The Enlightened Body Blog

Massage Therapy and the Cymbal Crash of Dis-ease

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.

Massage Philosophy: Loving Time

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.

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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?

The Deep Massage Book - It's a Process!

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.

She's Motivated!

In a staff meeting at our Lauterstein-Conway Massage School, I recently noted a colleague promoting a course we had never offered. I said, "She's smart."  Our Marketing Director, Jennifer Shaw, never being one to mince words, said, "Intelligence's got nothing to do with it! She's motivated!"

I was delighted. She was right in so many ways.

Sometimes I take motivation for granted and overvalue intelligence. I push myself to come up with new ideas while ignoring or not honoring how motivated I am. Every since I started getting bodywork, I am totally motivated to do it, explore it, receive it, teach it, and spread its world-changing influence.

It's so often the motivation that we pick up on in people, especially the concerted enthusiasm for a healthy direction. It's the energy first (though I don't knock the usefulness of intelligence) not the idea.

Thanks, Jennifer.

Art and Massage: Ode to Kung Fu and Massage

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.

Mired in the Truth: Beauty and Massage

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!

Massage Therapy: Growing New Arms

The other day I working on a woman who has chronic complaints in her extremities. As I worked, I had a deeper insight into the origins of her pain, tension and discomfort.

A Case Study: The Servers

Some people are raised to do for others. Their own independent self-expression and the meeting of their own needs, even as very young children, are de-emphasized. They learn rather to obey and serve one or both parents or other close family members.

In that case, it is common for the person to identify their limbs, which with they do their doing, with the people they are raised to serve. When it comes to their own sense of their selves, these kind of folks tend to identify as “me” only their axial system – torso, neck and head.

I recall poignantly a young woman I worked with many years ago. As I was working on her arms, she started crying. I was surprised.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

She told me that as a young girl she had broken her arm. Shortly thereafter, she was, with her family, visiting another family. After dinner, the man of that household recruited the kids to wash the dishes. To her surprise, he asked her, with a recent broken arm, to help wash the dishes.

She looked at her father for help to illuminate this man. But her father just shrugged, unassertive, and didn’t protect his child. She helped wash the dishes, in pain the whole time.

Then, while still crying, she said, “Ever since then my arms have belonged to my father. Today these arms are mine again.”

With this current client, I am emphasizing the limbs and especially the “girdles” of the shoulder and pelvis. The girdles are the outlets for self-expression through the extremities. I have high hopes for this current client that she will soon say, “These limbs are mine again.”

The Role of the Massage Therapist

Helping clients re-own parts of themselves self is an essential part of integrative healthcare. As the poet Derek Walcott said in his poem "Love After Love,"

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Anatomy Review: Tibialis Anterior

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!

The Calling of Massage Therapy

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.

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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!

Massage and the Nervous System: Part Three

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.