Posted on Fri, Dec 11, 2009
An interview of David Lauterstein by Karen Barth, therapist and certified Zero Balancer from Kentucky.
KB: What is Zero Balancing and what are its strongest applications?
DL: Zero Balancing is the art and skill of balancing body energy and body structure. It could be called structural and energetic integration. As such it has a fascinating variety of effects. Zero Balancing dramatically enhances one’s posture because it focuses on balancing the skeletal armature deep within us. It is also spiritually profound because it consciously contacts the deepest energy flowing through us - what we call the “universal life flow”, which flows through the bones. It is also deeply calming because underneath the turbulence of our lives, as under the sometimes-turbulent surface of the ocean, there is actually a calm and uncomplicated experience of oneself which we can access. Zero Balancing is deeply relieving of chronic pain because oftentimes-chronic pain is related to energy issues, as well as structural ones. Because Zero Balancing creates balance in the very foundations of our being-- the bones, joints, and deep soft tissues associated with them -- it is an ideal health amplification modality.
KB: One of the unique things about your work is your focus on its artistic aspect. Please talk about Zero Balancing as an art.
DL: The human body is a masterpiece - greater in its evolved wisdom of body, mind and spirit than the Taj Mahal, the Beethoven 9th, or a Leonardo painting. We forget this - we think the miracles, the masterpieces of our world are “out there”, not “in here”. Actually, there are miracles equally “in here” - in the miracle of human biology, psyche and spirit.
A therapist who really knows this will awaken the client’s awareness of their own miraculous nature. This is the task of great art -- to evoke in us experiences of such wonder that we transform as a result. Great art puts us in touch with the miracle that each one of us is. Bodywork, because it is performed not via the “distal” senses of hearing or sight but through the very sinews of our bodies, is a far more direct and viscerally experienced art form. And Zero Balancing is an embodied art form and health modality which enlightens our innermost nature by working with the innermost core of our bodies’ structure and energy - the bones and deepest layer of our connective tissues.
KB: Is ZERO BALANCING energy work? How does it differ from other forms of energy work?
DL: Zero Balancing is not primarily energy work. It is primarily work which focuses simultaneously and consciously on both the physical structure and on one’s energy. This is an enormously important point. As most of us in alternative health know, a merely structural approach to problems is too one-sided. People are more than just their physical bodies, they have minds, feelings, sensations, and spirit. Any healthcare modality that ignores that is simply unscientific. However, exclusively energy work, on the other hand, often doesn’t address the very real and complex challenges which arise within our anatomy.
Zero Balancing, by having a theory and practice which emphasizes the simultaneous and conscious contact of both energy and structure, has an incredible therapeutic leverage.
KB: What is your approach to teaching in general, and more specifically to teaching Zero Balancing?
DL: The philosopher Martin Buber said, “It is not the educational intention, but it is the meeting which is educationally fruitful.” I believe the most important things as a teacher are not what I know; they are what you know already in your body, as well as in your mind and spirit. And it’s my job to evoke your highest knowing and being through fully meeting. This is basically identical to my work as a therapist and Zero Balancer. My hope in teaching and in practicing Zero Balancing is to help you wake up to your highest dreams and to facilitate as much as possible those dreams coming true.
And isn’t this coming together one of the greatest dreams for us as individuals and a society -- can we get to the place where we all meet in harmony? To the place where we can accept and meet all that is within us and all that is around us? This is true “kind-ness” -- to meet and know that, however different any thing may be, there is a kinship to all life.
It reminds me of words from a poem, “Love after Love,” by Derek Walcott
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.
Now that, beautifully put, is very much what Zero Balancing is --
with elation greeting yourself at your own door.
The only basic Zero Balancing class to be taught in Texas in 2010 will be in Austin January 28-31.
Posted on Wed, Sep 02, 2009
By David Lauterstein
In marketing everyone just thinks "What's In it For Me?" and accordingly that all promotion needs to assume "W.I.F.M." is primary.
WIFM is true in many ways. I am always struck how most health magazines are mostly sales tools for WIFM - filled with ads for herbal remedies, health foods, and cosmetics. But there's so much more to life and to health than that.
Studying with Dr. Fritz Smith, MD, the founder of Zero Balancing, has taught me so much about life beyond WIFM. I call it "W.I.F.E." - What's In it For Everybody?"
What's unique and in-it-for-everybody with Fritz Smith as a teacher and Zero Balancing:
- He is not one-up as a teacher.
- He is still totally excited about sharing what he knows.
- He is one of the kindest people I know.
- He has founded a modality that gives people the experience of non-self-centered health.
Basically, Fritz in his teaching draws upon the realization that health is not something we have, it is something we share. A superficial experience of health - a good meal, runner's high, a bit of weight loss - is a good feeling. The deep experience of health, however, is something that sustains us for our whole life.
Zero Balancing taps into the level of the person that lies deeper than personality, deeper than the usual sense of self -the layer of our bones and the energy that flows through them.
When we get in touch with that layer of the self, we tap into the roots of our life. And we suddenly remember, we don't own our own life, it's not something we have; it is the greatest of gifts; it is a precious gift which all living beings share. When we are touched with a surpassing level of kindness and knowledge at this level, we remember and experience that we all participate in something much larger than ourselves, we belong and are at home in the larger whole.
It begins to sound mystical? Well, it's really just common sense! Superficial relaxation, such as Swedish massage, gives rise to relaxation of surface tension. Deeper massage stimulates deeper, longer-lasting release of chronically-held tensions. And Zero Balancing, by stimulating balanced structure and energy flow in the deepest layer of our being, creates a deep, more abiding sense of inner peace.
In the first class I took with Fritz I rather suddenly saw this and leaned over at one point and whispered to him, "Fritz, this is the science of enlightenment!" And he whispered back, "Yes, but don't tell anyone!"
How perfect. He didn't want to lay personal claim to this discovery. He just wants people to experience it.
When we experience enlightenment, however fleeting it may be, we get a gift that we will spend an entire lifetime sharing. As the poet Kabir says, "Kabir saw that for fifteen seconds, and it made him a servant for life."
Each class I attend with Fritz, in every Zero Balancing class I teach and in every session I give, it is this important sense of connection we serve - we must be devoted to the growing health and happiness of all beings. Health comes from "whole" -- we are each part of a whole that is larger than ourselves. To share the experience of unity - rather than division - seems to be the key to the health of our whole world these days.
I am deeply grateful that Fritz through his teaching illustrates perfectly What's in it for everybody.
My wish is that everybody who does bodymind work make it a priority to experience his teaching and that ultimately we spread this revelatory approach to touch and relationship throughout the world.
Remember Fritz's Advanced Zero Balancing is Sept. 24-27 - don't miss it!
Posted on Thu, May 21, 2009
By David Lauterstein, as published the World Massage Festival, which David has been nominated as a 2011 Hall of Fame inductee.
I am David Lauterstein, Co-founder of The Lauterstein-Conway Massage School in Austin. I have been a massage therapy teacher since 1982 and therapist since 1977.
Here's my story!
I was raised in Chicago by a mother who was a pianist, a father who was a dentist, and my Godmother who was a tall, wonderful African-American woman, Millie Barry.
My earliest interest was music and the first 25 years of my life that was my passion. I played guitar, banjo, dobro, and mandolin throughout high school.
I loved playing with bluesmen particularly and was good friends with MIchael Bloomfield. I also had the honor to play with Otis Spann and others and to meet Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, Son House, Fred McDowell, Sleepy John Ester, Big Joe Williams and many other wonderful folk musicians.
In 1967 I studied Indian classical music at the Society for the Study of Eastern Arts in Berkeley, California. Then I did an about face and decided to get my degree in Western classical music, studying mostly at the University of Illinois where I got my degree in music composition and spent a year doing post-graduate studies with Wolf Rosenberg in Munich.
Beginning in 1972, my interests in yoga, martial arts, and psychotherapy started becoming more important to me and I began transitioning to what I later discovered as my life work - massage therapy.
Coming back from Munich, I got into Gestalt psychotherapy, body-centered explorations, and Rolfing. My Rolfing experiences, at the hands primarily of Allen Davidson, were especially profound. I started a study group with Allen and a number of other Rolfers, psychotherapists, and martial artists. During the time of that study group I found myself experimenting more and more with bodywork and in 1977 I graduated from the Chicago School of Massage Therapy and began a professional practice in massage therapy in Chicago.
I practiced for a number of years and learned by trading and receiving from anyone in town or passing through. Thus, I was exposed early on to Aston Patterning, Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, Polarity, Hoshino Therapy, Zero Balancing, body-centered psychotherapy, shiatsu, and other fascinating approaches.
In 1982 I met Rolfer, Daniel Blake, who wanted to teach a training in "Structural Bodywork". This was his offshoot of Rolfing in which he tried to teach how Ida Rolf actually practiced (she rarely did the 10-session recipe unless she was teaching). In 1982-83 I did 500 hours of advanced training with Daniel and was certified by the Structural Bodywork Institute. At that time, I was also fascinated with Craniosacral Therapy and studied with Daniel Bensky and the Australian osteopath, Charles Lincoln and his wife Deborah. I also studied character structure with body-centered psychotherapist, Robert Phillips and began a long association with psychotherapist, Paul D. Brown.
In 1982 I began teaching at the Chicago School of Massage Therapy. I was, along with Jim Hackett, the primary instructor in anatomy and deep tissue massage.
I discovered how much I loved teaching. Shortly thereafter I began teaching throughout the U.S. Some of my first workshops were in Texas and I fell in love with Austin. At this time I wrote the book, Putting the Soul Back in the Body: A Manual of Imaginative Anatomy for Massage Therapists.
I moved to Austin in 1984 with the intention of just teaching advanced trainings. However, I found that good basic training was lacking. So I joined forces with the first massage school in Texas, the Texas School of Massage Studies, becoming their Dean of Faculty. As such, the first thing I did was hire an advanced student of mine, John Conway. At this time, I was also the editor of the national magazine, the Massage Therapy Journal.
After three and half years at the Texas School of Massage Studies, John and i decided we wanted to work at a school that was "run in a manner as healing as the subjects we teach". We both deeply wanted to be teaching at a school in which the compassionate and exacting principles governing high level massage were practiced also in the way that staff and students were treated. So we started The Lauterstein-Conway Massage School in January, 1989.
Although Texas at that time required only 250 hours, we began with a radical three semester curriculum encompassing 700 hours from our very start! We covered Swedish, Deep, Sports Massage, and Shiatsu. We also included advanced studies in psychologically-oriented bodywork, Craniosacral therapy, Zero Balancing, and advanced Structural Bodywork.
Paralleling these early years, I began in 1986 studying Zero Balancing with its founder, Dr. Fritz Smith, MD. I found in classes and discussions with Fritz that the Deep Massage teaching I had been doing dovetailed remarkably with Zero Balancing's philosophy and practice. In the 23 years since I have been teaching primarily Deep Massage: The Lauterstein Method and Zero Balancing. What distinguishes these approaches is a very conscious engagement of both the body's structure as well its energy. So many bodyworkers either practice medically or in a new age manner - yet I've always been interested in how to practice in a unified manner - with scientific rigor as well as heightened imagination and spirit.
I have taught throughout the U.S. since 1982 and in England also annually since 1996. I have written the Seven Dimensions of Touch, What is Zero Balancing?, the Poetics of Touch and other essays published internationally.
In 2008 I recorded my first CD for massage and bodywork, Roots and Branches. This is the first CD recorded live in the studio simultaneous to actual massages
being performed in the studio - so we would have a music that actually arose from massage itself. I also have recorded two DVD's of Deep Massage: The Lauterstein Method which accompany the workshops I teach.
The Lauterstein-Conway Massage School has just celebrated its 20th Anniversary! I am proud of our training of 1000's of wonderful therapists. We continue to strive each day for the highest standards in the field! I have been a therapist for 32 years yet I am still struck with wonder by the endless depth of what we learn and what we can accomplish with bodywork and high level education.
Posted on Mon, Apr 06, 2009
By Zanna Heighton
Zero Balancing has been my inspiration for over 25 years. There's not much you can't work out with the Zero Balancing principles that its originator, Dr. Fritz Smith, teaches alongside the manual skills. When I started looking at the principles closely, I came to the conclusion that they resonate with the psychology of the energy body - the part that Fritz Smith labels ‘the donkey'.
To explain, Fritz noted that pack donkeys, when going up a mountain path, lean into each other as they ascend and that makes the journey easier. So he calls the "donkey" the aspect of the person that leans into high quality touch with instinctive trust.
Does the "donkey" have a psychology? I think it does, and I think there are circumstances under which it loses the adaptability it needs to be able to enjoy itself and live a full life. Zero Balancing is designed for well people, and those with challenged donkeys aren't necessarily ‘ill' but a full life is denied them. The majority of people with autism, for instance, have challenged donkeys, and their particular problems are well documented. When you look at it a bit more closely, it turns out that there is a Zero Balancing principle to match each problem. Therefore I maintain that Zero Balancing is uniquely able to address the psychology of the donkey.
There's more. When you look at the problems more closely you realise that those problems are not unique to autism. Autistic people are have a lot more problems of course, but when the rest of us are pushed from within to our limits, either through physical pain or emotional distress, we can find ourselves going through similar difficulties. It takes some adaptation to the Zero Balancing basic protocol and some fancy foot work to the techniques, but if you keep the basic principles in place you can work with almost anyone in a way that will bring about a revolution in how they experience themselves.
This subject has fascinated me all my therapeutic life for two reasons. My own donkey gets challenged from within, and until I met Fritz Smith and Zero Balancing I avoided being touched. While I was a student I worked with autistic adults as a support worker, then as a home manager, and observed how they didn't like being touched, even by me who understood where they were coming from. I couldn't make them relax and enjoy. Bribery and commands were no good. It became my mission to devise a way of using ZB that would be acceptable to them. It worked out well.
I want to celebrate the potential of bodywork to have an effect that goes far deeper than the body and have put together a weekend workshop that makes that potential a reality in the hands of the therapist. The workshop is called Working with Special Donkeys and will be hosted May 2nd and 3rd. You can get more details from 512-374-9222 ext. 20. It is being sponsored by David Lauterstein, whose work I've used and admired for many years and is open to those who have taken at least one previous Zero Balancing workshop, and will take your understanding of Zero Balancing to an exciting new level of expertise that you will be able to adapt to as many different clients as you encounter.