerous dimensions, viewing the nerves, blood vessels, fascia, and energetic pathways as a continuum of connective tissue that interpenetrates absolutely everything as it floats in the liquid transmission medium, you can imagine that touching anywhere will have an effect somewhere. Some areas are more imbued than others with nerves, energy centers, or proprioceptors, and are therefore more sensitive and more able to have a greater effect on the rest of the system. The feet are one of those areas. The Canadian Federation of Podiatric Medicine reports that there are 26 bones in each foot, over 120 ligaments, 250,000 sweat glands, 19 muscles and tendons, and an astonishing 7,000 nerve endings. The feet have more sweat glands and nerve endings per square centimeter that any other part of your body. Podiatrists and manual therapists alike find that back problems, headaches, subluxations of the spine, and even indigestion can easily be related to issues with our feet. Women tend to have 4 times as many issues with their feet than men do, likely related to wearing heels and shoes with pointed toes. Foot doctors estimate that an average of walking around can add a cumulative force of 600 tons to our feet, and that many health issues

show up first in the feet. Chinese medicine included reflex points in the feet over 4,000 years ago, and evidence shows the practice was also in Egypt up to 2500 years ago. Over 300 research studies involving 18,000 people and 64 different illnesses showed improvement in at least 95% of the cases using reflexology. Yogic traditions show a manifestation of the seven major chakras in corresponding areas of the feet, and several meridians have entry and exit points in the feet. Some practitioners feel that balancing the center of gravity in the pelvic area will have the greatest overall impact on the system as a place to start, while others, such as those using the Alexander Technique, prefer to balance the head on the neck first. Structural Integration practitioners like to establish a stable base at the feet first, and seeing that everything effects everything else, I’ll say that it’s all good. That being said, if your feet aren’t in good shape, you won’t be able to get around and since the ankles are pretty unyielding at the junction of the tibia and fibula, many forces will wind up in the knees. Either dysfunction will make it nearly impossible to exercise or lead an active life, and the resulting stagnation will make you feel worse. Because of this and the fact that it’s so settling for the mind and entire body to work the feet, let’s begin there. Because the soft tissue will release as we reposition the bones, we’ll be holding them both, but focusing on where the bones are in relation to each other.

Disclaimer: Although these techniques and exercises are very gentle and meant to be done slowly taking every precaution into consideration when incorporating something new into your system, there may be acute or flared up chronic conditions that the movements or positions won’t work well for. It’s a good idea to double-check with your doctor, chiropractor, osteopath, or physical therapist if you have any doubt or concerns whether or not the suggestions will be appropriate for your body at this time.

Rebalancing our Support Systems / Chapter 3

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Releasing Forces in the Feet The many forces that interact with the feet while walking, standing, running, or dancing will typically land in similar places for most people: the heel, arch, and instep. The heel is one of those areas that receives and transmits a lot of impact, and some of that force lands in the Achilles. A considerable amount of pressure lands in the calcaneus (heel bone) and when it releases, will also release the tension in the Achilles tendon as well as in the calf muscle. With any area that we’ll be releasing, sense the area first so you can notice the changes, and pay attention to the adjectives you might be able to use for before, during, and after the releases to describe the sensations that are arising. The techniques that quickly release these forces in the feet are:

1. For the Heel a. Get a baseline on the tension in your ankle or in your Achilles tension by flexing and extending your ankle. b. While supporting your foot with one hand, gently rub the heel from top to bottom, starting on one side and working your way all the way around to the other side, up under the ankle bones. c. After the top-to-bottom/up and down strokes, repeat using a cross-fiber stroke, gently rubbing the inside, then back, then outside of the heel from side-to-side. d. Now check your Achilles tone again by dorsiflexing (toes toward your nose) and plantar flexing (toes pointed away) and notice the difference all the way up your calf muscle. e. Try to differentiate each part of the heel for any sensations being produced on the bottom, sides, or back and see how those sensations correspond to what you notice in the tendon or gastrocnemius (calf). Somatic IntelligenceTM

33 2. For the Arch a. Similar to the way you would bend two ends of a flexible branch, with one hand wrapped around the top of your foot by or around your toes, and the other hand grasping your heel, fold the ends of your foot towards the middle and keep it lightly bent for a few seconds. b. With your leg crossed so you can get a good hold on your foot and your hands in the same position, gently twist it first with the big toe rolling towards you and the heel spiraling away from you; then twist it the opposite direction, intentionally creating a valley in your arch. c. Play with the angle of the spiral and pay attention to which direction gives your arch the deepest valley. That is the position that would be putting the most slack into those muscles of the arch. Make a mental note of this so you’ll understand which direction the forces tend to build in your arches and how to reset them most easily. d. Now gently bend your arch in towards itself, like folding a branch sideways into a ‘C’ shape, then open it back out into the opposite direction, focusing on the several bones that formulate the shape of the arch. You want to imagine gapping the bones just a tiny bit when you take the foot away from the arch into length, from a ‘C’ into an ‘I’. e. Next, fold your foot in all the different directions gently, from the flex, extend positions, to the one like you’re wringing out a rag, to the folding in and out of the arch. Then, rest and compare the sensations in the foot you just stimulated with the other foot and listen to what the other foot is saying to you.

3. Releases For the Instep Forces will often build up in the arch for those will flatter feet, and in the instep for those with a high arch and high instep. Depending upon which case yours is, you’ll notice which angle feels the most relieving. a. Start by getting a soft, yet firm grip across your instep, feeling for the place that seems the most stiff or unyielding. Squeeze gently there with one hand while the other hand brings the metatarsal bones – the bones just behind the toes – back towards the tarsal bones just in front of the ankle, like you’re connecting two ends of a plug. b. Wait there a few seconds, then pull the toes and metatarsals out and away from the tarsal bones and rock the front part of the foot up and down at an angle like a sideways seesaw across the fulcrum (from right to left) in the middle of your instep. c. Now that you have some softening and yielding of the compressive forces in between the bones, put your attention on both the Rebalancing our Support Systems / Chapter 3

34 arch and the instep at the same time. Hold your arch with your fingers while having a secure grip on your instep with your thumbs. Your thumbs will be facing your toes. d. Now press your fingers and thumbs together and spread your arch and instep by bringing your hands slightly away from one another. Hold there and allow your feet to receive the suggestion and reply. e. When you notice just a tiny bit of softening or opening, slowly begin to rock your foot out and back in to send more information to your brain about the new flexibility there. Repeat the spreading and rocking as it continues to release, following the new space as far as it will continue to yield. f. Shift your focus each time you spread them from attending to your thumbs on top of your foot, then to your fingers opening the arch another time, while feeling the effect on the instep.

4. Integration of the Feet with Each Other Your feet understand their relationship with one another; they are intimately connected and engaged in constant communication in order for your balanced standing, walking or any use of them to work effectively. Just like any other area of your body that becomes restricted or compressed and falls into subcortical compensatory patterns, your feet can lose some sensitivity and experience reduced connection and information transmission to each other and to the rest of your system. You might find yourself stumbling or losing balance if this happens. Let’s reconnect them. a. Sitting on the floor or on a chair, place your feet side-by-side and have the balls, the arch, the instep, and the heels touching one another. Bring your awareness to the sensation of the skin, then just beneath the skin to the muscles and connective tissue, then feel the contact of the bones. Let that noticing register throughout your feet. b.

Try not to use muscular effort to hold them together, so they will not be engaged in activity, but will be relaxed and passive to enable them to reorganize in relationship to the other foot. See what you notice in your feet, ankles, and on up your legs as the feet begin to shift with the new input they are being given. You can stand up to more fully appreciate the subtle changes in how your feet make contact with the floor, and in how they are lending support to the rest of your frame. c. Now gently place one foot on top of the other and let the energy from one foot pour into the other. Remember that there are chakras in the feet as well as acupuncture entry and exit points, so there’s a real hub of energetic activity going on there as well as an enormous amount of nerve supply being nourished. d. Then switch around and place the bottom foot on top. You can add your hands if you like, for extra energy. This way you’re not only connecting the right and left sides of your body, but you’re also connecting the upper and lower planes of your system while you increase the amount of feedback to your brain. Somatic IntelligenceTM

35 5. Integration of the Feet with Your Legs There will generally be some measure of compression around the ankle bones (medial and lateral epicondyles) as we run up and down stairs, jog, use the treadmill, stand on hard surfaces and so on. These joints have a lot to do with the foot’s ability to move freely, which will greatly impact the muscles in the lower legs and the joints above if the motion at the ankles become restricted. Not only will dorsiflexion and plantar flexion be affected, but also eversion – being able to lift the outer edge of your foot. a. Again, remember to stand and get a baseline on what your ankles feel like before making the adjustment, so you’ll get a sense of what your body tends to feel like while standing and moving through space in those joints. Then, while sitting with your lower leg propped on your thigh parallel to the floor, get a secure grip just beneath your ankle bones. b. Decompress your ankle by lightly pulling your foot away from the epicondyles and wiggle your foot around in every direction slowly with the other hand. You can also trace little circles with your foot, with your foot still being passive, and your free hand making the motion. c. There is a difference between allowing passive motion, and trying to trace the same circle actively. They each send information to the brain, but a different set of nerves will be engaged, and the reorganization will be a little altered. It could be helpful to trace active circles first, then passive, then active again and make a comparative mental note on what changed. d. Move your ankle position so it feels secure on top of your thigh rather than just beyond it and use your hands to walk up and down your arch with one hand while you walk up and down the inside of your shin (tibia) with the other hand. Lean in with your body weight rather than pressing with the force in your hands. You can try moving your hands in the same direction or in the opposite direction at the same time. This will work the muscles that form the arch of your foot while also working the spleen meridian. e. The image shows someone using this motion with someone’s foot and leg, whereas you will be doing the same thing on yourself. It feels amazing. Stand and walk around afterwards and register any differences you may notice in the energy in your legs, the solid feel of your feet on the ground, the ability for your weight to pass more fully down through your legs, and possibly the increased, smooth articulation of your ankles as you move. f. Your big toe is connected to a tendon which attaches to the extensor hallucis longus that is deep to the tibialis anterior muscle adjacent to the tibia. It also connects to a fan of muscles on the sole of the foot. Releasing and mobilizing the big toe will serve to release all of these muscles, barring structural abnormalities. g. You will want to get into a comfortable position that allows you to get a firm grasp on you big toe while you’re sitting down. Be aware of the Rebalancing our Support Systems / Chapter 3

36 joints of the toe and get a sense of what the normal alignment of the phalanges (toes) feels like. Decompress the toe first by the joint that connects it to the rest of the foot, then using the individual joints closer to the toenail. h. It’s fine and can be helpful to rotate the individual joints gently as you pull. You can also try a little flexion (lowering) or extension (lifting) of the toe to see which way affords the most relief. It will depend upon where the forces have gathered the most. i.

The rest of the toes connect to a common tendon – the fibularis tertius tendon – that also has attachments to muscle along the anterior of the lower leg. Give them a good stretch also, and work the individual joints of each toe sensing the sensations that may arise through the instep and further up the leg. There are acupuncture points at the corners of the base of the toenail on several toes, so working them this way will also help the free the flow within the meridians as well.

j.

If you’re able to sit with ease on the floor having the soles of your feet together, there’s a wonderful to work the medial edge of the arch. Similar to the way we walked up and down the medial edge of the tibia while walking up and down the arch earlier, this time you’ll lean into both arches simultaneously. Like before, you’re not pressing on the feet with force, but just leaning your body weight forward with relaxed fists, forearms, or palms so that the pressure is gentle, but firm.

k. As you walk up your arch, continue up the leg and thigh as far as you can. Not only will you be affecting the medial line of fascia and muscle, but you’ll also be working with the yin meridians of the leg – the spleen, liver, and kidney meridians. l. The iliopsoas muscle inserts itself at the medial aspect of the femur, alonside the pectineus and adductor longus muscles of the inner thigh. While your arms are up on your inner thigh, give some resistance by pressing up into your arms, the press down with your arms. This will further tell your brain to release the adductors and iliopsoas. m. Repeat the same with your arms further up your thigh, and this time think about your belly button. Consider the path of the psoas as it travels through the center of your body on its way to your spine. This will engage your messaging systems in a different way and organize the release from another perspective. It will also assist in consciously connecting your lower body with your pelvis and thorax. n. Next, place your hands beneath your thighs just at or behind your knees. This time press down into your hands with your knees and thighs. Now you’re inhibiting the adductors/agonist muscles by engaging the opposing antagonist set that reciprocally inhibit the actors that adduct the leg (move it away from the midline). This method intentionally activates or releases the muscles using the nervous system’s wiring with the brain. o. Using yet another form of messaging that engages the bones of the same area, press down on your legs with the intention of moving your femur closer to the floor. In this instance you’re offering spatial information to your brain about where Somatic IntelligenceTM

37 you want your leg to wind up, based upon the position of the bones in the area. You’ll receive a different feedforward response based upon the shift in perspective. p. Another way to use this principle of offering spatial information as a way of creating positional changes that adjust muscular relationships, is by trying the traditional hamstring stretch position with the orientation of bringing your chest closer to your legs. Don’t think of your hamstrings at all. q. As you bend over, if you make contact with your heels and Achilles tendon, you will send additional information via the posterior fascial chain that connects from your heels all the way up your legs to your pelvis. The entire length of your leg will soften, and the connection with your leg to your feet will be greatly improved. r. Anything you do to help the feet will serve the rest of your system in a variety of ways. If you want to explore reflex areas, be sure to note how your body responds. You will gradually get a sense of the direct relationship between sensations and symptoms in your feet with other parts of your body. You’ll also be able to tell right away when the symptoms change or become alleviated based upon the work you did in the reflexive areas of the feet and have your reset buttons ready as needed. s. The feet have a very direct relationship with your neck and head, as mentioned in the section on posture. For example, if you lie on your back and hold the back of your neck and occiput and squeeze very gently while you flex and extend your feet, you’ll notice it becomes easier each time as your calves let go and your ankles become more supple. In this case you’ll be connecting your feet all the way up to your head and neck, improving both balance and posture.

6. Releases for your lower legs and thighs A wealth of information processing and sensory receptor cells happen near the joints. They help to signal the brain where the limb is and how to set the length and degrees of tension in the neighboring muscles in order to achieve the desired position. Therefore, change or release in the muscle can happen quickly by using the attached tendons and ligaments. Since many of the lower leg muscles attach above the knee, and some of the thigh muscles attach below the knee, this joint is a great place to work. a. We spoke about the Achilles and the heel being a good place to make contact in order to free the calf muscles. The gastrocnemius also has tendons that attach above the knee on the shelf of the epicondyles of the femur – the thigh bone, so that will serve as another great spot to hold to assist the release of the calves. b. The release can happen while standing, sitting, or lying down. The main principle is to hold the tendons gently behind the knee while you flex the foot up and down. It’s helpful to tune into which tendon may be more taut, because that will be the side of the muscle that also holds the most tension. Rebalancing our Support Systems / Chapter 3

38 c. There is a group of three tendons combining the gracilis, semitendonosus (medial hamstring) and Sartorius muscles that are surrounded by a sheath called the pes anserinus. This sheath can become very tender. It attaches just at the medial aspect of the knee joint on the tibia. This method will also have a positive, relaxing effect on this sensitive area and on those three muscles, but if it feels tender, move your hands up slightly. d. Just slightly pull or stretch the tissue at your lower thigh up towards your pelvis as you flex your foot up and down, decompressing the knee joint as it softens the surrounding muscles and connective tissue. Switching your focus to the bones of the knee joint just holding or cupping them gently will serve to open the joint at the same time the connective tissues are being eased.

7. Releases for hamstrings, tensor fascia latae, knees, and iliotibial tract Your hamstrings will begin to let go by virtue of you having contact with the knee joint. Much information about where to place the leg will be coming in from the articular angles of the knee joint. They can easily become tight just by sitting on them, by the shoes you wear, or by your gait pattern. They are also easy to release. There is also a posterior line of fascia that can be accessed through the hamstrings that have an impact all the way up your back and will soften the erectors on alongside your spine. a. Shift your hands to the tendons that insert just below the knee on both sides. These are the tendons for the medial and lateral hamstrings. Make firm contact with the tendons and drag them toward, then away from your pelvis as you rotate your leg in and out. b. It might take some practice to control it, but attempt to lift your leg out of the hip socket towards the ceiling while lying on your back with your leg bent at the hip and straight at the knee. Lift one leg, then the other, and notice which side is easier. Then lift, rotate medially (inward), and let the leg drop with gravity as your externally rotate (outward). It’s fine to bend one leg while you lift and lower the other leg. c. Now find your sit bone – the ischial tuberosity at the very bottom of your pelvis where the tendon for the hamstrings attaches to the pelvis. The tendon will have a very different feel than the muscle. It’s very stiff and might be ropey. Find the tightest area of the tendon and stroke it up toward the bone, then rub it lightly just where it attaches to the tuberosity. Rubbing across the tendon instead of up and down will also immediately begin to soften the hamstrings. d. Pictured just beneath the ASIS is the tensor fascia latae muscle which may not go that far inferior to the greater trochanter, but does descend and insert at the lateral aspect of the knee joint. This is tight on many people and can have a compressive effect on the outside of the knee which puts pressure on the medial aspect of the same joint. The very Somatic IntelligenceTM

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strong tendon coming out of the tensor fascia latae is the iliotibial tract, the infamous IT band where so many people use the dense foam rollers to try and release tension.

e. There is much more of an intricate weave of soft tissue in any area of your body then that which is being illustrated when just a single muscle group is being pictured. When all of the soft tissue is simultaneously being pictured, you’ll immediately notice how easy it is for one area to pull on and impact neighboring areas, or even zones that are at the other end of your body, like an object at the end of a rope. If it’s tied to the rope and you pull on it, the object will have to move. f. The IT band is very responsive at its insertion point. Holding the fibers right at the joint, apply a slight amount of pressure on the tendon, then notice the sensations that arise from your contact and wait about three seconds. The passive input will facilitate a recognition of joint status for the brain which will begin to feed forward a reorganization of the local structures. Their adjustments will trigger responses on up the leg and soften the IT band, which will release pressures on the hip that will release pressures on the back. g. A wonderful technique for the knee itself that also helps everything above and below, is to take a secure, firm, yet soft grip just above and just below the knee while you very gently compress just a fraction of an inch. Listen for the changes and responses inside and around the joint until you feel it go still. Then, just as gently decompress or pull the upper and lower leg away from one another by a fraction of an inch, hold, wait, and listen. Feel your upper and lower leg afterwards to fully notice the changes. h . A slight variation that feels amazing for the entire leg, is to hold the top of your calf just below the knee while you have a soft, secure hold on the lower portion of your thigh, then separate them, then bring them together, separate, then together in a pumping action. With this simple motion you can help to open energetic, blood and nerve flow through the leg while stimulating lymph, releasing the fibular head, and integrating the entire extremity.

8. Releases for the quads Just one of the quadriceps muscles, the rectus femoris, attaches to the pelvis. The other three originate on the upper neck of the femur, just at or just below the head of the femur. While the vastus medialis rises out of the lesser trochanter on the intertrochanteric crest high on the inside of the femur, the vastus intermedius and vastus lateralis originate more laterally. The lateralis reaches all the way around beside and behind the IT band, attaching to the greater trochanter along with the tensor fascia latae. All four muscles insert at the patella in the quadriceps tendon. Having strong, yet supple quads lends great support to the knee joints, and allows more freedom to the pelvis and thorax. The medial arcuate ligament of the diaphragm – the respiratory diaphragm – wraps around the psoas muscle which is just in front of the quadratus lumborum that is considered as the Rebalancing our Support Systems / Chapter 3

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posterior abdominal wall, and a continuation of the transverse abdominus muscle. Because the psoas attaches adjacent to the vastus medialis, tight quads can not only impact the knees, but also have a strong effect on the spine, and on the diaphragm where crucial respiratory, internal organ and vascular structures live. Therefore, releasing the quads can greatly improve overall well-being. The rectus femoris, which attaches to the anterior superior iliac spine of the pelvis (ASIS), can easily rotate the ilium and put strain on the muscles of the hips and back while also straining the sacrum. These are brief descriptions of biomechanical forces that reach across all the body planes, impacting structures above, below, behind, and beside the origin of the pull when these muscles are out of balance. The nerve and vessel implications haven’t been included, but are considerable. These muscles, in my opinion, because of their widespread influence, are some of the most important muscles in the body. Take care to open the knee joint in the prior techniques before putting the leg into positions that release the quads. a. When working with the quads standing up, you want to make sure that your knee doesn’t go beyond your toes in order to protect the knees. Once you have a secure stance with the forward leg, gradually send the back leg into a position that puts the quads into length until you feel a pull, either on the one that originates at the ASIS, or those that attach on the femur. Lean forward first, and wiggle your back foot sensing the effect on the quads until you find a position that optimizes contact with the fibers you want to reach and release. b. Lift your body with your back foot and gently lower your pelvis step by step as you slide the leg back so you can take pressure off your forward knee as you lengthen the quads. Then gradually lift your torso and notice the additional contact from the quads up through the center of gravity into the pelvic area as the upper relationships become engaged. c. Then lift your arms and notice which areas of your thorax, diaphragm, shoulder girdle or neck may be influence by your legs. Shift your position gradually until you have come to the most neutral space with the soft tissue fields in relation to your skeleton. Allow your bony structures and tissue fields to align as much as possible while lengthened and extended, as you discover in the process which areas may be adhered. Somatic IntelligenceTM

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d. Then lower your arms and sink your pelvis a little lower towards the floor. You aren’t thinking about stretching your quads, you’re intending to lower your pelvis. This orientation to what you’re doing will completely change your body’s response. With the skeletal focus, there will be minimal sensation of resistance in the quads as they automatically let go in order to change the position of your pelvis. e. Next, lean back slightly with your thorax and look up, further extending your upper body and opening the line from the head through to the feet. Try to sense the entire line and notice how the position of the head and neck register through the legs, and how the actions of the feet and legs register all the way up through the body to the head. Slowly bring your legs together, stand straight and repeat on the other side. f. As an alternate, you can remain standing and hold your leg behind your back if you are flexible enough. This is one of the most common quad stretches, but our frame of reference will now be to release and reeducate instead of stretching it. So when you hold your foot behind your thigh press your foot into your hand, stop your foot from reaching out and away, then relax the foot and let it glide back towards your thigh. Repeat this process a few times, letting the foot go a little further, then pull it back more, out a little further, then back more towards the thigh, and so on. g. When you’re as close as you can get to the thigh, relax there for a few seconds and let the brain and all the surrounding fields register and store the new information. As you drop the leg, and straighten it, extend it out behind you a few inches by lifting your leg to engage the hamstrings, then swing it forward a few inches, back again a few inches, then come to rest at center, stand, sense, and integrate. h. A direct method that works well is to grab hold of the belly of the quads with one hand near the origin at the head of the femur, and the other closer to the knee, then push your hands toward one another. This will passively shorten the muscles and invite the brain to reduce firing and begin to relax the fibers of the quads. Hold your pressure for a few seconds, then separate your hands and hold there for a few seconds. You’ll feel your entire leg respond. Think of and intend towards the femur as you hold and move the muscles. i.

The technique is pictured with a therapist executing the method, but you can easily do it on yourself either sitting with the knee bent, or straight out with your foot resting on another object. It’s better not to try it while standing because the quads will be engaged and it’s meant to be a passive technique. Rebalancing our Support Systems / Chapter 3

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Chapter 4

Releases for the Center of Gravity Your body is the church where Nature asks to be reverenced. ~ Marquis de Sade

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O

ur center of gravity is significant for many reasons. It is the location of (lower) dan tien, the ‘sea of chi’ - an important energy center or reservoir where energy can be stored - just two finger widths below the navel. Martial artists use this to store and draw strength, but also to center themselves and maintain balance. In order to generate and sustain energy in this area, one should sustain good posture and good breathing habits, which is also related to good posture. A couple of inches below the dan tien is an area called a pelvic ‘diaphragm’ in cranial sacral and osteopathic approaches.

These practitioners view diaphragms as an area where horizontal fibers delineate and support structural integrity as well as distribute or mitigate forces being transmitted from below. There needs to be an even flow of biomechanical forces from the joints in the legs for locomotion to be efficient and coordinated, but imbalances will be captured by these transverse membranes in the pelvic floor, or the ligaments, fascia, and muscles of the pelvis. The muscles that attach here are very influential for the health of the spine, the internal organs, and for our ability to move more freely.

1. Releases for the hips, sacrum, and pelvis a. The greater trochanter is the bone that juts out at the top of the side of the thigh where the IT band and tensor fascia latae attach. This bone also receives insertions from the gluteus minimuns, gluteus medius, piriformis, obturators, quadratus femoris and gemella. The nerve (superior gluteal n.) that activates the TFL and the lesser gluts arises from L5-S1 segment of the lower spine, so if the low back is compressed, the IT band and adjoining muscles may be tight. The sciatic nerve also exits the low lumbar, passing through the first 3 sacral notches before it passes beneath the piriformis. b. You can imagine how many forces can act upon this one bone – the greater trochanter. At the very top of the femur on the medial surface of the lesser trochanter is the insertion of the powerful psoas muscle. Since the gluts work synergistically with the psoas and are all engaged whenever we walk, it will be helpful to balance the muscles on both sides of the trochanter to help remove pressure from the knee, the sacrum, or from the IT band. c. It is a prominent bone that is easy to palpate, so releasing the adjoining muscles will also be easy. While lying on your side or while standing with most of your weight on the other leg, hold the muscles surrounding the trochanter near the top of the trochanter. Gently lift the muscles toward the crest of the ilium (top of your hip) and hold. Then pull the whole handful gently anterior, then posterior, and sense which direction has more ease, and relax there. After you feel some of the tension release, externally rotate your leg (turn it out) and wait there. d. As an alternate or adjunct, you can place your other hand on the side edge of the sacrum you’re working with, and gently stretch those lateral fibers of the sacrum toward the insertions of the gluts, piriformis and tensor fascia latae in your other Releases for the Center of Gravity / Chapter 4

44 hand. You’ll be squeezing or pressing all the muscles in between the sacrum and the greater trochanter together like you would an accordion. Try to have contact with the outer edges of each bone (where the muscles attach) as you press. e. While your leg is turned out, maintain steady but gentle pressure with both hands as you rotate the leg a tiny bit inwards (medially), then out a little further than it was, then back in, and out again until you reach the end range. Squeeze your hands together just a little bit more, then release them and sense the leg and hip. Take a little walk around the room to let the changes integrate into motion, then repeat on the other leg. f. Next, place the hand that was alongside the edge of the sacrum just beneath the ilium, rim of the pelvis – while your other hand cups the trochanter from below. Then gently press your hands toward one another, passively shortening the tensor fascia latae in between your hands. In order to include information from active as well as passive input, while your hands are in this position, rotate your leg medially and laterally like before, gradually increasing the degree of rotation in each direction. g. Another method to help release and balance the center of gravity includes an exercise called the ‘bridge’. While lying on your back, bend your knees so that your feet are flat on the surface you’re lying on. Then lift your pelvis until it’s on a level slope with your knees, where your anterior surface is fairly flat. Take care not to strain your neck, and to have your knees above your ankles. It’s not necessary to have the degree of arch in your back that this practitioner has. h. While in this position, place your hands around your ribs and gently press in and hold. You’ll feel some release down through your back and torso into your pelvis. Slide your hands down a little further until you’ve reached the end of your ribs at T11 and T12 and press in again. Allow the muscles in your center of gravity to soften as the diaphragm transverse abdominus, lats and ribs are placed into slack. The muscles at the ribs attach along the pelvis and will respond at both ends of the spectrum. i.

Coordinate your breath with the compressions of the ribs, inhaling and pressing in as the diaphragm drops, then as you exhale and the diaphragm rises back up into its original place, increase your pressure slightly to take up the slack. Notice any changes along your hips, abdominal region, thighs, and back. Wiggle or your pelvis around to discover any areas that feel a little stuck or heavy, possibly because energy is not circulating well there. If you feel any discomfort, reposition your pelvis or chest and focus your breath in those areas to help them let go.

j.

Lower your pelvis and let it settle before bringing your knees to your chest, focusing

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45 on the changing position of your sacrum and low back. Cradle your knees with your arms, then press your knees into unyielding arms and release your legs back down onto your chest. Then bring your hands around to the other side of your knees and press them away from your body, this time letting your legs become unyielding. After that, come around and cradle them again pulling them closer to your chest. Repeat a few times while holding your attention on your pelvis and spine. As an integrative action, you can straighten your legs and shake them out, making sure your knees and ankles are so relaxed you can feel your feet flopping around. k. From a squat position, keeping your spine upright and your feet angled slightly out, externally rotate the hip joint and place your arms or elbows inside of your knees. Press your knees in towards your arms while you resist the motion as in an isometric contraction. Then switch your arms to the outside of your knees and hug them with your arms. This time, press out into your elbows with your knees as you resist the motion with your arms. The pressure with your knees is slight, as is the resistance. You will be very gently gapping and closing the sacro-iliac joint, creating an ease within its very small range of motion. l. From this position, keeping your back straight and your chest high, slowly arch and curl your low back and sacrum, making a mental note as to which direction felt the easiest. Afterwards drop your pelvis and allow it to hang straight down without either an arch or a tuck. Relax there for a few minutes as long as there is no strain felt anywhere in your back, feet, or knees.

2. Integrating the pelvis with the spine Your pelvis and back will have had many of the forces acting on them already released from working with the feet, legs and thighs beforehand. When you consider that many of the imbalances that appear in the pelvis or back come from the legs and feet, it will make sense from now on to clear those areas first. Strive to sense your body as a whole, checking the relationships throughout the ‘biomatrix’ whenever tightness or tension appears. Continually scan the body as a whole to see if you can locate the originator of the force or tension. As we move through the exercises you’ll realize what the most common ‘problematic’ connections are for your body and know where to look for the source of discomfort if there is one. a. The cat/cow is very popular in yoga, but some just call it the upright cat. Rather than doing an arch and curl of the low back and pelvis while lying down, you do the same thing on all fours, allowing more space to move freely in both directions. One of the keys in this movement is to try to sense the individual vertebral segments as they being to change position. We want to achieve individuation in every joint to retain suppleness and full range of motion. Since spinal nerves to the extremities arise out of the spine, it’s particularly important to keep the spine supple. Releases for the Center of Gravity / Chapter 4

46 a.

b.

b. You can either orient to the motion as gradually dropping your belly towards the floor while sensing the vertebrae extend (arch), or you can orient towards it as releasing your spine into the force of gravity and control the lift from the sacrum on up to the shoulders. Arching your neck and looking up towards the ceiling will exaggerate the extension even more and enable you to include your entire spine in the action. c. Then, segment by segment, lower your head while simultaneously lowering your sacrum so that your tailbone heads in the direction of your nose as your spine lifts toward the ceiling. The spine has many layers and each will respond a little differently if you send your intention into that layer. Your body will know where your attention goes and will follow it wherever it goes. Remember that whenever you attend to the position of the bones, the soft tissue will yield to allow the change to take place. It will also help if you picture the bones as you move. d. One very useful layer in the posterior longitudinal ligament. It lies in the vertebral canal behind the spinous processes (the bony prominences you can sometimes see in the middle of your back), deep to the spinal cord, right in front of the vertebral body, but still on the posterior side of the spine. It attaches to the outer ring of the intervertebral discs all the way down to the sacrum, and protects you from bending over too far. Including a focus on this sheath as you flex and lift your spine will allow freer motion. Focusing on the anterior longitudinal ligament that lies along the anterior of the vertebral bodies will afford an increased release as you arch. e. Next, bend sideways while keeping your nose to the floor. You’ll be bringing your ear towards your shoulder as your shoulder bends sideways towards your waist. At the same time, bring your hip on that side in the direction of your waist also, closing the ribs on that side, while opening and widening the space between them on the opposite side. Your spine will be side bending while your ribs are opening and closing like an accordion. f. Again, move slowly and gently, sensing the change of position in the bones and what the soft tissue fields around and between the skeleton feel like. Notice any changes in the ease of motion or in areas that are resistant to this action as you increase repetitions. As you change sides, you will be reciprocally inhibiting the side you just worked on and making it easier to release. Now you’ve increased the articulation of the spine in three directions – flexion, extension, and side-bending – connecting it to the pelvis and the head while also releasing the forces on both ends. Somatic IntelligenceTM

47 h.

k.

g. Tensions generated by the massive latissimus dorsi will be reduced, along with the erectors and paraspinals. As you can see, the lats can have a powerful effect on the sacrum and pelvis as well as the entire spine, the ribs, and the position of the arms. The deeper back muscles can easily be affected by the larger, more superficial ones, just like the gluteus maximus lending its tensions to the medius and minimus underneath. There are at least 15 muscles, mostly in pairs, that lie in three layers on and around the spine. Making smaller, more detailed movements can help to access the smaller, deeper layers directly on the transverse and spinous processes, along with those on the ribs that affect the breath. h. The child pose is another common posture that can be adapted using somatic principles. It will reach the lats, erectors, quadratus lumborum, intercostals, and some of the paraspinals. While in this bent over position, try to sense the different sections of your spine. Notice the lumbar, thoracic, then cervical regions and compare them. Which area holds the most strain? i.

Arch and curl your low back, then rock your hips forward and back, then side to side. What changes do you notice on your low back or sacrum based upon the changes in your hips? What changes do you notice higher up in your spine based upon the changes in your low back? Then reach your arms above your head and sense your back again. Slowly reach one hand away from your body, then the other. What differences do you feel from one side of your body to the other? How does that show itself in your rib cage or ability to extend your shoulder?

j. Slide one shoulder blade back and down towards your waist, hold it there for a few seconds, then gradually reach away again. If you feel a catch place or tweaky spot, wait there, rotate your torso slightly as you reach and depress your shoulder girdle, then sense it again. Repeat the same for the opposite side. When you’ve finished, rest and sense your back, neck, and ribs again. Next, gently rotate your neck and head, allowing your shoulders and spine to follow along in the motion so there’s no strain on your neck. k. Then fold your arms back alongside your legs and reach gently with your hands away from your head past your feet. Again, allow your shoulders to move down naturally and notice your ribs dropping in closer to your hips. Feel what happens to your spine when the position of your shoulder girdle and arm changes. Next reach with just one hand, allowing your spine to curve as the ribs on that side come closer together. Now place your attention on the other side of the spine that expresses the widened side of the curve. Wait there and feel the gradual releases on the opened Releases for the Center of Gravity / Chapter 4

48 side. Come back to center with your head, neck, and shoulders, rest in the midline and repeat on the opposite side. l. It’s wonderful to use this child’s pose after any extension exercises, just like it’s useful to extend the spine after spending any length of time in flexion. In general, make an effort to always end ‘long’, or with the muscles lengthened and the skeleton decompressed if you’re doing any strengthening exercises in your workout. You can also incorporate the movements according to which area of reeducation you need most, depending upon how your posture is shaping up, where the tensions or compensations are accumulating, how you spend your day’s activities, and so on. m. Another popular posture that is excellent for opening the abdominal and chest area which will remove many forces acting on the back, spine, diaphragm, and pelvis, is the cobra. As with any of the release positions, it must be modified according to what your body can comfortably do. This position can be modified to where you’re only lifting yourself up onto your elbows. There will still be considerable opening that can happen at that level, particularly if it feels like you’ve reached a barrier there. Become aware of the several meridians that run up through the front of the torso, particularly the kidney meridian that terminates just beneath the clavicle. n. Sense into the muscles that connect behind, in between, beneath, and on top of the rib cage and pelvis from this position, then get a read on the abdominal musculature in between them. Be aware of the movement of your diaphragm as you breathe, lifting and lowering your chest slightly with each breath. Extend your head and neck to increase the length, allowing the deeper structures like your esophagus to also release all the way down through to your stomach.

3. Tuning in to the anatomy of the thorax a. It’s helpful to realize that there are also layers of soft tissue in the abdominal area. There is a sheath at the midline that the abdominals, the external and internal obliques, and tranverse abdominals attach to called the linea alba. It is a fairly strong bit of connective tissue that can have broad effects if it becomes taut. Notice how far up the chest onto the sternum the abs reach, and appreciate how much influence they can have on your posture if they become overly tight or shortened. b. Just beneath the muscle layers is the parietal peritoneum, a transparent sheath that surrounds the entire abdominal cavity, but also connects and surrounds the internal organs with its continuation into the visceral peritoneum. As interwoven as they are, tension or imbalanced pulls in any of these areas can pull on or create tension around the organs. The esophagus, pancreas, rectum and kidneys and a few other structures lie outside of this sheath on their posterior surfaces. Utilizing this movement not only serves to take forces off of the paraspinals along the spine, but also helps to release pressure on the organs and improve posture. Somatic IntelligenceTM

49 c. If you notice tension around a particular organ or have had issues with a particular organ, place your attention there as you execute this posture. Bend slightly down into or onto the organ that feels taut, and relax there until you feel it go into slack and let go. You can combine a slight rotation of the trunk at the same time to release even more forces acting in a 3 dimensional way upon the organ. d. Remember that when you focus on the extension of your spine and sense how the vertebrae or the longitudinal ligaments feel (your body will know where you are focusing even if you can’t feel it) the anterior tissue fields will release to allow the spinal extension. If you tune into the anterior action of opening the ribs and abdominal fascia the spine will release more into extension. As you familiarize with your system you’ll better know which position to spend more time and modifications with. e. Deeper still, behind the rib cage and superficial to the lungs is the pleura. The protective, fibrous perica rdium surrounds the heart, and attaches to the central tendon of the diaphragm as well as to the mediastinal pleura. It would not be far-fetched to have pressure on the pericardium from tensions in the surrounding or inferior connective tissue to generate a rapid heartbeat biomechanically, but also because the phrenic and vagus nerves attach to the superficial and deeper layers of the pericardium. If you feel pressure around the heart, focus first on releasing the thighs, hip joints, abdominal muscles and diaphragm, then check again. The pericardium can be manually released, but it will require some sensitive palpatory skills from a trained practitioner. f. Another way to check for restrictions in the chest cavity or thorax, is to take deep breaths into your clavicle area, then out into your sides, into your abdomen, then into your back. Feel for which area seems to allow the least amount of expansion for your lungs, then modify the child’s pose and cobra using arm positon, chest rotation, side bend, and other alterations we talked about in order to better free the pleura, diaphragm, or other tissues that may restrict your internal organs.

4. Integrating the posterior chain of fascia a. If you feel good the next day or two after doing postures or movements that take your body into full range of motion, you will be able to gain benefit from this extension exercise while prone (face and belly down). With clothing that isn’t restrictive around your center of gravity, use a firm but padded surface to lie on. Very gently lift your chest and head with your arms at your side, gradually increasing the height as your system opens and strengthens. Releases for the Center of Gravity / Chapter 4

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b. Try this action a couple of times, very gradually lowering yourself back down to the floor. Lift, slowly lower, lift just a few inches, then very gradually lower and let your body melt into the floor. Notice the different degree of tension in your back muscles each time you melt into the floor. Then include your legs, lifting them just a few inches along with your upper body, and lower again. c. As an alternate, when you lift move your arms out to the side, sensing the attachment of your lats from the upper arm right down to your sacrum. As you lower yourself back down to the floor, bring your arms back to your sides and relax. You can rest with your nose on the mat, or turn your head to the side that feels most comfortable for your neck. You can also keep your head straight, looking down, or elevated during this motion, depending upon what feels the most comfortable and useful for the release of your posterior muscles. d. A way to maximize the information coming into your system about the revised length-tension relationships along your back muscles, is to perform the movement over a large exercise ball, or over a dome shaped foam cushion. You will still lift and lower yourself gradually, but this new depth will allow you to continue down and around the ball to further lengthen the muscles as you flex. e. Bending over with your arms laced over each other allows the lengthening of the spine, the hips and the posterior leg muscles and fascia at the same time. A few perspectives can accompany this position. One is to sense the lats, the erectors and shoulder muscles as they reveal release or resistance into this position. The lower traps and rhomboids between the scapula and the spine might begin to throw up some tension, as may a few of the rotator cuff muscles. f. While your arms are still crossed, gently lift from the shoulder girdles up toward the ceiling, back toward your pelvis, and in toward your spine, then gradually let the shoulder release into gravity back down towards the floor. Repeat this motion a few times until you notice the tension easing. You can also shake your arms and wiggle them around freely, like clothes hanging on a clothesline blowing in the wind. g. Next, clasp your hands behind your head and allow them to rest on the base of your skull. Feel the slight traction afforded by the weight of your arms on your neck and head. Increase the effect by exerting a minor pull on the base of the skull and feel the opening down the length of your spine, or feel where little restrictions may become evident. h. Add slight rotation to one side, then the other direction, then exert the slight traction again and see if there’s been a change in the degree of restriction you may have felt before. Shake and wiggle your entire torso the way you did your shoulders, bouncing up and down and all around like a rag doll. Now the traction should be being felt at the junction of the lumbar vertebrae with the sacrum, if it wasn’t already being felt there. Somatic IntelligenceTM

51 5. Integrating the anterior and posterior (frontal plane) with the midline a. When your back and torso feel as limber as they can, turn the focus to your spine repeat the traction, thinking of the posterior and anterior longitudinal ligaments, then the dura and more interior spaces around the cord itself. Think of the cauda equine at the base of the cord, and the filum terminale beneath the cauda fibers that attach at the coccyx. Each layer will respond as you move your attention to that particular structure. If you’ve never heard of these structures, wait until you’re more familiar before working and sensing at this level. b. Move your attention to the anterior of your body near the sternum in between the clavicles – your collar bones. Notice the response of your spine as you continue to traction there while your attention moves to the front. Consider and attend to your esophagus running from your throat near the back of your neck and upper thoracic vertebrae to your stomach. Lift your head and chest slightly to better sense the path of the esophagus and notice what releases in the process. c. Stand up slowly for a few seconds to allow the blood to drain back down from your head, and check any changes that have happened during the last movement series. Scan your posture, your connection to your feet, center of gravity and spine. Once you have your new baseline, bend at the hip joint and extend your back out flat, reaching out with your arms and hands to further decompress your spine. d. Tune into the fact that life force enters your finger tips and runs all the way through the meridians in your arms to your chest, and pours down your head, all the way down your back through the bladder meridian, which continues through your pelvis, down your legs to your toes. Keeping your hips high, continue to reach out long out of your low back and hips as you seek to touch the floor with your fingers, allowing your arms, spine and legs to be like hollow conduits for the life force that runs through them. When you reach the ground, tune into the life force of the earth beneath your fingers. e. Shift your attention to the midline and become aware of the nadis that run alongside your spinal cord, the central canal that’s in the middle of the cord, as well as the governing vessel meridian than runs along the center of the head and down through the sacrum. This shift in attention changes the atmosphere and context of the motion and energizes these structures as you open them, while providing space for the life force to nourish your core and central nervous system on out through to the extremities. f. The ‘shu’ points of Oriental medicine are also found alongside the spine on the more medial bladder meridian, which is adjacent to the spinal nerve roots. These 12 points are almost directly opposite the ‘mu’ points on the front of the Releases for the Center of Gravity / Chapter 4

52 body and are intersecting distribution points to the internal organs. When sensitive or sore, these points can be indicators of imbalances in the organs they correspond to, and can be reflective of issues in the yin or yang organs irrespective of which side of the body, or which meridian the point is located on. Tenderness with light palpation signifies deficiency, whereas if deeper palpation produces sensitivity, there may be an excess of energy causing the disturbance.

6. Integrating the periphery with the core (saggital planes) Most of the power in any of our actions or with the ability to sustain a stable stance comes from the connection of the extremities with the center of gravity and with the midline along the spine. One level of this integration is being able to maintain awareness with the entire body at the same time so that all your energy and attention doesn’t pour out onto the object or activity in front of you. The other is to keep channels open within our circulatory, neurological, energetic, and soft tissue systems so that their sensory and motor feedback info and flow efficiently. The combination of movement and awareness accomplishes both levels of integration to optimize functionality. Most of us have differences from one side to the other, and have a dominance of one side over the other. Expect that there will be some of these influences that will show up in what you initially perceive, so learn to distinguish natural muscular development according to use from restrictions. We want to open restrictions so the core can communicate effectively with the periphery and vice versa. a. Lying down on a comfortable s urface, get a sense of how your body feels on that surface, and which areas are or are not releasing all the way onto the ground. Take a few deep breaths and notice the movement of your chest, diaphragm, belly, shoulders, back, head and neck. Tune in a little more closely and notice the retraction of your arms and thighs into their respective sockets as you inhale, then release out again with the exhale. b. When you feel as released into gravity as you can be, gently extend one leg out of the pelvis, leading with your heel. Notice what happens to the other side of your pelvis in the process, then repeat on that side, reaching long with your heel out and away from your hip socket. c. Next, lift your arms so that they rest as comfortably as possible on the floor above you, with your elbows next to your face. Not everyone will have the flexibility in your shoulder joint for it to lie flat, but let it rest straight up rather than out to the side. Then reach up and out of your shoulder socket one arm at a time, like you just did with your legs, noticing how your shoulder and ribs on the opposite side drop to facilitate the lift on the active side. Alternate back and forth from one arm to the next. Somatic IntelligenceTM

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d. Now, combine the leg and arm reaches, leading on one set with the fingers and heels, and on the next set lead with the shoulder girdle and hips. Make an effort to create as smooth a motion as possible with each extremity. Rather than trying to reach as far as you can, make the action as controlled and conscious as you can. Vary the angle or trajectory slightly and test to see which trajectory you have the most control over, and which one is the most shaky. e. First reach with the arm and leg on the same side (ipsilateral), then reach out with the right arm and left leg (contralateral). Return to the shaky areas after a few repetitions and see if you feel an improvement. Very often the shoulders and hips will reflect the ease or restriction of the other, since they are always paired in walking or moving in any way. Freeing them individually then recombining them in a coordinated but seldom used pattern will help them to become more efficient and balanced. f. Notice the participation of your midline as it supports the motion of your arms and legs. You can repeat this action while standing, using a small board to stand on so you can still drop and reach with your pelvis and heel. Each motion of the periphery will gain power the more you include your core in the movement. Remember this whenever you walk or reach for something. g. Shifting to a seated position, allow your back to be as upright as possible while remaining relaxed, sitting on your sit bones – the ischial tuberosities at the base of your pelvis. Perform gentle reaches with your heels from this posture, feeling the rocking of your pelvis with each extension, realizing the inseparable coordination of the center to the feet. h. Keeping your back straight, lean forward with your chest in the direction of your feet and your torso will naturally begin to drop toward your legs. Sense the swivel in your hip joints as you rotate forward, getting the sense that the forward motion comes from a rotation. Note the relationship between your sternum between your ribs and sacrum, feeling the sacrum and tailbone slide back and up as your sternum glides forward and down. i.

If you can make contact with your feet or toes, do so as you glide your legs forward, feeling your torso rotate as your shoulder moves forward with the forwardreaching heel. Little bitty movements are enough for this exercise, with the goal being to connect, awaken, individuate, integrate, and support harmonious, fluid, controlled motion.

j.

Another way to integrate the extremities with the core is through rotation. You will be spiraling around the midline as your rotate, so the control and extent of the rotation will depend upon the fluid articulation at the midline and center of gravity. After Releases for the Center of Gravity / Chapter 4

54 k.

m.

o.

accomplishing the decompression and opening in the other planes, your body will be more ready to accept the rotation without strain. In any case, start small just for the sensing, awakening, and integration functions of the motion. There’s no need to go for the end range of the action. k. Still maintaining an easeful upright back, cross one leg over the remaining straight leg, hugging the bent knee. Ever so gently rotate away from the straight leg and slowly turn your head to look over your shoulder. Turn your head and neck back first, then your shoulders, then mid-back, low back and last your base of support – your pelvis. l. Try the rotation from a perspective of turning with the power emanating from your core, imagining the flow of energy through the spine, then do it again using your arms and hands to propel the core around, as if you were spiraling it around a straight column of energy. Repeat with each orientation a few times, noticing whether the range of motion becomes easier each time. m. Next, place your attention on the knee you’ve been hugging. Add a gentle pull inward on the knee while sensing the hip/glut area below. Allow a slight lengthening to happen between the sacrum and the trochanter with the pull, and sense the effect throughout the IT band. Then fold your extended leg under your leg so that the foot winds up under the hip you’ve been opening up. n. Resting your ‘hugging’ arm along the thigh of your bent leg with your hand near the greater trochanter, you can better isolate the information you want to provide. You want to sense the same area between the trochanter and sacrum, making contact with the fibers that attach to the trochanter as you exert the slight pull. Wait and listen for the muscles to respond, then take up the slack given after the muscles soften and allow greater length. Repeat on the opposite side, lifting your chest and sensing your spine as you rotate. o. Fold your legs into a half lotus position, continuing to sit high on your ‘sit’ bones and notice the effects of the rotation on your center of gravity and the muscles of the lower abdomen and waist. Lightly press down on the knee as you turn, trying to get a gentle stretch on the inquinal ligament area between the pubic bone and the ASIS – the anterior superior iliac spine of the pelvis at the opposite end of the pubic symphysis. p. You may lift and lower the knee closest to the floor, giving resistance in each direction before allowing it to release in the same direction as you initially resisted. Once again, notice the effect on the pelvic floor area, center of gravity, and low back when you further release the upper leg in adduction and external rotation. The global efSomatic IntelligenceTM

55 fect of loosening the adductors, medial quads, lateral hamstrings, and psoas with this movement is wonderful and very helpful in maintaining freedom in this area.

7. Integrating the core with multiple planes a. The pectoralis major muscles are very active in most forward-facing activities we engage in during the day. They are quite strong and can easily overpower their posterior antagonists, the rhomboids. They originate all along the sternum at insert at the upper anterior portion of the humerus and the pecs are very easy to lengthen. b. The pectoralis minor is smaller and deeper than the major, originating near the costal cartilage of the 3rd through 5th ribs, and inserting on the coracoid process of the scapula which is near the origin of the biceps tendon. Their actions are different, so the motion to release the pec major and minor will also be different. c. The pec minor helps to elevate the ribs and works with the serratus anterior to pull the shoulder blade forward. We’ll incorporate attention to those functions while working with pec major. The arms are heavy enough to act as an aid in resistance against gravity to reeducate the pectorals, but some people who’ve developed a great deal of tone there may want to use light weights to increase the sensation while working with these powerful muscles. d.

Lie flat on the floor with your arms by your sides. Gently rotate both of your arms medially, so that the back of your hands wind up facing your thighs. Then roll them back out again so that your palms are facing the ceiling and your shoulder blades are pressed back into the floor coming closer together, elevating your chest. Activating the rhomboids will soften the pecs. Roll your arms in and out a few times, noticing how the action feels for your sternum, collar bone, hip joints and diaphragm. e. Then do the same with your legs, rotating them medially and laterally, allowing your feet to lead the way. Sense the effects on your hips, sacrum, low back and abdominal area. Begin to lift and lower your chin as you rotate your legs. Next, rotate one arm and one leg (ipsilateral) at the same time inward and outward, switch sides and repeat, then rotate the right arm with the left leg medially, then laterally together (contralateral). f. Make a note of any differences in effect that varying the combination has on your body. Make an effort to sense the influences on the upper, lower, f. Make an effort to sense the influences on the upper, lower, front, back, and sides of your body simultaneously if you can. g. Lying on your back on the floor or exercise ball with arms straight up in the air, allow them to drop gradually towards the floor, controlling and smoothing the descent. Take a deep breath and sense your diaphragm, abdominals, inguinal ligament are, quads, ribs, and the entire anterior line as the position of your arms changes. Only use a fit ball if you feel absolutely comfortable using one already. Releases for the Center of Gravity / Chapter 4

56 g.

j.

k.

You’ll have more distance for your descent, but it also works going only as far as the floor will permit. h. Slowly release your arms above your head and place your attention on the deeper layer of the intercostals and pec minors, then bring your arms back up and lower them again at a 120° angle, this time focusing on the pec major and their origin at the sternum. Allow your awareness to encompass the entire line from the midline of your chest all the way to your hands and fingers. Move your finger slightly and feel the effects in your chest. i.

Then raise and lower your arms out to the side at the height of your shoulders and make note of the differences at that level. Repeat the motion while varying the angle on the placement of your arms, capturing and releasing different fibers of the muscles as you do so. Try to feel your chest and spine at the same time as you raise and lower your arms, and notice the abdominal support.

j.

Working the fibers all around will soften the fields that may be contributing to the restriction as well as invite it to change indirectly by reeducating the neighboring muscles. Even adhesions will begin to open up and return to the ‘fold’ if you ask them in a safe, painless way. Another way to bring higher levels of tension into the fold is to load the muscle a little more so that the demand is greater than the resting level of tension.

k. This is a good time to add small weights. One or two pounds will be plenty for a female and perhaps five pounds for a male. Strength will naturally arise from the repetitions, but the goal is awakening, release, and reset into increased muscle control and coordination. If you have to grip the weight with a lot of pressure or your arms begin to shake, use a lighter weight. Do the same movement sequence and compare the response from your body in the restricted area. l. You can lower your arms with the elbows bent first, then gradually open your elbows with your palms facing your chest. Since the pecs flex the arm at the shoulder joint and the biceps flex the lower arm at the elbow, they will often be working together, and may more easily release if worked at the same time. Slowly straighten your elbows with your palms facing the ceiling at the same time your arm is dropping towards the floor. Be aware that you are passively shortening the rhomboids in your upper back at the same time, thereby connecting, reeducating, and simultaneously releasing forces from the right and left sides as well as many anterior and posterior forces upon the midline. Somatic IntelligenceTM

57 m. Next, turn your arms so that your thumbs are facing the ceiling. This is a very popular line of force that we use continually during the day that creates a plane of ten sion from one end of the arm all the way up. Abduct, or lift the thumb side of your wrist (radial-scaphoid joint) and feel the line of tension that is created. Then lift your arms toward the ceiling, abduct your wrist gradually, the slowly adduct or bend the pinky (ulnar) side of your wrist towards your arms as you lower them back down. Notice the effects in your pectorals as you add the dimension of the most distal (furthest from the midline) end of the arm. n. The muscle that lies in between the biceps and triceps muscles, the brachialis, works with the biceps to assist in bending the elbow, so will usually be activated while using the hands. The line from the thumb in particular which travels up the brachoradialis to the brachialis and deltoid can become almost glued together and mutually restrictive. Therefore releasing that line will not only clear that line of force, but will serve to soften the rotator cuff, traps, lats, pecs and rhomboids that are working nearer to the core while the extremities are engaged. o. In other words, the periphery is supported by the core, so any releases at the extremity will benefit the work being held by the core muscles. It will be easier to release the core once the more distal forces are reduced, and the releases at the core will be longer lasting when they are no longer under strain. Once the majority of tension patterns have been reeducated and reorganized from the base up to the center and from the periphery to the core, we can look at the forces acting upon the head and neck. Opening the shoulders will release a great deal of pressure from the neck.

8. Releases for the arms, neck, and shoulders We’ve just discussed the connection between the hands, arms and shoulders that can be simultaneously released by positioning the extremity to line up with its support system at the core. Now we’ll work more proximally nearer to the core, starting with a muscle group that is a bridge between the midline and the shoulders. There are several layers of muscle in the shoulders, the most superficial being the trapezius that runs up to the nuchal line just below the inion at the back of the skull, out to the clavicle and scapula, arising out of the cervical and thoracic vertebrae all the way down to T12. It has many actions upon the shoulder blade, head and neck, so this muscle group is a great place to open before working with the neck more directly. a. If the lower traps are tight, there’s a good chance that the upper traps will be tight also. Try raising your arms 120° out to the sides and pull the head of the humerus into the socket, then extend out away from your body, then slowly pull them back into the socket and let them rest there for a few seconds before reaching out and away again. b. Then lightly compress the head of the humerus into its socket while the arm hangs down by your side. Hold it there until you feel the muscles attached to the scapula Releases for the Center of Gravity / Chapter 4

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between the shoulder blade and the spine begin to let go. Repeat a couple of times then switch to the opposite arm. You can change the position of the arm slightly with each compression, one time with your hand facing your thigh, another with it facing forward, and yet another with the arm and shoulder more posterior. c. Change the position of your hand so that it rests on top of your shoulder. Press the shoulder up into your hand and resist the upward motion with your hand. Then very gradually lower your shoulder, feeling the sensation change in the muscle as it lengthens. Move your shoulder up and down still including resistance with your upper hand as the shoulder makes it descent into its full range. d. To include the uppermost fibers of the traps, tilt your chin up and head back while the shoulder is elevated, then lower them at the same time and the same rate. You can vary the position of your head, at times with your face completely forward, then facing right, then left, or away from the shoulder you’re releasing. It will be helpful if your chest is kept lifted in a position of really good upright posture while performing this movement. e. It’s helpful and important to open and reset the body at any age, but particularly when you’ve used it for several years and you feel the gears down-shifting. Each movement or technique can be modified if need be to accommodate the current status with your joints. Every exercise should feel comfortable and relieving if it’s being done correctly. f. Opening up the sides can access many key structures that include the shoulder’s connection with the ribs, intercostals, lats, hips, and legs. Lifting your right arm up as far as you comfortably can, lean sideways from your waist and increase the distance between your pelvis and your ribs. At the same time, notice the ribs on the left side coming closer together and passively shortening the intercostal muscles. g. While side-bent to the left with the right arm lifted, gently pull the right shoulder blade down across the ribs in the direction of your waist, then lift it again out and away from the waist, while the arm lifts away from the socket. Then rotate slightly posterior on the right side, slide the blade down while you’re rotated, then rotate forward again and lift the arm back up. See if you can sense the obliques and the lats during this rotation motion. Continue to notice the dropping of your rib cage into your waist and the shortening of the space between the ribs toward on the opposite side. h. See if you can sense the obliques and the lats during this rotation motion. Continue to notice the dropping of your rib cage into your waist and the shortening of the space between the ribs toward on the opposite side. Take a break if you need to drop the arm that’s been raised. Somatic IntelligenceTM

59 i.

While the right arm is raised, lift your rib cage out of your waist on the left side, then pull the thorax back down into your left waist using the muscles at the waist. The right arm will remain passive. This time the lengthening will be passive and the shortening will be active. Let your attention move to the effect the action with your arm, shoulder and waist is having on your hips and legs.

j.

Adjust the position of your leg to optimize the connection as well as the combined release. Turn your foot and hip inward slightly, then point your feet straight ahead, then turn out slightly and compare the responses. You will soon recognize the path of the most cumulative forces as well as how to release them simultaneously.

k. One of the most effective exercises to open the rotator cuff and shoulder joint muscles is also going to open and release related lines of tension throughout the entire arm. Stand facing a wall with your arm straight out at shoulder height and your palm flat against the wall. Notice the sensations along your forearm and up through the elbow. You can bend the elbow slightly if the sensation of pull is too strong. l. Very slowly, keeping the arm in the same position as comfortably as you can, turn your body away from your arm and face forward. Then continue turning outward bit by bit until your arm is behind you. When you’ve turned out as far as you can, immediately rotate back the other direction, but keep rotating until your chest is almost facing your arm. m. Now pivot your hand to the right so that your fingers are 90° from where they were formerly, facing noon to facing 3 o’clock. Then repeat the movement of turning out as far as you can then back in as far as you can. Pivot your hand again, but this time 180° to the left so that your fingers are at 9 o’clock and repeat the rotations with your body, chest high, back straight, progressing with baby steps all the way around. n. Pay attention to the sensation of the motion in the joint itself, and how the varied positions of the arm impact the back across the ribs to the spine, and the anterior muscles across the ribs to the sternum. After one or two rotations with your hand in each position, take a short walk around the space you’re in and notice the change in your posture. Since the arm is capable of moving in wide articulations within the ball and socket joint, it’s very helpful to open and reset or remind the body of that full range as part of your exercise routine. o. Now that we’ve released the major shoulder muscles, the neck will be a lot easier to work with. First, check your range of motion by turning your head from side-to-side, then tilt your head sideways, dropping your ear towards your shoulder on each side, and last, flexing your chin down to your chest and back up so that you’re looking at the ceiling. Only go as far in any direction as is completely comfortable. We’re just using it as a frame of reference, as a baseline. p. With each of these directions, you can give yourself a tiny bit of resistance like we’ve done in prior exercises to stimulate the recepReleases for the Center of Gravity / Chapter 4

60 tors in that area. As you turn to the right, resist the rotation slightly, then let it rotate, resist side-bending slightly before you allow it to bend further, and so one with flexion and extension. When you’re resisting extension, your hand would be just under your chin resisting as you press down with your head, engaging the anterior cervical muscles, then releasing up and back into extension. Again, this and each action is meant to be very, very gentle. q. For flexion, place one hand behind your head and feel the muscles contract as you extend your head and neck backwards, and feel the change in the muscle tone when you resist the extension. By intentionally increasing the tension, you are not only generating a load that is greater than the present level of tone in order to recruit those fibers in a new action, but you are sensitizing your own kinesthetic sense of what posterior muscle tension feels like and enhancing your ability to ‘biofeedback’ those muscles into relaxation. r. As an alternate, when you lean back into the resistance of your hands, you can also elevate the upper traps then lower the shoulders to release the traps as you release your head and neck forward. s. When you allow the release to move fully into flexion, feel the effect all the way down your spine. Repeat in small increments of lifting into resistance and releasing down the paraspinal muscles until you’ve released your head all the way down to your chest with your chin. Notice the sensation in your upper, middle, lower back and sacrum. t. You can use the same type of resistance (or muscle energy) technique for your neck with rotation, but this movement is more effective if you’re lying down so you’re not using your postural muscles to stand. You’ll assist the rotation by having your eyes look in the same direction you’re turning your head. If you turn to the right, resist to the left and release into the right, letting your eyes look right at the same time. Resist to the left and move your eyes left, then release to the right and let your eyes lead the rotation to the right to the point when your eyes are looking all the way over your right shoulder. Repeat going the other direction. u. Another significant pairing for the neck is the feet, as mentioned earlier. They share information all day long. Because of this intimate relationship, the neck can release the legs and feet while the head releases the neck. While lying down, clasp your hands behind your head and ever so gently squeeze. Take a moment to feel the response in your neck, shoulders, back, hips, and legs. Then lightly flex your feet toward your nose, then softly point your toes, flex, then extend a few times and notice the difference in your calves and your neck. v. There are so many structures in your brain under your hands that will also be benefitting from your hands applying gentle compression at the base of your skull. The brainstem with all its homestatic functions lives there, along with the cerebellum and its numerous motor programs, several cranial nerves that feed the senses, the muscles of the face, mouth and throat, membranes that attach to all the bones in Somatic IntelligenceTM

61 your skull, the pineal gland, blood vessels, along with pathways for cerebral spinal fluids to name a few. Even resting your hands there without compression is a wonderful reset button for your entire system, but also does wonders for the neck and upper back. w. We’ve practiced bigger movements using resistance for the head and neck, but it’s also very effective to make the tiniest of movements in this area, or for any joint. While your hands are still clasped behind your head, use the heel of your hands to just hint at a direction you will move a fraction of an inch in, then move it that tiny fraction in one direction, then in the opposite direction. Try rotation first, then slight extension, the tiniest degree of flexion you can make and be able to tell that a change did happen, then do the same for side-bending, or lateral flexion. Your body hears you at a whisper. It only needs 5 grams of pressure or less to pick up information and set up a series of responses, so make it a point to include micromovements in your exercise routine a couple times a week. x. There are so many structures in your brain under your hands that will also be benefitting from your hands applying gentle compression at the base of your skull. The brainstem with all its homestatic functions lives there, along with the cerebellum and its numerous motor programs, several cranial nerves that feed the senses, the muscles of the face, mouth and throat, membranes that attach to all the bones in your skull, the pineal gland, blood vessels, and pathways for cerebral spinal fluids to name a few. Even resting your hands there without compression is a wonderful reset button for your entire system, but also does wonders for the neck and upper back. y. We’ve practiced bigger movements using resistance for the head andneck, but it’s also very effective to make the tiniest of movements in this area, or for any joint. While your hands are still clasped behind your head, use the heel of your hands to just hint at a direction you will move a fraction of an inch in, then move it that tiny fraction in one direction, then in the opposite direction. Try rotation first, then slight extension, then the tiniest degree of flexion you can make and be able to tell that a change did happen, then do the same for side-bending, or lateral flexion. Your body hears you at a whisper. It only needs 5 grams of pressure – the weight of a nickel - to pick up information and set up a series of responses, so make it a point to include micro-movements in your exercise routine a couple times a week.

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Chapter 5

Tiny Touches The buddha wasn’t commenting on whether the body is good or bad but rather was emphasizing the importance of using mindfulness of the body to discover the dharma, the truth of how things are. The body can also be used as the ground or object for your concentration. This means staying so focused on the body that you achieve a degree of concentration that allows you to open to various deep meditative states. ~ Dharma Wisdom

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t’s been emphasized throughout volume 4 just how sensitive and responsive our systems are, particularly once you’ve developed a relationship with it and can tune in to its language and signs. Even a tiny amount of movement will still elicit changes. We’re used to experiencing strong sensations during exercise or bodywork, but sometimes only a slight shift is needed and a lot of input may not elicit that slight change the way a tiny parcel of input can. Also, certain activities in our system require a more subtle approach before they can be palpated or sensed. If you want to sense the amount of glide there is between layers of connective tissue or around a blood vessel or nerve plexus, you’ll need to slow way down and become quieter inside in order to listen. You’ll also need a very light touch to be able to differentiate and compare the slight sensations that fascia or fluids will provide. Some of the body’s rhythms are slower and subtler than the heartbeat or respiration, and sensing energetic differences could be even more subtle. Being able to discern these quieter functions in your body will prove to be

immensely helpful to well-being, and a good way to start the process of heightening your sense abilities is to use micro movements. A good way to look at the internal event of a tiny touch is that it’s similar to stroking the skin of an infant, or the wing of a butterfly. It might be like a warm breeze that hardly makes a small leaf flutter. The movement might be barely noticeable from an observer, but you will sense and know that you’ve initiated a slight action in a specific direction which will signal the brain and a flurry of global activity in response. In general, you’ll be making the slightest of a hint of a motion in a particular direction then waiting for the body to acknowledge the intent, listening with your tactile-kinesthetic sense and following how and where your body takes the suggested action. It will almost always be taken into further release and greater balance with the whole. Since other areas of the body will also be listening to the tiny touch and making changes according to their relationship with the area you’ve initially contacted, wait for those changes to integrate before moving on.

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Begin with sensing your posture again, but this time we’ll make adjustments using just a tiny touch. First have a look at this series of postures and see if you can notice any areas that might be out of balance or in balance for each person. Based upon what you’ve already learned, find a line of tension or position out of gravity and try to assess where you think the tension will or did already accumulate in their bodies. Do you notice any compensatory patterns to offset the places where a person shifted out of alignment? Now check your own posture and feel where tension has gathered in your system. See if you can assess yourself according to the plane where the most accumulation has happened just by internal sensing, then check your assessment by looking in the mirror. Does your posture look the way it felt to you? Is the tightness occurring more on the saggital (right or left side), or frontal (anterior or posterior), or the transverse (upper or lower body) plane? Get a little more specific and combine planes, differentiating whether it’s the upper right shoulder, for example, or the lower posterior left leg, then see if you can figure out if the sensation of holding is more superficial, or in deeper layers. Is the tension more medial toward the midline, or more lateral? Does it change just by you moving your attention there? The initial touch will be with awareness. Your body will begin to shift as soon as your awareness scans and identifies the tension, particularly if you name it and picture it. It helps to have an anat omy book handy if you’re already familiar with where the structures are and what they’re called. It will help you immensely in understanding what your body is going through. For example, while you’re standing on a solid, but not too firm surface either barefoot or with minimal footwear so you can better sense the floor, let’s say you notice tension in your right hamstring use the following:

Steps to apply tiny touches for the hamstring: 1. Bring your awareness there. 2. Discern whether it’s the medial or lateral hamstring. 3. Call it by name – let’s say it’s the semimembranosus, the medial one. 4. Take your awareness to that specific area and wait, listen to the response. Somatic IntelligenceTM

65 5. Visualize the muscle and its attachments at the ischial tuberosity and just below the knee at the medial condyle of the fibula, wait and listen again. 6. Using the least amount of movement possible, keeping your attention on the origin and insertion points of the muscle, turn your knee inward, then outward, with a motion so slight you won’t need to move your foot. 7. Come back to center, give a few seconds for your body to integrate the input and respond, then shift your right heel in about an inch and wait. 8. Bring the h rds an inch and listen. 9. Come back to center and lift your chest slightly, listening to the same hamstring. 10. Arch your back a tiny bit and sense the hamstring, come to center, wait, then tuck your pelvis just barely, still tuned in to the response of the semimembranosus. 11. Lean forward toward the ball of your foot a fraction of an inch and see how the hamstring responds, then shift you weight back a tiny bit onto your heel and compare that point in space for the same muscle. By now this area and several other areas have taken in quite a bit of subtle information with which adjustments have been made to accommodate the input and modify the hamstring along with several other muscles and connective tissue fields that may have been tied into or compensating for the tone that had previously been there. Making slow, tiny adjustments enabled your system to easily receive the feedback and feed forward the appropriate changes in a global way that can at the same time give you insights as to how it all fits together. Let’s try the same thing with your posture.

Using tiny touches to reorganizing posture: 1. First shift your weight on your feet just a fraction of an inch to the left, then to the right; toward the ball of your foot, then toward the heel, until you find the most neutral stance. 2. Determine which tiny adjustment felt best. Do it again if you’re not sure. 3. Then choose an articulation (side-bend, rotate, flex, or extend) to adjust your body just a tiny bit so the tension becomes less and make a note of which direction the adjustment was in. 4. Confirm the line of tension that sets up in your body by going back to where you were originally, then retrace the path out of it to a more nueutral place. By making the adjustments the tightness may have dissipated, but just in case it’s purely biomechanical, it may show up whenever you adopt that posture. 5. Next, arch, flatten, and tuck your pelvis to identify the most neutral position. 6. Continuing with the tiniest of suggestions, lift your chest a fraction of an inch, allowing your shoulders, belly, and diaphragm area to respond. 7. Lift your right shoulder just a hair, wait, feel your neck, chest and back, then gently lower it back down, wait for a response and repeat on the left. 8. Push your rib cage out to the right side very gently and wait, feeling the effect in your sternum, pelvis, legs and neck; come back to center and do the same on the left side, tuning in to your organs and intestines. Tiny Touches / Chapter 5

66 9. This time, rotate your rib cage an inch to the right and wait a few seconds, sense the same areas along with your feet, come to center and settle, then repeat on the left side. 10. Drop your shoulder on the right until you feel the upper ribs under your arm come closer together, then drop the ribs a little close together and wait; lift the ribs and increase the space between them, then close the space down again by tilting to the side and dropping your shoulder again. 11. Feel what happens in your clavicle, sternum, neck and head. 12. Notice the forces that appear down your waist hip, leg, and into your feet. 13. Come back up to center, pause, and do the same motion on the left side. 14. Shift your head (protract) forward, then pull your chin back (retract). 15. Tilt your head to the side, bringing your ear just an inch closer to one shoulder, then come back to center and tilt it the other way. Hold it in each direction for at least 3 seconds to let your system process the input. 16. Now rotate your head and neck slightly to the right and wait, sense your chest, thighs, and shoulders, come back to center. 17. Then rotate to the left and wait, sense through your system, and come back to center. 18. Bring your right shoulder blade a tiny bit closer to your spine, hold it there for a few seconds then pull it down slightly toward your sacrum for 3 seconds. Sense the response in your rib cage, spine, chest and neck. 19. Repeat on the other side and take a general scan of your posture, making note of the self-corrections. 20. You can make it even more interesting by combining some of the tiny touches, like dropping your shoulder and rotating your neck, lifting your chest and retracting your head, and so on. 21. Last, try to lift your head up out and away from your neck right up towards the ceiling or the sky. Notice the effect of this little bit of decompression all the way down your spine into your hips, legs and feet. These tiny touches can not only build awareness of each plane, angle and articulation of your system and how each position applies or releases tension in your body, but it also reed ucates your system and attunes it to its own posture on a moment-to-moment basis so you create a new norm. Now that you’ve clarified the path and process of postural ease, your awareness and your body’s memory will combine to make it clear when you’ve altered your position into one of strain. Most people feel uncomfortable attempting to correct their posture using muscular effort, as it is fatiguing and doesn’t work very long. This method makes contact with the postural muscles and sends little messages about what’s needed in repetitive ways on several planes of action as well as in relationship. Therefore, your brain receives the messages and makes the corrections without you needing to make effort against the patterns that are already in place. This method replaces the inlaid patterns with more balanced, efficient ones.

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Integrating Tiny Touches with Other Exercises Once you have the hang of this method, you can apply it to anything you’re doing with other exercises, to correct your posture while sitting at a desk, doing chores, or during hobbies. Whenever you notice a slight discomfort or when you receive the signal that a little strain is setting in, use a tiny touch in that or surrounding areas to return to ease. You just need to view your system as if it has the delicacy of a baby, and on many levels, it does. The movements are so small, even if you’re in a meeting with others, no one will be able to tell that you’re exercising. In fact, a great deal of improvement can be accomplished by visualizing the change to want to see in your body. I remember the days when my back was hypermobile and in constant pain and spasm due to the bones not staying where they belonged. I began to imagine a perfectly aligned staircase as my spine, with solid supports on either side of the stairs. I also visualized strong muscles like the ones on the image of the elliptical machine I was using and imagined that my body was as strong, and full of oxygen. The response in my body was immediate. It felt more solid, stable, more capable, and more energized. Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio confirmed what the Soviets found in the 1970’s with weight lifters: when mental rehearsals were combined with physical workouts, the benefits increased more than when using physical preparation alone. Previously used to diminish atrophy while immobilized in a cast, visualizing exercise was shown by exercise physiologist, Guang Ye, to increase muscle strength by over 13%. A 2009 article in Psychology Today reported that thoughts produce the same instructions as actions do, and that mental imagery is connected to motor control, attention, perception, planning and memory. The same article, “Seeing is Believing: The Power of Visualization”, describes the practice methods used by world class athletes, Muhammad Ali, Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus as going over every detail of each action in their minds when not working out in the actual sport. We used to do the same before each martial arts tournament in our dojo (school), mentally rehearsing every kata and fight technique before we needed to use them. Vision is a very significant source of information for your body and many nuclei in the brain are dedicated to processing visual input so it can only benefit your system to include it in your exercise plan. Tiny Touches / Chapter 5

68 The principle of how to use micro motion is the same for the tiny touch exercises designed for that purpose, and for other types of exercises you may have learned in another context, like yoga, weight training, theraband rehab exercises or sport stretching. Here are a few samples of how you can apply micro movements to exercises that usually recruit major muscles.

1. Releasing the hands a. Place your hands with palms facing one another, touching slightly. b. Spread your fingers as far apart as you can and notice where the lines of tension are, then bring your fingers back together. c. Gently press your fingertips together and wait for a response. d. Now focus on the bones in your hand and imagine the bones touching one another everywhere in your hand, and ‘see’ the bones in your mind. Pay special attention to make sure that your knuckles are touching. e. Everything is your body is often engaged when your hands are, so you may begin to feel releases all over your system as your hands reset. f. Try pointing your fingers in different directions and see if you notice any changes in response, or you can also bend your wrists more so that your hands are at 90° angles. g. Combine this action with the position your eyes are in, moving your eyes opposite the direction you point your fingers in, thereby increasing differentiation of both the hands and the eyes. h. Clasp your fingers together and very slightly compress them towards your hand, then lock them and pull them apart just a fraction of an inch.

2. Releasing your arms a. If you have a table or surface that’s wide enough for you to spread your arms out on, sit facing the table and lightly rest your arms and hand on top. b. Using the slightest motion possible, move your chest towards the table and hold it there. c. Rotate your chest ever so slightly to the right and notice the response in your right shoulder socket (glenoid fossa), then rotate your chest to the left and pause. d. Leaving your chest front and center, pull the head of the humerus (upper arm bone) into the socket just a tad, feel the reorganization happen all around the joint, then release the humerus back out. e. This time, slide the head of the humerus out and away from the glenoid fossa and wait for the changes to complete before returning to center. f. Repeat on the other side, then compress both arms at the same time, followed by simultaneous decompression. Somatic IntelligenceTM

69 g. Give a moment for the reorganization, then gently rotate the arms a tiny bit outward (externally) so the thumbs begin to lift from the table. h. Bring the arms back around to level on the table, then decompress and slightly rotate externally at the same time. Then come back to center and wait and listen for the integration of the input. i.

This time, leaving your arms still, slide your chest into the head of the humerus, compressing the core into the periphery; wait, then release. Repeat a couple of times on the right side, then switch to the left.

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Turn your palms so they are facing up towards the ceiling and allow your arms to relax in that position.

k. Very lightly press the back of your hands and forearms down into the table and hold them there for three seconds, then release. l. Sense all the areas that will be tied into the slight stimulation of the biceps and triceps muscles as the arms shift out of certain holding patterns, then repeat this one twice more. m. Leaving your arms still, very gently lift your hand by bending the wrist on one side, then the other, then wait and listen, sense. n. Then lift and lower your fingers a miniscule amount, trying to leave your hand flat on the table. o. Last, make the slightest rotation (supinate and pronate) in each direction at the wrist and sense the responses. p. Integrate the changes by walking around, or doing something that utilizes your entire body in motion, rather than having one area stationary and another area in action, as often happens while sitting.

3. Releasing the back a. While lying on your back, first sense the areas that feel released onto the floor or mat you’re lying on, compared to those held up and away from the floor with tension. Some people may have more of a natural curve in their low back, or more developed gluts, so take those things into consideration as to how your body rests upon the surface. b. Lightly lift your legs and bring them toward your chest slowly, paying attention to how your back muscles and spine respond to the change in the position of your legs and hips. With your hands on your knees, let your hands guide your legs around a tiny bit in each direction, noticing which direction brings the most ease and relief to your back, then wait there while your body reorganizes. c. Repeat that process until it feels equally balanced and relaxed with each positon of your legs, then with your legs center, very slightly arch your back. Feel the effect of the slight arching up through your neck and maintain awareness there as you flatten your back and continue towards a curl with your low back. Notice Tiny Touches / Chapter 5

70 the influence along your spine of curling your pelvis as you pull your knees more towards your chest. d. Stay with the very slight touch of motion method as you shift both knees to the right and register that effect, then come back to center and shift the legs to the left side just an inch or so and come back. Repeat this action a few more times, then make very slight circles with your knees. You can cross your ankles or not, depending upon which way feels the most comfortable. e. Straighten your legs and compare how it feels to when you first laid down.

4. Releasing the spine a. Folding over into child’s pose, only if it’s comfortable, rest there and scan which areas are easy to relax, and which feel restricted. Also scan your feet and legs to see if there are areas there which could let go a little more. b. Take a few deep breaths into your ribs on your sides, then into the ribs on your back, and let that effect settle. See if you can notice the connection points of the ribs in the front along the sternum and in the back alongside the spine as you breathe. Try to breathe into your clavicle – your collar bone – feel that in your neck and throat, then settle again. c. Stay tuned in to your ribs as you gently slide your shoulder blades toward your spine about an inch. Slide them back out then in again a few times, slightly changing the angle of the slide. Notice which side and which angle feels the easiest. Use that knowledge to further release the restricted areas. d. Lift your spine towards the ceiling, then allow it to settle back down naturally, then lift again, leaving your head and shoulders where they are and release that action as smoothly as you can. e. Let your torso remain where it is and gently turn your face to the right, hold a few seconds as you notice the influence that change has on your upper spine, then return your nose to face the floor. Turn your face to the left side a tiny bit, and feel the echo of that motion all the way down to your sacrum. f. Feel your arms and hands on the surface you’re resting on. See if there’s any adjustment you’d like to make so that they’ll be even more comfortable. Lift your fingers gently and notice the influence it has on your shoulders and cervical spine. Then press the fingers gently into the floor and compare the difference. g. Combine any of the micro-movements covered here and explore the affect they have. For example, rotate your face while lifting and pressing your fingers into the floor. Or, take deep breaths around your rib cage while lifting your spine towards the ceiling and back down again. Now that you understand the principles and have established the connection with your system so you recognize its feedback, you can continue to discover and create the variety of movements that your body benefits from and enjoys the most.

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Tying It All Together The key things to remember about your relationship with your body, is that like any relationship, you have to nurture it and put some time in for it to last. This one is guaranteed to be a ‘forever’ bond – as long as ye both shall live – so it would be very helpful if you were able to maintain the original parts, as many are irreplaceable. Once you realize how sensitive and intelligent your body is, and that it relates on countless dimensions with immeasurable speed and effectiveness, then it’s just the matter of keeping the channels open and your ears attuned. It will always let you know what it needs. The other key is to maintain a sense of effortlessness in sitting, standing, or moving so that you’re using only the amount of exertion necessary. You want to find that ‘sweet spot’ so that your pools of energy can be freed to hold you up and move you without a whole lot of muscular effort. In this way your energy also has free access to your mental faculties so that it doesn’t need to work hard either in retrieving any information, ideas, or problem-solving you need. Maintaining great posture is a central part of muscular effortlessness, energy flow, and mental clarity. Remember the principles of how the body learns in volume 4, and lastly, remember that your body exists on several planes; in at least 3 dimensions with a fourth energetic one. Try to keep some awareness of the totality of yourself as you move, socialize, exercise, or contemplate. There will be worlds of difference in how your body responds to you and to everything you encounter when this type of mindfulness is alive and active.

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About the Author This book is dedicated to my Grandfather, William DeHart Hubbard

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uresha was inspired into athletics by her grandfather, DeHart Hubbard, who was the first black man to win an Olympic Gold Medal in an individual event in Paris 1924. He was a highly acclaimed athlete who won many National Championships and set World Records that took years to beat. He encouraged all of his children to become athletic and had a wish for another Olympian to be born in the family. Neither of his daughters became interested in sports, but both of his grandchildren were very athletic and soaked in his influence with enthusiasm. His grandson developed and passion for baseball and Suresha took up karate but finally, his great granddaughter participated in the Junior Olympics, winning medals in the same event he excelled in. She imitated his form almost perfectly, although he’d already passed on before she competed.

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He’d left this indelible impression upon the family that the sky’s the limit, and he not only embodied excellence in somatic intelligence, but also measured and functioned at the top .5% mensa level intellect. More than that, DeHart Hubbard embodied his name – the heart. He had also mastered emotional intelligence. He was kind, gentle, generous, confident, witty, with high integrity, and found the inner strength to never complain amidst the difficulties he must have faced along the way to his many accomplishments. Suresha learned in junior high school that track and field were not her forte’, but began martial arts classes in college and continued for thirteen years before switching from the external forms of karate to the internal forms like chi kung and Dwa Shaan. During these years, she also took up dance, tennis, paddle ball, racquet ball, and other sports and continues to dance, practice chi kung, and play racquetball and basketball today. After graduating from Kent State University with degrees in Elementary Education, Special Education, and School Psychology, with the Specialty of Systems Intervention and Prevention, she lived in India with spiritual teachers and learned meditation techniques which began to influence her life and work.

Here is a copy of the inspired letter he wrote to his mother on his way to Paris, which remained as an inspiration to his descendants for generations to come.

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She later learned that the book that inspired her move to India, “Way of the White Clouds”, also included the name of her Cherokee grandfather, Chief White Cloud. Another grandfather had been guiding her spiritual process all along, revealing countless mysteries of the Universe and an endless stream of magical, meaningful, but unexplainable events. As a tribute to that lineage of ancestry, she spoke with indigenous elders and shaman from around the world and compiled their stories in a book entitled, “Remember the Wisdom that Progress Forgot.” A desire to incorporate more of a multi-dimensional approach to resolving issues in the body, mind, or emotions in her work as a psychologist began to shape everything she did. After noticing that many of the children she assessed had body-based issues, Suresha studied and practiced numerous forms of hands-on bodywork that explored the many layers that our system functions on. She then extended her studies to Breath Therapy, Hypnotherapy, and energy balancing techniques before dedicating the last 25 years to various forms of neuromuscular reeducation. After studying Hanna Somatic Education in the 1990’s, she developed her own approach called NeuroSomatic Integration™ and founded the Marin Center for Somatic Education. Attracted to the holistic principles of osteopathy, she studied the brain, the viscera, cranial sacral therapy, and many forms and techniques within that system before becoming a Diplomate in Osteopathic Manipulative Theory & Practice in 2013. This book creates an opportunity to share some of the numerous remarkable changes this body of work has been able to generate in thousands of clients over the years, many of whom have been able to transform their lives as well. About the Author