The importance of "ease" and "comfort"
You are the expert on how your body feels
The importance of warming up and moving
Space: the Inner Frontier
Balance: a Hidden Key to Health
The importance of "ease" and "comfort"
The body relaxes when it feels safe and comfortable. It tenses up when it is worried that something will hurt. In Ortho-Bionomy®, we emphasize finding positions of comfort and using gentle compression in these comfortable positions to release the muscle tension patterns.
There are sensory nerves in the joints which communicate where your body is in space. When you gently compress joints, your body gets a quicker sense of where it is. The body is always trying to find the easiest and best way to move and hold itself. It can use this information right away to form new, less painful and more efficient patterns of movement. That is why Ortho-Bionomy® can help you get results faster than you might imagine.
All this is accomplished without pain! (This is important, as we have noted, because the body will contract against pain.) After your session, you can reacquaint your body with the renewed movement possibilities with gentle, comfortable exploration. It is important not to try to find the "bad" feeling again, because the old pattern is not too far away and can reassert itself, if encouraged.
You are the expert on how your body feels
If something doesn't feel comfortable to you, please say so right away. You may be sensing something on a different level. You can suggest a different direction, or level of compression, or a different part of the body that is requesting attention, or that your body has experienced all that it can process and wants to stop. It doesn't mean that anything is wrong, just that that is what is going on for you and your body in the moment. Sometimes releases happen so quickly that we miss them, but your intuition of how your body feels is important and should be acknowledged.
The importance of warming up and moving
Do you know what gelatin looks like? There is fluid in our joints to lubricate movement that is related to gelatin. When we sleep or are immobile for a time, especially as we age or are injured, the fluid gets thicker and less liquid. It starts to dry out. When we move, we literally "warm up" this liquid and stir in more liquid and the movement gets easier and more "fluid". (This is also why drinking water regularly is a good thing, not to be forgotten as we age.)
So when you get up in the morning, think about your body warming up. Just a little easy exploratory movement will get the job started. (More if you are particularly stiff.) If you are going to exercise, doing easy versions of your movement may get you warmed up appropriately. Having your body warm also helps your muscles loosen and relax.
Space: the Inner Frontier
When your muscles are tight, there is less space in your tissue and joints than when muscles are relaxed. That can inhibit circulation of fluid that cleans away lactic acid and brings nutrition and repair to an area. There is just not enough room for everything to get through. That also can hold true for the space for nerves. You might find that to be a problem in wrists (carpal tunnel) or backs (bulging disks).
One of the common experiences after receiving Ortho-Bionomy is the sense that there is more space in the tissue. It can feel like your joints have been lubricated. One can even see that extra width in the mirror, when one side of the body is worked on without the other. This is the result of resetting the length of the muscles without forcing them. That's what happens when you exaggerate in the direction the muscles are pulling (toward ease) instead of going against what the body wants to do (into pain).
It is helpful to be aware of these new possibilities just by noticing what is perhaps different. Some other areas that haven't been on the body's priority list may show up for a little while, then resolve themselves, especially when you are paying attention to moving toward ease instead of toward pain. Your body learns what it feels like to reset.
We want the body to experience being listened to, to experience the connectedness from one area to another, to experience the amazing feeling of muscles letting go and loosening, and to experience the sense of ease and wellbeing that comes from that.
What you will be building in your body is the increased ability to catch yourself if you begin to fall. Both neurologically and strength wise, you will have practiced remaining on your feet, so that your chance of falling and injuring yourself will be far less than if you do nothing. This gains in importance as we age, and it is never too late to start. Any improvement will pay dividends. You will be surprised at how quickly you improve.
Don't forget, though, to be safe while you practice! Have a solid object to grab on to if you need to catch yourself.
