Back to Back Basics

So many people, so much of the time miss the basics. They somehow forget that our body is a reflection of nature. Simply, if you look at it, the trunk of our body is like the trunk of a tree, our legs are the roots of the tree under the ground, our arms are the branches and our head, the flower or lotus blooming on top.

So often we also forget how our function, with what we do affects our structure, how our body is held together and our posture. Simply, we may say that the physical appearance of our body, our posture is like a print-out of our habits, our movements and what we mostly do.

Also, our back, being behind us, represents our past. So, any tension here is what we’re what we’re holding back and resisting to let-go of. Depending on where the tension and pain is can tell us about our various functional dynamics, and also teach us with how well we can better support our-self to move on.

Tensegrity

A tree needs a balance of strength and flexibility. It needs it’s roots firmly planted in the ground, yet is needs it’s branches to move to yield to the wind. A tree instinctively develops ways to distribute the various stresses of dealing with the elements, through-out the tree in order to survive.

Our body didn’t just happen. It’s most probably, evolved this way, through trial and error over millennia. Over countless generations we’ve gradually learned out of necessity how to hold our-self to function the best way. We’ve found how this involves a delicate balance between our movement and posture. Yet, sadly, relatively more recently much of this inner wisdom has been lost. This is most probably due to us being too cerebral with reading books, watching movies, TV, on computers, mobile phones and so on.

We once thought that our bodies were just held together by our skeleton. It was basically seen as just a stack of bones, like building blocks, as a compression structure, with the various, individual muscles hanging off each bone to move it. Yet, we now know much better.

With tensegrity, having a balance of tension in our soft tissue will help to distribute any strain around our whole structure. With just a compression structure, there will typically be damage where the strain is the greatest. Yet, with a tensegrity structure, there will be strain at its weakest point. As a tensegrity structure, a ‘load’ that may normally cause strain and pain in the lower back may be distributed evenly to other parts of the body to help better deal with the load.

Structural Integration

Aa with a tree we have both our internal and external influences. We have the need for support as well as growth and expansion. We’re limited by our internal genetic influences yet have a yearning to change. The sun provides the spirit for growth, the air the inspiration, the water the fluidity and the earth the grounding. We also find these natural elements within us.

Kenneth Snelson was probably the discoverer of how we actually need an integrated balance of tension throughout our body. It seems, then Buckminster Fuller, built upon this concept. Basically translated, it means how the soft tissue in our body delicately provides the support for our skeletal system. Basically, having a good balance of tension in our soft tissue provides extra strength for our skeletal system.

As Erik Dalton, a recognised pioneer in bodywork, would say, ‘don’t chase the pain’. And Ida Rolf, another pioneer of structural integration bodywork would indicate that so often, the problems is not where you may think it is. We need to actually look further at the various interconnections.

To continue to enhance how we take care our our body, we need to keep learning, cultivate the wisdom from our forefathers and also be open to new discoveries. We also need to awaken awareness of poor habits, patterns of behaviour creeping in that can sabotage our progress.

Bowling Ball Syndrome

I coined this term in the early 90’s when a client asked me, ‘why do we need a body … why cant we just be a head? Imagine we’re bowling a ball down the bowling alley and we forget to let-go, and we go sliding down the alley with the ball head first. So many people these days are too much in their head. It’s like their head leads and their body reluctantly follows. With this, we so often see a ‘protracted’ neck. It’s where we see an extravagated forward, extension of the neck, which isn’t good.

As with the tree analogy, it’s like we’re too top heavy and we’re not grounded enough. We see so much these days where, there’s so many choices, paths to take, so much happening at the same time that so many people are out too far in the branches of the tree. It’s like we’re juggling so many balls, we’ve forgotten how many balls are up on the air and at the same time have lost our footing.

No doubt about it, nowadays we’re living in a highly complex world. To help cope with this, so many people think more, to figure and sort things out more-so in the mind. Overall, our modern society has been conditioned to think more and feel less. It’s like they’re addicted to thinking and mostly just in their head. Hence, so many people are not in touch with their body, they’re disconnected from themselves.

We need to realise that getting in touch with our body is also getting in touch with our inner wisdom. There’s many simple practices that can help us to regain this knowledge.

Mind-Body Awakening

We may say that most of our problems is because our head is thinking one thing while our body is feeling something different. Hence we’re experiencing unresolved conflict, we’re at odds with out self, out of sorts, fragmented and as an excuse, we just say that we’re in ‘pain’. We may say that stress, pain and fatigue is a result of limiting thoughts, resistance and blockages. To heal we need to enhance out mind and body connection.

Many of the modern day practices such as kinesiology and so on that has their origins from the eastern philosophies. Where there’s stress, pain and fatigue, these various tradition oriental approaches to wellbeing would typically say that our elements are out of balance. This wisdom acknowledges that every organ of our body has various thoughts and feelings, and has through the nervous system various connections with specific related muscles, movements, etc.

Just as in acupressure, shiatsu, reflexology, zone therapy, etc. we know that there’s specific points throughout our body that can help to enhance this connection. Have you ever experienced that ‘blissful’ feeling with points are gently held on your head? Maybe when specific grounding points are held in your feet, a specific stretch is facilitated, a tender point held just a the ideal intensity to re-connect to the essence of what’s happening.

We may consider bodywork as simply a meditation technique. It’s allowing us to to regain our mind and body connection. It’s about tapping into our inner wisdom and facilitating the integration of our heavenly and earthly aspects.

Your Next Step

Learn more in the upcoming series of 1 Day Seminars and workshops

Honour Thy Temple – learning how to enhance our mind and body connection – for more info. & to book – please click here –

Transformational Breathwork – learning how to use our breath for transformation – for more info. & to book – please click here –

Bio-Energetic Solutions – we know that in essence we are energy, so to get the best results we need to learn how tp work with this energy – for more info. & to book – please click here –

Revelations – empowering wisdom to help transform our life – to learn more, register to become a member, log-in and book at www.BlissUniversity.com