Movement Is Life

Massage therapists are really the ideal caregivers to

foster in their clients the kinesthetic/proprioceptive

awareness that awakens their self-healing powers,

because a powerful synergy, the combination of

massage and movement, is available to them.

i. By Meir Schneider and Carol Gallup

T h i s is the first of six coluAns by Meir Schneider, founder of the Center for Self- Healing in San Francisco and the author of The Handbook of Self-Healing and Self- Healing: My Life and Vision. Throughout the column Schneider and co-writer Carol Gallup will explore the importance of movement in daily life, and the necessity of incorporating movement into healing treatments.

When Meir Schneider first discovered the importance of movement, he was a blind teenager working very hard to learn how to see. Every day, excited and hope- ful, he would come home from school and practice eye exercises and massage his head and neck for hours at a time. He even did the eye exercises during classes at school, much to the annoyance of his teachers.

His family scoffed at his efforts. Doctors had told them years before that Schneider was hopelessly, permanently blind. Five unsuccesshl surgeries in early childhood had replaced his congenital cataracts with scar tissue so dense that only five percent of one lens and one per- cent of the other admitted any light. There were other serious vision problems as well. Schneider's only support came from his ON^ mentors, Isaac, a teenager who had learned the eye exercises of the Bates Method from a library book to clear up his own nearsightedness, and Miriam, the librarian who introduced the two boys.

Now, six months into his project, Schneider could see shapes, light and dark and a little movement without glasses; with them, for the first time in his life, he could see the ordinary objects of the world -windows, air conditioners, girls, his own face in the mirror. Within another year, he would see equally well without glasses, and later, he would read and write normally and earn an unrestrict- ed driver's license.

Miriam told Schneider his program was incomplete without movement exercises.

"We need movement because that is what life is about," she said. "There is no such thing as a completely sick person, or a completely healthy person either. There are only those who move more and those who move less. Movement in the human body is continuous. Once it stops we stop living. There is either restriction to move- ment or freedom of movement, and a per- son can choose either."

Movement exercises for his calf and shin muscles, she said, would improve his eye- sight. Schneider found the statement mind-boggling. Miriam pointed out that Schneider's eyes were becoming more alive with the movements of his eye exer- cises. She advised him to perform them on the beach, rotating his head from side to side and moving his toes up and down while standing in shallow water, so that the movement of the waves would stimu- late his foot and shank muscles. Schneider tried it, and found a whole new world he could come back to again and again. Winter or summer, he would stand in the surfexercising, opening him- selfwholeheartedly to the practice and study of movement, breathing, coordina- tion and the gentle rhythms of the body. It was bliss.

It was also the beginning of a lifetime exploration. Schneider soon began creat- ing exercises for himself and others with serious illnesses, and seeing remarkable improvement. He discovered that every- one has an innate power to create recovery and health. The key to accessing this self- healing power was a deep sense of move- ment, sometimes called kinesthetic or proprioceptive awareness. Over the years, thousands of clients of his Self-Haling Method have developed their own kines- thetic awareness and reversed the progress of such degenerative conditions as mu-- lar dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, &rick polio and postpolio, carpal tunnel ?n- drome, near- and farsightedness and m m r diseases of the eye.

Miriam could not explain the connec- tion she sensed between the lower legs 2nd

MASSAGE Issue Nurnbei 60. W A p r l l S S

Photos # la & Ib: Bringing movement up the body.

eyesight. After trying her exercises, Schneider found it out for himself. An area that feels unsupported from below will comp'ensare by stiffening. Schneider's tense, undeveloped shanks and feet were perceived by every part above, especially his neck, as an inadequate base of support. Strengthening Schneider's feet and shanks allowed his neck to relax enough chat massage and exercises there could have a lasting effect. Schneider discovered that, with his neck more relaxed, the increased circulation available to his head made a noticeable improvement in his eyesight. Through movemenr, he had begun to sense the interconnectedness of all parts of the body.

The chain of movement A massage therapist needs to have

hands that are alive - warm, penetrating, aware. Movement can bring this kind of life. to your hands. It has to start, as it did for Schneider as he nurtured his eyes, with your base of support - feet, ankles and shanks.

Take a moment to investigate it for yourself. Stand up, tighten up your ankles and then try making circles with your knees and hips. Now relax your Hnkles and do thesame thing; notice how much more movement you have above them. Movement scientists point out that in walking, excursion is greatest at the ankle, less at the knee, still less at the hip, and so on. If you introduce stiffness at the ankle, it goes all the way up the kine- tic chain.

According to David Winter, a leading researcher in movement analysis, a major challenge of the lower body during walk- ing is that of controlling the anteriorlpos- terior (forwardlbackward) sway of the upper body. The head needs to be kept steady to reduce sensory "noise" to the eyes and the balance receptors of the vestibular system. Because we are top- heavy (rwo-thirds of the body's mass is above the legs), the upper body acts as an inverted pendulum rotating on the hip, sometimes accelerating forward, sorne- times backward, always inherently unsta- ble.

Whatever accelerations of the inverted pendulum are left undampened after the lower body has done its work ark left to the muscles of the back and neck (erector spinae and splenius capitus). If you limit movement below - through tense mus-

MASSAGE s Issue Number 60 MarcWApril 1996 51

Movement is Life cIes or from wearing unyielding shoes or high heels - you're going to have to tighten your back and neck. Not coinci- dentally, many of us have stiffness in these areas.

Base-building exercises This is the beginning of a complete

movement exercise sequence continuing into the next two sections, which will cre- ate balanced, relaxed use throughout the body and enliven your hands.

Check your neck for stiffness now. Rotate your neck in each direction, move your chin left and right, bend your neck to each side (ear to shoulder). As you do the following exercises, check your neck from time to time to see whether it moves more easily.

Awakening the toes: Rotate all your toes together and then each one individu- ally, passively and then actively. You may need to hold onto all the other toes to help one move by itself. Then give each toe some resistance training to create strength and awareness. Move it up, down, to one side, then the other, resist- ing with your fingers; now try to rotate it again, then visualize the rotation, then rotate it again.

Building strong calf and shin muscles: Standing, alternate moving the forefoot up and down 50 times. Then alternate moving the heels up and down 50 times.

Ankle rotations: Sit down comfort- ably. Rotate your neck in one direction, then the other, noticing how freely it moves. Now keep your heels together on the floor and make circles with the forefeet. Now rest one ankle on the other knee and massage the calf and shin mus- cles while making circles with the forefoot of the supported leg in both directions. Then see whether the neck rotations have become easier.

Bringing movement up the body: (Photos # l a & Ib): Still sitting, keep your feet on the floor and mobilize your knees by making 20 mirror-image big circles in each direction. Now mobilize your back in three parts, moving continuously and going as far as you can in each direction five times. Tilt your pelvis back and forth; then put one hand on the lower midri& one on the midback, and guide the midthorax back and forth; then alter- nate collapsing your shoulders forward and pulling them back. Check your neck; notice how much less tension is present. 52

Photos #2a & 2b: Shoulder rotations.

W a k i n g barefoot on the beach: Normally, with each step, your foot moves from inversion (soles pointing toward each other, presenting the stiffest possible surface to the ground) to eversion (soles pointing outward, arches lowering) and back again, as it investigates the kind of surface ic is walking on and accomrno- dates itself. Walking with shoes on hard, even surfaces, we can lose much of this movement and sensory awareness. On

sand, as at the beach, we get lower impact, a more various, balanced use of foot and shank muscles, and a lively interaction with the soft, uneven sand.

After walking along and noticing how it feels for a while, try walking backward. You can glance over your shoulder occa- sionally to make sure there are no major obstacles. If you like, bring along some- one to spot you. This is a great way to break up stiff patterns throughout the

MASSAGE Issue Number 60. MarcWApiil1996

body. Your center of gravity moves back- \

ward. You start to feel your shins and the back of your thighs mobilize. Your neck stops craning forward and your head feels delightfully like an idle passenger. Now walk forward again and see how different it feels.

(One Olympic gold medalist skater who was working with Schneider rehsed to walk barefoot on the beach. He was afraid to give up the stiffness in his ankles. Would it have hurt his performance? Maybe, in the short run. The "peak per- formances" of athletes may be less than wonderfbl in terms of health.)

Your hands can endlessly increase their

ability to feel the movement needs of ;

the area they are working on, while they transmit a sense of all

the movement that is possible there.

Losing and regaining movement Degenerative illnesses - such as

arthritis, age-associated diseases of the eye, overuse syndromes and chronic back pain - are on the rise. Medicine has no effec- tive remedies. We believe that lack of movement causes most degenerative ,ill- nesses and creates major symptoms in others.

Degenerative conditions are diseases of stagnation, of chronic postural rigidities and unbalanced use. Of the body's approximately 600 muscles, we grossly overuse about 50 and greatly underuse many others. Muscular tension builds up in some areas until they are numb and immobile. Whichever system of your body is most vulnerable will accumulate problemS fastest. If it's your connective ;issue, it will slowly harden, causing joint spaces to shrink, and eventually th; pain and stiffness of arthritis begins. If it's your circulatory system, a tight chest may lead to heart problems or a tight neck to migraine and then,stroke.

Freezing up like this doesn't happen overnight. We all know the typical anxi-

7

MASSAGE* Issue Number 60 MarcNApril1996 i i

Movement is Life

ety posture, the "coat hanger look" - \

head forward, shoulders hunched, upper chest collapsed, ready to "shoulder" the next task. Anxiety tends to dominate not only emotionally, blocking out all milder feelings, bur physically. We use what Schneider calls the anxiety muscles - the flexors - and avoid working others, for example, the abductors.

The critical question is whether these stressful postures are occasional or embed- ded. When we get upset, we tend to take it in the neck, briefly, but when emotional tension is put into a neck that is habitual- ly tense, it will stay on. It's like the differ- ence between a swamp and a river - if you throw dirt into a swamp, it just sits there, but if you throw it into a river, it will be swept away. In working with an embedded movement loss, relaxation has to be first a physical action and only later an emotionallmental one.

Movement loss is part of a lifestyle for many people. It's insidious. Over the course of time, ideas of how we can move become limited and stereoryped until some areas of the body lose wen the memory or concept of movement. For example, most of our day-to-day move- ments occur in the sagittal (fonvardlback- ward) plane - walking, reaching, typing -leading to wear and tear, and overuse syndromes. We get too many of these angular, jerky movements and not enough of the fluidity of circular movements that take us through many planes. As patterns of stiff, limited, unbalanced use build up, eventually they can follow us even into new pastimes like swimming or yoga, rob- bing us of the release and refreshment such activities initially offered.

A big part of the problem is that too much,movement is goal-oriented, so that the body becomes merely a tool to be used - and ignored. In this respect, the jogger who runs his seven miles every day no matter how it feels is no more aware of his body's movement requirements than is the ofice worker who dutifully sits immo- bile at a computer screen all day until the movement her body desperately needs actually feels strange and unwelcome.

Chronic stress, endemic in our culture,

Photos #3a & 3b: Awakening the back.

is a major cause of movement loss. It causes us to tense up many more muscle muscles, inappropriately trying to control Massage therapists are not exempt groups rhan we need to perform an the movement, stiffen enough to create from stress and over-recruitment. As you action. In a startling example of over- nausea and dizziness. (Rolling is not only massage a ,-lien[, is it only the massaging recruitment, when most of Schneider's useful for evaluation; it's a nice way to hand that is working, or is it the entire clients try to roll from side to side on the break up movement blocks. Try it for arm, shoulder, chest, upper back, neck floor, their diaphragm, chest and throat yourself and with your clients.) and maybe even the abdomen and face

54 MASSAGE. Issue Number 60 March/April1996

\

(especially the jaw) as well? All of these muscles may be acting together as a big insensate block. This is poor mechanics and - from the point of view of yoga and other disciplines - poor energetics,

.- because enerm channels are blocked in "a

many places. Furthermore, the nervous system becomes so.understimulated that it is very hard to feel the tissue you are mas- saging.

Unfortunarely, clients can sense the difference. When you over-recruit, you over-use the stabilizers- for example, the shoulders, and deny the appropriate mus- cles their Ill.movement. You may, for instance, choke up on the wrists and fin- gers so that the client feels a frozenness in your fingertips.

Recruitment of unnecessarv muscles is an occupational Kazaid of massage thera- py. The results include fatigue, burnout, tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome. Even maisage therapists who don't usually recruit unnecessarily may do it under stress.

Movement and massage Movement is the treatment that is

often missing in medicine, in massage practices and in the massage therapist's self-care as well. Massage therapists are really the ideal caregivers to foster in their clients the kinestheticlproprioceptive awareness that awakens their self-healing powers, because a powerful synergy, the combination of massage and movement,

1 is available to them. I Movement can change the therapist1

I client relationship. .How many times have .

I you seen a client come back with the same problem week after week? Adding a home

I program of movement and self-massage I can get these clients unstuck, enlist them

as active, inventive partners and change I

the energy of the massage session. ' ' Realistically, clients that like to be depen- I dent may leave you, but you will probably

attract more self-reliant ones. Schneider believes that it was no acci-

dent that his first successes with dcgenera- I I tive diseases came while he was working I to gain functional vision. Enormous sen-

i sory and motor changes were occurring in his brain as a result of his explorations; this open, nonroutine state had a power- ful effect on his early clients.

Our center is often full of clients from all over the world with degenerative dis- eases of muscle, nerve, joints, vision and

MASSAGE Issue Number W MarchlAprW 1998

Movement is Life

chronic pain, others. one bfour more side-to-side motion). Next, move - As you breathe, have everything separate

therapists told us she envies her clients You: 'PIJer back and down and expand still further - rib cage and

with serious diseases for the spiritual bringing your shoulder blades as close to sides moving outward. When your client

aspects of their recovery. ~h~~ become each other and then as far apart as possi- is face down, try rotating your head while

extraordinary people. We couldn't be any ble several times. massaging. use to them if we didn't continually Keeping your entire torso steady and As you move through your day, visual-

explore movement - including the your weight on both hands, rotate your ize that every movement you make is per-

important movement of missage - and stay open to what we find from moment . . to moment. You really can't ever stop. W e transmit movement - our own - to others every time we touch them. It tends to keep us honest.

fiercises to thaw movement patterns The following exercises can help you

and your clients break up frozen move- ment patterns by isolating and peripheral- izing movement. By using only the mus- cles that are needed, massage therapists can work 14 hours a day or more without fatigue.

Shoulder rotations (Photos #2a & 2b): All of these rotations should be done in both directions. Lying on your side with your head well supported by pillows, rotate your free shoulder 20 times in each direction, while tapping on the tip of the shoulder with your other hand. Visualize that the tip of your your shoulder is lead- ing the action; this releases the muscles of the midback. Now visualize the shoulder rotations. Next, rotate the shoulder pas- sively with the other hand. Then repeat the active shoulder rotations.

Rotate the whole arm 20 times in each direction. Focus on the fingertips and visualize that they are leading the motion. Interrupt your arm rotations once or twice to tap with your fingertips on the floor about 10 times. This will help you focus on the fingertips. Return to the shoulder rotations; and ask yourself whether the shoulder feels looser. Then d o the same sequence with the other shoulder.

Awakening the back (Photos #3a & 3b): Get down on hands and knees on the floor. Hold your arms and legs steady and rotate your buttocks. Allow your thighs to rotate with the hips, and make bigger circles, always in both directions. Next, allow your arms and legs to join in the rotation. Hold your pelvis as steady as you can and rotate your chest and upper back, first with your weight equally dis- tributed on both hands (more of an up- and-down motion), then shifting your weight from one hand to the other (a

Photo #4: Opening up adhesions.

shoulders, first together and in the same direction, and then alternately, so that one shoulder is up while the other is down.

Arch your back and lower your head until the top of your skull touches the floor and takes some of your weight, and rotate your torso on your head. This peripheralizing exercise continues the exploration of movement in the back from the above-mentioned exercise to bring movement up the body. For vari- ety, you may choose to mobilize the lower, middle and upper back in flexionlextension in the all-fours posture you assume at the beginning of this sequence. Use these suggestions as a start- ing point and see how many ways you can find to move your spine.

Expanding everywhere: The next time you are giving a massage, breathe deeply and visualize that every part of your body is lengthening, expanding, loosening. Tell your head to go up to the ceiling and your shoulders to the walls.

formed by your body's periphery. As you walk, picture your feet lifting your legs. When you use your arms - writing or giving a massage - picture your fingers leading the motion.

An architect came to our center two days before she was scheduled for surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome. She learned how to use only her fingertips for her drafting work and let go of her shoulder, jaw, neck, chest and abdomen. Her symptoms disappeared completely, and she canceled the surgery. Now she is a full-time massage therapist.

These peripheralizing exercises and the following wrist and hand exercises were part of her regimen; you may want to teach them to clients whose occupations and pastimes rely on extensive use of their hands. You can help them - and your- self - prevent or recover from overuse syndromes.

MASSAGE Issue Number 60 MarchIAprll J996

Movement to bring more life to your touch

Massage therapists need to have a special kind of intelligence in their hands. Isolation and peripheralization are impor- tant kctors; so are strength and sensitivi- ty. The following exercises will bring

In a branch of Judaism, the soul is considered to be in the forearms,

so a ritual cloth is wrapped around them

for prayer. Schneider sometimes thinks of this during

sessions as he experiences the life of

his hands, the life of another person

through them, and the compassion inherent in the act

of massage.

relaxation to your hands, make them strong enough to work independently, and actually increase their intelligence as

~

you create new neuronal and neuromus- cular connections.

Your hands can endlessly increase their ability to feel the movement needs of the area they are working on, while they transmit a sense of all the movement that is possible there.

Finger tapping: Sit in a chair that supports your back well; cushion and sup- port the elbow of the tapping hand with a pillow or blanket. On a table or other hard surfice, tap with all the fingers of one hand a few hundred times. The wrist should be very loose, and the movement floppy; a ~ o i d - ~ o u n d i n ~ with rigid fingers. How are the fingertips reacting? They will probably feel pleasantly stimulated at first, then pained, then numb, then pained again, then stimulated. If they simply hurt continuously, you may be tapping too hard, so ease off. When

< 7 - - - . MASSAGE Issue Number 60 h4arcWAplil1996

Movement is Life you have tapped 300 to 400 times,'your fingers will be tingling - and more sensi- tive - from better circulation and nerve response. Feel your face, scalp, shoulder and chest, first with the sensitized hand, then with the other, and compare what the two hands register. Repeat the exer- cise with the other hand.

Opening u p adhesions (Photo.#4): D o each of these movements about 100 times: Open and close the fingers of one hand, focusing o n your fingertips and tap- ping on the forearm with your other hand. Next, rotate your forearm in both directions, then rotate your shoulder in both directions. Open your mouth as wide as you can and close it. Rotate your head in both directions. Now open and close your fingers again and see if they are looser. Repeat with the other hand and arm.

Awakening wrist and hand joints: Rest your right forearm on a table and relax your right hand as completely as possible while you grasp the fingertips and passively rotate it in both directions with your other hand. Continue until the right hand stops helping or resisting the motion. Now grasp your right hand just under the wrist and let it rotate slowly in as big a circle as you can make without tensing the arm: Keep the right hand and fingers completely relaxed and let the wrist do the work alone. Repeat 10 to 20 times, then return to the passive rotations. Is there a bigger range of motion and less resistance?

Now rotate each finger of the right hand, first passively, then actively, then passively. Next do the same with each joint on each finger. How much indepen- dent movement do you get from each! Compare both hands as to warmth, sensi- tivity, looseness, aliveness. Compare the way each hand responds to different sur- faces, including your own leg. Now rotate all the joints of the left hand.

Massaging each hand: (Although this is not a movement exercise, we included this self-massage because it's a perfect end to this sequence.) With the fingertips of one hand, start to explore the muscles of the other. Make small circles with a gen- tle downward pressure, keeping the fin- gertips on the skin. Anchor your hand with the thumb, then massage with the thumb, too. Proceed from the base of the hand up to the knuckles, then along both sides of each finger. Massage each finger between the thumb and fingers of the other hand. You may find tense or tender places; when the tension is released, it may produce an emotional release as well. Repeat for the other hand.

In a mystical branch of Judaism, the soul is considered to be in the forearms, so leather strips are wrapped around them for prayer. Schneider sometimes thinks of this during sessions as he experiences the life of his hands, the life of another person through them, and the compassion inher- ent in the act of massage. EI

Meir Schneider, Ph. D. L.M. 1, an internationally known therapist and edu- cator, is the creator of the Meir Schneider Self-Healing Method, the author of two books, Self-Healing: My Life and Vision and The Handbook of Self-Healing, and thefounder/director of the Center and Schoolfor Self-Healing in San Francisco. As a teenager, he overcame blindness cawed by congenital cataracts and other serious vision problems and toddy has an unrestricted driver's license. Forfirther information, call (415) 665- 7574.

Carol Gallup is an advanced student of Self-Healing, registrar of the Schoolfor Self-Healing, staff writer of the Self- Healing Research Founddtion, and the author of numerous magazine articles. She studied physical therapy at the Mayo Clinic and is now a master's degree candi- date in research psychology at San Francisco State University. For her thesis, she is documentating the p r o p s of a Self- Healing client with muscular dystrophy using kinematic anabsis.