Posted on Sat, Jul 31, 2010
Last weekend I took an intense course in back pain taught to me by my lower back muscles and ligaments. I did kung fu on Saturday morning and, intoxicated by a renewed sense of power, later did a vigorous swim in Barton Springs. Came out of the water, then in the dressing room I leaned over and nearly collapsed with spasm and pain out of “nowhere”. Amazing how dis-ease can bring us so instantaneously low.
Later reading Care of the Soul (Thomas Moore) it is observed that symbol and symptom come from related roots meaning respectively “thrown together” and “fallen together”. The back pain I felt was like cymbals “crashing together”. Like cymbals crashing, our symptoms loudly call for our attention.
When the mind and body are in disunion, we eventually crash. That day my body was satisfied after kung fu but my mind said, “More!” as it often does.
Robert Sardello said, “The object of therapeutic treatment is to return imagination to the things that have become only physical.”
Massage therapy and other forms of inner work restore imagination to hurt places. Massage does it through the imaginative use of our hands, heart, and mind. Gradually the symptom recedes and the cymbal crash fades. The place which loudly grabbed our attention lets us go.
The two things that were disunited, in dis-eased relationship, are now replaced by an experience of ease, of peace. It's like cymbals coming together as two praying hands.
And it occurs to me for the first time, I am thinking of one good answer to the Zen koan – what is the sound of one hand clapping?
Blessed silence.
Posted on Fri, Jun 11, 2010
I was teaching a
massage business class about office design, time management, policies, procedures, etc. We had just touched upon the elegant Buddhist concept that 60 percent of healing is environment. Some spaces you just walk into and immediately feel better; some you walk into and just feel the energy sucked out - like where you go to renew your driver's license. So the students and I discussed creating a healing space - how to create your therapy-space as one that you love, one that adds energy and joy to you and everyone who enters it.
Then we collectively came up with something new to all of us. We began to look at time. I said, "We can organize our time so that we could love it too."
I asked the class, "How many of you LOVE the way you use time?"
Unsurprisingly, nobody's hands went up. So many of us are quite bitter about time. People these days almost reflexively feel a victim relationship to time. We complain there's not enough of it; that it's hard to organize it well. And then there's death - you know - shit happens then you die. Wow - talk about a crappy approach to time management! This brought us to a beautiful discussion about ways you could love your time. How can you organize your day so you love time as much as you can create a space you love to work in?
What I've found so far is that there is an "interior" decoration of time as well an "exterior."
The interior is deeply appreciating that one is alive. Each present moment is unique and magical because it is the only moment in which we can act, the only moment in which we are alive! I must say that, since our discussion in class, most moments have felt more deeply exciting. The "exterior" decoration is one's daily or weekly, etc. plan. How can you distribute the events throughout the day and the rhythm of them such that the day is more like a symphony with fast movements and slow; flute solos and giant orchestral jams? We are each the conductor of our particular symphony.
Loving time - it's a beautiful thing.
One of the most often asked questions asked by future LMTs is, why should I choose Lauterstein-Conway Massage School for my massage education? Often times, we are told it's our philosophies about wellness that set us apart in the minds of students - where else would you have a conversation like this one?
Posted on Thu, May 27, 2010
Ten years ago Lippincott Publishers was interested in me doing a book on the method of Deep Massage I teach.
However the further we got the more they wanted me to write case studies, tone down the poetic language, and make it more textbook-y.
That's not my spirit so I dropped that project. Then last September, after my son left home, I was struggling with empty nest syndrome. I starting journaling and then just started really enjoying writing daily. I thought, "Well, let's revisit the Deep Massage Book and this time do the one I want!"
I've been enthusiastically working now almost every morning for 9 months, waking around 5:30 to write. I've found a fantastic illustrator who lives here in Austin. Now there are about 250 pages. I've submitted it to friends in the field and am looking forward to sending it to publishers within a month.
I'd like to share the process and excitement with you as this new book comes into being. I love the creative process. Picasso said ‘Every child is an artist. The problem is to remain an artist once he grows up.’
I'll be sharing in this blog some of the processes and challenges of this creative process. Thank you to all my students and readers - may we continually and mutually inspire our inner artist in life and work!
The book is now tentatively titled: THE RENAISSANCE OF TOUCH - the Book of Deep Massage.
Posted on Fri, Apr 23, 2010
By David Lauterstein, 4/22/10
People make fun of massage
And also of martial arts.
Both do attract people in love
with fantasy land.
I have the fantasy I am a healer.
I have the fantasy I am a warrior.
Yet the desire to be a healer and warrior
are two of the highest goals we can have.
This morning I was thinking how
just like our bodies heal cuts,
our life heals its wounds.
The rough time of yesterday
is smoothed over by last night’s dream;
the sadness of life being hard
is relieved by tears and the next lovely thing
that makes us smile.
Life is self-healing –
I know that and I help it
as a therapist.
And the warrior spirit -
I don’t give up.
In practicing martial arts
there is no end.
Every class deepens something I know
and reveals more that I don’t know.
We work on resilience of spirit,
mind and body.
The survival of the fittest is not a slogan,
it’s real.
The warrior and the healer in me
With a machete in one hand and
A loving spirit in the other
Proceed down this path of life.
I don’t give a shit,
I’m going to get what I want.
Get out of my way,
ME – get out of my way
You too!
Here comes the healer -
I want to see everyone
Smile.
I want to watch love
Soften and restore a caring spirit
To every man, woman and child.
With our strength and kindness
Humans carry a great hope from
person to person.
This body is an armament and a covenant.
This mind finds openings for new creation.
The heart loving and courageous -
This spirit unites us all.
Posted on Thu, Apr 22, 2010
The biggest puzzle seems to be – here we are alive improbably on a planet teeming with nature, surrounded in our whole solar system and way beyond it with no other life forms. What did we do to deserve this? Each of us knows on some level that naturally we ought to bow down each day and thank God or whatever you believe in for this unbelievable opportunity.
Yet people persist in ingratitude. We see, or are affected by the news, that many people still actively hate others – sometimes just because they were born on a certain piece of geography. We see that there is greed, sometimes dishonesty, as some people try to accumulate more and more wealth at the expense of deepening the poverty and suffering of people around them. The seven “deadly sins” are still alive and kicking: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. I know I am guilty of most of them to some extent almost everyday. Perhaps they are all natural animal attributes that unsurprisingly arise in us without our consciously willing it.
These sins manifesting on the planetary level make human life harder than it needs to be. Look at the fallacy of ownership – nothing really is yours, you borrow this piece of land, this fruit’s nutrition, for a relatively short period of time. We can forget one of the obvious goals of being human and conscious - to pass this world on in better shape than we found it to each succeeding generation. We need to fight against a tragic short-sightedness that seems to have generated a global reversal – the planet’s complexion and inner resources having been diminished rather than augmented in the last 30 or so years.
This consciousness that we are alive on an incredible, unlikely, prolific planet, keeps breaking through. Perhaps our greatest gift as humans is to know what a gift human life is. Each time we massage we can restore the natural gratitude for that gift. People lie down on our tables often frustrated because of stress, filled with reverberations from their “sins” and those of the people around them. They often think they or those around them are bad people because of these sins. They often think life sucks because it’s a challenging balancing act. High quality touch on the other hand reminds them. You are alive and this is good. You have trouble reconciling the selfish and generous sides of yourself. Welcome to the club! Restore your sense of wonder and compassion for being a living, conscious being on this earth.
H. H. Dalai Lama said, “Although attempting to bring about world peace through the internal transformation of individuals is difficult, it is the only way.” Let us dedicate ourselves to this transformation this Earth Day and each day. It is a simple matter of gratitude for the gift of space and time on this singular home to life, Mother Earth.
Posted on Mon, Apr 12, 2010
Plato identified the three realms of virtue: goodness, truth and beauty.
Massage has been, to some extent, lately mired in truth. So-called science-based or orthopedic approaches have been extremely popular. The “facts” are trotted out as the rationale for how we should approach client’s neuromuscular symptoms.
But what people most respond to is quality of touch. Quality of touch has more to do with beauty and goodness, than with truth or science. This is why Swedish massage continues to be the most in-demand therapy. It feels wonderful. It puts people in touch with their inner beauty. It stimulates their compassion for the goodness in themselves and in the world around them.
So why not start with beauty? Human form and function is so beautiful. Massage is an art and a science. But if we only concentrate on the science, we can lose the art.
How does what is said in this video also apply in our personal lives? We'd love your feedback in the comment section below!
Posted on Fri, Mar 19, 2010
Origin: Lateral Tibia
Insertion: Medial cuneiform and first metatarsal
Action: Dorsiflexes, supinates foot, lifts up medial margin of foot, supporting medial
longitudinal arch (Excessive: shin splints)
Antagonist: Peroneus Longus
Like many modern conveniences the concrete sidewalks and roadways of our civilization take back almost as much as they give. They allow for the fairly safe and speedy passage of vehicles, goods and services. They save the pedestrian the chore of slopping through the mud. However, the earth no longer absorbs the impact of our step. We have developed footwear to remedy this situation and in so doing have elevated our so recent paws to the level of high fashion. Still the body and especially the feet, being the closest to the ground, do absorb more than their healthy share of impact. The result is a fantastic rise in foot problems and medical specialists happy to deal with them.
The problem of high heels illuminates the interesting relation of fashion and nature. High heels, like most of our fashions, are designed to increase the sexual attractiveness of the wearer. They accomplish this by elegantly combining human artifice with the imagery of nature. When you wear high heels, which resemble and have a similar feeling to hooves, you cannot safely flex and extend your ankles. Therefore, the prime movers here have to be at the knee and, especially, the hip. As a result, walking in high heels forces one to exaggerate motions of the hip joint and the pelvis lying above it, causing (usually) male attention to be drawn to the suggestively swaying buttocks. However, since the shoes absorb virtually none of the impact of walking, smash the ball of the foot into the pavement, keep the heel in an unnaturally lifted position, causing an abnormal shortening of the whole back of the leg, and, with such rigidities induced, decrease natural circulatory flow – eventually these legs and feet become so hardened and inflexible that they lose the very attractiveness they were intended to accentuate.
The lesson of high heels – if we depend on human technology to provide for us what nature has already abundantly guaranteed – in this case sexual attractiveness – we end up creating sickness.
Motion of the ankle is the key to the health of the lower leg. The tibialis anterior, far from being the dead wooden shin of the cement-walker, can be instead sleek, juicy, powerful…positively edible! Make your client aware that the lower leg is essentially the ankle mover lifting the foot up, brining it down, and side to side. Most people think the lower leg is just there and don’t know what it does. With slow deep friction attempt to convey the sensuality, the full length, strength and the three dimensionality of the tibialis anterior and its partners in dorsiflexion (extensor hallucis longus and extensor digitorum longus).
Above, around the front and the sides of the ankle, the superficial fascia of the leg thickens to break the tendons on their way into the foot. Again our four-leggedness is underlined, as these are basically the same structures as found above the wrist – retinacula. Abnormal thickening of the retinacula of the lower leg and foot may not only create pain due to a strangulation of muscles and vessels, it may also pin down tendons whose freedom is essential for the appropriate alignment of the foot. The tibialis anterior, by pulling up on the medial cuneiform and first metatarsal, helps create the medial longitudinal arch. If it is pinned down by the retinacula, it will in effect lose the contractibility of its lower segment, because the tendon will be functionally separated from the muscle belly, which lies above the retinacula.
One famous story of Ida Rolf is of her working for full hour on just the retinacula of one foot. This shows how important she considered it in the health of the lower limb. Carefully study an illustration of the lower leg, and using it as a guide, try working on the retinacula of a client whose ankles seem to you thick or rigid. Work on and around the retinacula basically as you would on other thickening connective tissues. Use finger pads mostly there, although the flat of the fist may work well on the superior extensor retinaculum. Have the client compare the experience range of motion before and after. Sometimes the change is remarkable!
Posted on Fri, Feb 12, 2010
The scalenes are actually the uppermost of the intercostals muscles, those muscles lying between your ribs that assist inhalation and exhalation. However, big surprise, there are no ribs in the neck! Actually a number of books say the scalenes attach to the vestigial ribs of the cervical vertebrae. That is, little buds appear on the cervical vertebrae that in fish, for instance, would develop into ribs, but in humans they end up being just little bumps to which the scalene muscles attach.
Who ordinarily thinks about breathing with their neck? Yet scalenes do have a very important respiratory function. They may indeed be, next to the diaphragm, the second most important muscles of respiration. The scalenes move the ribcage from above, while the thoracic diaphragm moves it from below.
The anterior scalene runs from the side of the second cervical vertebrae down to the first rib beneath the clavicle. Because it attaches to the front of that rib, the chronic contraction of the anterior scalene is one of the muscles that pulls our head forward; in chronic head-forward posture it is useful to address this muscle among others. The medial and posterior scalenes are more along the side of the neck and therefore have more to do with tilting the head to one side or the other.
It is common in whiplash that the scalenes are injured as the head is whipped forward then forcefully back, slightly tearing some of these muscle fibers through a sudden excessive stretch.
Energetically, the scalenes can be connected with all the virtues and challenges of the neck. The head forward posture can signify sadness, self-esteem issues, reactions to recent or long-held defeats. General neck tension will also manifest in the scalenes. That tension points to all the various reasons for inhibitions or tensions people may have about expressing themselves.
Try this Massage Technique
Here is a very helpful Deep Massage fulcrum which affects the scalenes as well as the superficial posterior neck muscles.
-
Therapist: seated at the head of the table
- Client: supine
- Center yourself
Working on the left side of the scalenes, place your middle finger, assisted by your other fingers, near the origin of the sternocleidomastoid, just above the sternal end of the clavicle. Take out the looseness.
THROUGHOUT THIS TECHNIQUE IT WILL BE BETTER TO USE LESS, RATHER THAN MORE PRESSURE. HONOR THE DELICACY OF THE MUSCLES AND VESSELS HERE!
This fulcrum utilizes the active movement of the client. Ask the client to lift the chin as if looking up. This will take up the slack, stretching the anterior scalenes particularly. Now let us add additional vectors, again in a movement partnership. Ask the client to slowly turn the head to their right, as if to look over the right shoulder. As they move draw your fingers horizontally through the tissues on the left side of the neck. For this whole pass you are at the level of C6 and 7.
You may continue with your tractioning of the fascia all the way back as far as the spinous processes at the center of the neck. In this case, you will have gone considerably past the scalenes, but you will more completely address the soft tissues of the neck pulling them back and with them the head comes back more of top of the body instead of being projected out in front of it.
Now ask your client to bring their head back to center. Begin a second fulcrum, now at the level of the middle of the neck, around C3-5. Repeat each of the steps above. Finally, asking your client to return to center again, begin a third fulcrum at the level of C1-2.
You should repeat these steps on the other side - with the client turning their head to the left, drawing your fingers through the right side of the neck in three passes with movement as described above.
Posted on Tue, Feb 09, 2010
There are those people who are drawn to play music, and they can not go a day or two without wanting to pick up the guitar. There are those who love writing. Finding words for their experiences gives their lives an essential, deeper meaning.
Similarly there are those who are drawn to touch. Touch is more universal than music or writing because, in some manner or other, almost everyone wants to touch and be touched. It is an essential way to know we are not alone.
Yet there are those who are drawn to touch in quite the same way as the musician or writer are drawn to their arts. We feel the need to touch in a way that has little to do with resolving our loneliness. It is not self-centered.
We want this touch to lift up the spirits of those around us. Just as the musician dreams of a people being animated to dance through their music, we dream of people’s pain and suffering being relieved.
This incredible art and science, in the most immediate way - body to body, mind to mind, and heart to heart - makes this world a better place.
Interested in learning more about a career in massage therapy? Lauterstein-Conway Massage School is enrolling people who want to make an impact with touch!
Posted on Tue, Jan 19, 2010
Part three of Massage and the Nervous System. (See parts two and one.)
As massage therapists we know how to get our hands on muscles and connective tissues. But now we see somehow we have to get our hands on the nervous system because otherwise it’s a bit like flipping light switches with no electricity – some action but no deeper change.
So how do we get our hands on the nervous system?
Autonomic Nervous System
The diencephalon houses among other amazing objects, the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is the primary orienter in our lives toward pleasure and away from pain. A pea-sized structure, it nonetheless is in charge of the endocrine system and the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system is a full spectrum system which goes to glands, smooth and cardiac muscles, and other organs. It is largely responsible for our most profound reactions to the world. Its experiential spectrum inclines us to the deepest relaxations, to everyday balance, and at its most extreme, to emergency reactions.
A high level of massage therapy can affect the autonomic system in dramatic ways:
- Change the set point – most people are too highly strung and under stress. Massage, especially repeated applications, will change the “set point” of the autonomic nervous system. We slowly begin to feel that more relaxed is more our normal and preferred state rather than being more tense.
- Inhabit the full spectrum – some people have difficulty relaxing; others fully experiencing their excitement. By relieving tension from the muscles and the nervous system, massage facilitates the autonomic “range of motion” so that the person can more fluidly move from one energy state to another.
- Cultivate the fertile mid-ground – “Between living and dreaming there is a third thing.” the poet Machado wrote. Edison used to go to sleep with a rock in his hand. When he fell asleep it would drop and wake him up. He persisted until he could be almost asleep and yet not drop the rock. Why? That was the state, he found, out of which all his inventions flowed. When our unconscious and conscious minds are in communication with each other in this fertile midground of awareness, we are at our most creative.
Massage, inducing more balanced states of mind, emotion and body, allows for the creative utilization of the fertile mid-ground in problem-solving and growth.
Some Controversy
Lately, there has been some controversy over whether the energy-based approach has the same legitimacy as the orthopedic approach to massage.
“Energy” is a commonsense word we all use to describe, among other things, the nervous system and the role of emotion, mind, and electrical intelligence in our lives. We could reduce our understanding of energy to chemistry, but who would rather for example want to give up the term “love”, preferring to tell those you care about that you have a predominance of phenylethylamines in their presence? The language of energy comes closer to capturing and understanding experience, than does that of chemistry.
When we consider the critical role of energy and the nervous system, we see that the myofascial system constitutes just one part of what we need to affect as therapists. To fully support health we need to address both energy and structure.
Let us honor both of these wondrous human worlds. Let us see their unity; affirm that good science takes the whole into account, not just the part; and that good art - and massage is undoubtedly an art as well as a science – empowers peace and promotes harmony in our whole being. That touch which knows how to contact our deepest energy and structure bears the promise of a better life for one and all.