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50. The Instinctual Body 5/2/04
The instinctual area of working with our body, as opposed to the working mechanically with the body is worth some attention. Working mechanically with different positions that I have suggested in previous articles on alignment is fine. Such as the opening and closing of the legs in the article Releasing the Lower Body. At first just doing this session mechanically produces the desired releasing of the muscles of the lower body and definite changes to our feeling for alignment. In this sense the mechanical is even encouraged at first.
Over time we may take up this lower body session just to relax the body and shake off some possible accumulation of tension. When we do this we can move the legs into different areas to see where trembling or shaking can be found. This becomes more exploratory and we trust the body to find and play with patterns and movements that it chooses. That, to me, is moving into the instinctual play that we can find with our body. For the most part the subject is theoretical and by no means the last word on what is Instinctual for others.
The clearest instinctual type of play that appears in doing alignment work appears when I have people walk around in a large room, breathing fully while walking and feeling the outside of the feet. The relaxation of the hands and fingers as the person is walking around leads to the fingers and hands moving on there own without any premeditated or determined motion. The fingers and hands will start to ‘do there own thing’. That is; they will start to move in a spontaneous way, as swimmers are often seen doing before starting a race. Watching the Olympic swimming events we can see that the swimmers do a lot of shaking of the legs as well as the hands to get more relaxed.
So when walking around and allowing the arms, hands and fingers to freely go where they will, we may find that they like to move and play in the space. Much of this spontaneous motion happens because, given the opportunity the arms, hands and especially the fingers will start to shake off the limits placed on them whether conscious or unconscious, I believe. When followed out for a period of time the motion can get fairly active. This comes naturally from the body and over the period of a walking session we can feel the relaxation of the upper body as it unwinds held energy.
In sessions, as one is walking around a room, I will coach them to let the walk also change and allow the body to move the way it feels to move. Usually the body will go into many interesting patterns. You can start by feeling like you are kicking the feet off or marching and then let the body change as you are moving. Generally, at the start of playfully walking ‘the more you feel like a child with this motion the better’. This generally works for people and they can relax into the instinctual play that can happen as one lets the body unfold. This trusting of the body where you can witness what the body has to say about motion can be captivating and enjoyable. A true blend of subtle body with the physical.
I feel that many of the physical problems people encounter after 50 years of age are due to keeping the body still and the loss of the ability to physically express what they are feeling. This then gets bottled up and comes out as trembling or other somatics that they don’t understand. Much of the body somatics that arise in later life are viewed as if something is going wrong, which leads to a downward spiral in thinking. Many of these problems can be handled by learning how to breathe fuller and working with the body to unwind held energy. For this I recommend working with the many breath and body work practitioners coming on board. Working with our body in a gentle and intuitive way can help us to appreciate that our body is not the big mystery that it is painted to be by the media.
When I am working with an older person who has shaking going on in the hands or arms I get them to allow that and see where it goes. The body it seems has reached a point where it can no longer hold still and starts to attempt to release the energy that is being held still. In this sense the body is attempting to do a form of intuitive letting go, which I believe, gets stopped by fear based thought. Parkinson's disease, is a perfect example of holding energy still for so many years that the body attempts to release the energy by its self.
If you read and work with the session called, Full Breathing Session you will find that it is a good way to start learning how to breathe fuller and how this affects your bodies alignment. Doing a half hour session in this position will reveal some of the elements of physical alignment when you are finished. Taken up for any length of time the momentum of having the body more open in this position can build a base for future intuitive play that arises.
“we know we are breathing in and out, and we can smile to affirm that we are in control of ourselves.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
Peace
Posted by Harmon at May 2, 2004
Comments
Dear Harmon,
I
knew a gentleman once who had Parkinson's disease. His arms were consistently
shaking and he felt he had no control over this. As I got to know him I realized
that he did not face his bodily fear or his hostility towards others. He buried
it all rather than face it. Stifling fear and hostility and not asking yourself
why you are fearful or hostile and what you can do to get over it, is a deadly
inner poison. If, after one has faced a hostile or fearful feeling, one can not
do anything to alleviate it, then at least one can acknowledge this and
concentrate on something else. But, suppressed stuff never goes away. It just
sits there and can eventually drag you down. It seemed to cause this gentleman
to shake. That was how he impressed me after I knew him.
When the brain is allowed to be motivated and motivating it produces dopamine.
Dopamine is used as the brain moves the body, or so I seem to remember. So it is
the lack of positive motivation, and subsequently the lack of dopamine, that
causes people to be unable to move and to shake rather than have meaningful
movement.
And if it gets really bad it turns into serious Parkinson's disease.
A blow on the head might also cause this and I have read that herbicides have
been linked to the destruction of the cells in the brain that produce dopamine.
I think you have hit the nail on the head here Harmon.
Terry9933
Posted by: Terry9933 on May 3, 2004
Thanks Harmon for a fine writing. It is a wonderful encouragement to "let the body" explore and feel the space- to shake off all the "be stills". It's an invitation for "the body of delight" to show itself. Included are all the cramps and tightness and sensations we call pain that invite us to explore further. Thanks again, Jivita
Posted by: Jivita on May 4, 2004
Terry
When a person arrives at the point where Parkinson’s disease is on the body this
may be handled with some good body work, however the over all condition of the
being generally is an advanced ‘case’ and many lines of self development need to
be addressed. The body in advanced stages of suppression may start to display
what I call the ‘Doctor Strangelove Syndrome’ where the body itself seems to
want to break out of the imposition placed on it by unnatural conditioning both
externally and through self agreement. The dopamine case has a little bit of,
what came first the chicken or the egg?, in it. When we take responsibility for
our life and what we create this generally signals the brain, which serves us,
to produce what is required for living our life, I feel.
Thank you for the insights.
Jivita, thank you for the comments.
Posted by: Harmon on May 6, 2004
Harmon,
I'm just starting to step into the deep and fascinating waters of your posts. A note of caution before I comment and ask a question: I haven't read a lot of your posts yet, but enough to have a preliminary understanding, I think (?). But I might not "have it" yet.
The concept of alignment and breathwork is intriguing to me--especially presented together, as you have. I started a yoga practice last year and have, of course, become much more focused on my alignment and my breath--even when not doing yoga. Like, is my weight balanced evenly on my feet? Are my shoulders back, but not up to my ears, so that my chest is open, and my breath is deeper? Is my stomach pulled in, pubic bone up, tail bone down?
Is this essentially what you are working with?
Thanks for the insights.
All the best,
Wendy
Posted by: Wendy on May 17, 2004
Wendy
Glad you find the work of interest. There are, what I call, the ABC’s of alignment which I have presented in recent articles that give some basic principles to help one get an idea of what alignment can feel like when these three principles are combined. The breathing session that will help to feel more expansiveness, that I give across the age spectrum, is The Full Breathing Session.
Working with breath both for initiating, and maintaining better body alignment is most interesting. What I often refer to as a double edged sword since, we can have the benefit of breath for our body as well as using breathing to bring the attention to the present, as in mindfulness. The mindful aspect may be informal but, can become very direct for having bare attention moment to moment.
The releasing sessions are great for releasing tensions and stress that can accumulate to the body. The noteworthy element of a releasing session is that when finished, the principles of alignment appear to be more in place. In this sense we could say that alignment was there already and became lost or corrupted by one, the lack of information about the subject and two, by the life pressures imposed on nature’s child.
Coming to feel and understand what alignment is can give us a base for working with other tools like Yoga or the martial arts, because, we tend to perform better when the elements of alignment are in place.
The general observations about your body, that you refer to, can then have more specifics as you work with some of the above ideas. I hope this is helpful for you.
Thank You
Posted by: Harmon on May 17, 2004
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