This brief piece outlines both conventional and alternative TMJ treatment approaches.
mouth guards / appliances / splints
neuromuscular dentistry
reshaping tooth surfaces
mouth massage
Mouth Guards / Appliances / Splints
The principle and hope of these kinds of devices is that by separating the teeth, they are prevented from grinding each other. However, from the very name, “mouth guard,” we infer that this kind of device doesn’t solve the problem, but only hopes to prevent tooth damage as the problem — tight jaw muscles — continues. It’s obvious — what the mouth is being guarded from is … the mouth! “Appliance” and “splint” are other names for “mouth guard”
Neuromuscular Dentistry
Neuromuscular dentistry takes a more sophisticated technological approach to the use of dental appliances. By measuring electrical activity of the muscles of biting and chewing, practitioners of this approach identify patterns of movement, of position, and of dental stress and then prepare an appliance to retrain the nervous system’s control of those muscles. The desired outcome common comes in a few months; cost ranges from $5,000 to $25,000.
Re-shaping Teeth
Dentists have found that by changing the fit of upper and lower teeth, they can alter neuromuscular control of the muscles of biting and chewing and thereby alleviate TMJ Syndrome. This approach posits that the cause of excessive jaw tension is poor fit between upper and lower teeth. Its method is to reshape tooth surfaces by a polishing process to improve the fit. This method does get results. By changing the fit between teeth (by removing contours that prevent uniform contact among teeth), the process changes ones experience of biting and chewing. This change introduces such a new experience of biting and chewing that habitual patterns of muscular control are interrupted, allowing new movement patterns to form. However, it’s an indirect approach involving ongoing dental surgery in a series of steps to a good fit. While its effects are beneficial, it misses the role of dental trauma in the formation of dental stress.
Mouth Muscle Massage
While the approach sounds relevant, given what I have said above, the limitation of this approach is that jaw muscle muscle tension is maintained by the brain — it’s conditioning — not by the muscles, themselves. So, the results of mouth massage tend to be short-lived.
A New TMJ Therapeutic Approach
Understanding that we are dealing with conditioned postural reflexes that govern muscular tension, one way to cure TMJ Syndrome/TMD naturally would be to retrain those conditioned postural reflexes — in effect, to eliminate residual trauma reflex and to ease dental stress. The video on this page demonstrates exactly that process — called Hanna Somatic Education®. The video shows changes in real-time — painless, fast, inexpensive, and lasting — produced by dispelling automatic, reflexive contraction patterns and re-awakening control of free movement.
The various symptoms of TMD/TMJ Syndrome — headaches, earaches, bruxism, poor bite, tinnitis, postural changes, limited ability to open or close the jaws — resolve into normal function.
TMD/TMJ Syndrome is a collection of diverse symptoms caused by reflexive actions of the muscles of biting and chewing. It comes from brain-muscle conditioning acquired by trauma or stress.
As with all conditioning problems, it can be changed with proper training. An accelerated training process, clinical somatic education), dramatically reduces the time needed for conventional dentistry to correct TMD by means of a technique nicknamed, “The Whole-body Yawn”.
Dentists commonly regard TMD as being of different types: joint arthritis at the temporo-mandibular joint (TMJ), muscular soreness (myalgia), articular disc displacement, misfit of the upper and lower jaws, or of traumatic origin.
However, all of these conditions reduce down to the same cause: tight muscles of biting and chewing, and therefore the same kind of treatment can resolve them all (except for “disc displacement without reduction”, which is a surgical situation).
Let’s see how.
Degenerative Arthritis
Degenerative arthritis of the TMJ does not just “happen by itself”, nor does it result from outside influences, like an infection.
It results from excessive compression forces upon the TMJ, imposed by chronically tight muscles of biting and chewing. The joint breaks down under pressure.
Treatment must therefore retrain those muscles to a normal, low tension state, to be effective.
Muscular Soreness(Pain)
Chronically tight muscles develop muscle fatigue — the common “burn” that people go for in athletic training.
That “burn” disappears nearly instantly, once muscles relax. For a lasting reduction of muscle tension and burn, a training process is needed. Faster and slower training processes exist.
Articular Disc Displacement
The articular disc of the TMJ is a pad that rides between the lower jaw (mandible) and the underside of the cheek bone (zygomatic bone), which goes from below the eyes, in front, to just before the ears on both sides. The TMJ, itself, is located just in front of the ears, and although the TMJ is the “home” position for the lower jaw, the TMJ is a very free joint. The cheek bone acts as a kind of rail along which the lower jaw rides forward and back during jaw movements, out of and back into the temporo-mandibular joint. The articular disc pads the contact between the lower and upper contact surfaces, connected to the lower jaw by a ligament with some elasticity.
When jaw muscles are chronically tight, the articular disc gets squeezed between the two surfaces, upper and lower, and may get dragged out of place by jaw movements (displacement) — a very painful condition.
If the displaced position of the disc is within the rebound capacity of the attaching ligament, the disc can return to its home position (“disc displacement with reduction”), once excessive compression forces ease. If the ligament gets stretched past its rebound capacity, the disc stays out of place (“disc displacement without reduction”).
Misfit of the Upper and Lower Jaws
This condition is not, in itself, a cause of TMD. However, when combined with excessive tension in the muscles of biting and chewing, the sensation of this condition gets magnified, as the sensation of “misfit”; grinding motions (bruxism) are actually a seeking for the comfort of a fit in a rest position, which is unavailable due to upper and lower jaw misfit.
While something radical like surgery may seem to be a necessary option, actually what is sufficient is to bring the jaw muscles to rest. To do so increases the tolerance (i.e., comfort) of the mismatched situation to the point where it is not disturbing.
Trauma
The underlying condition for the others, trauma (a blow to the lower jaw or dental work) triggers the muscles of biting to tighten (“trauma reflex”).
Gum chewing is not a cause, in itself, of TMD.
I say more about trauma, below.
Conditioning Influences
The jaw muscles, like all the the muscles of the body, are subject to control by conditioned postural reflexes, which affect chewing and biting movements. The reason people don’t go around slack-jawed and drooling, for example, is that a conditioned postural reflex causes the muscles of biting and chewing always to remain slightly tensed, keeping their jaws closed. People’s jaw muscles are always more or less tense, even when they are asleep — but the norm is very mildly tense — just enough to keep the mouth closed and lips together.
The degree of tension people hold is a matter of conditioning.
For brevity, I’ll discuss only conditions that lead to TMJ/bruxism and not the normal development of muscle tone in the muscles of biting and chewing.
These influences fall into two categories:
Emotional Stress
Physical Trauma
I can’t say from empirical studies which of these two influences is the more prevalent, but from my clinical experience, I would say that physical trauma (and tooth and jaw pain — which induces people to change their biting and chewing actions, and which becomes habitual) is the more common causes of TMJ Syndrome, and also dental surgery, itself. (Consider the jaw soreness that commonly follows dental fillings, crowns, root canals, etc. — soreness that may last for days.)
Emotional Stress
Ever heard the expressions, “Bite your tongue”? “Grit Your Teeth”? “Bite the Bullet”? “Hold your tongue”? “Bite the Big One”? They all have something in common, don’t they? What is that? To someone who regularly represses emotion or the urge to say something, these expressions have literal meaning.
Such repression, over time, manifests as tension held in the muscles of speech — in the jaws, mouth, neck, face, and back — the same as the muscles of biting and chewing.
Physical Trauma
Although people experience trauma to the jaws through falls, blows, and motor vehicle accidents, the most common form of physical trauma (other than dental disease) is dentistry, itself, and it’s unavoidable. Dental surgery is traumatic. The relevant term is “iatrogenic” — which means “caused as a side-effect of treatment”. Every dental procedure (and every surgical procedure) should be followed by a process for dispeling the reflexive guarding triggered by the procedure. (See the video.)
No doubt, this assertion will cause much distress among dentists, and I regret that, but how can we escape that conclusion?
Consider the experience of dentistry, both during and after dental surgery (fillings, root canal work, implants, cosmetic dentistry, crown installation, injections of anaesthetic, even routine cleanings and examinations). Consider the response we have to that pain or even the expectation of pain: we cringe.
We may think such cringing to be momentary, but consider the intensity of dental surgery; it leaves intense memory impressions on the nervous system evident as patterns of tension. (Who’s relaxed going to the dentist? — or coming out of the dentist’s office?) The physical after-effects show up as tension in the jaws and neck, and often in the spinal musculature, as well — and as a host of other symptoms.
Let’s go back to our fond memories of dentistry.
If you’ve observed your physical reactions in the dentist’s surgery station, you may have noticed that during probing of a tooth for decay (with that sharp, hooked probe they use), you tighten not just your jaw (can you feel it?) and your neck muscles, but also the muscles of breathing, your hands, and even your legs. It’s an effort to remain lying down in the surgery station when, bodily, you want to get up and get away from those instruments and the dentist or hygienist wielding them.
With procedures such as fillings, root canal surgery, implants and crown installations, the muscular responses are more specific and more intense. For teeth near the back of the jaws, we tense the muscles nearer the back of our neck; for teeth near the front of the jaws, we tense the muscles closer the front of the throat, floor of the mouth and tongue.
This reflexive response has a name: Trauma Reflex.
Trauma Reflex is the universal, involuntary response to pain and to expectation of pain.
It gets triggered in relation to the location of the pain and to our position at the time of pain. Muscular tensions form as an action of withdrawing, avoiding, or escaping the source of pain.
In dentistry, with the head commonly turned to one side, in addition to the simple trauma reflex associated with pain, we have the involvement of our sense of position, and not just the muscles of the jaws are involved, but also those of the neck, shoulders, spine.
All of these conditions combine into an experience that goes into memory with such intensity that it modifies or entirely displaces our sense of normal movement and position. We forget free movement and instead become habituated or adapted to the memory of the trauma (whether of dental work or of some other trauma involving teeth or jaws). Our neuro-muscular system acts as if the trauma is still happening, even though, to our conscious minds, it is long past, and the way it acts as if the trauma is still happening is by tightening the muscles that close the jaws.
Since accidents and surgeries address teeth at one side of the jaws or the other, the tensions occur on one side of the jaws or the other. Thus, the symptoms of such tension — jaw pain, bite deviations, and earaches — tend to be one-sided or to exist on one side more than on the other.
The proof of the role of trauma reflex? — the permanent changes of bite and tension of the muscles of biting that have behind them a history of dental trauma — and the changes you see in the video that occur as this man is relieved of those conditioned postural reflexes.
AN OFFERING: See how”The Whole-body Yawn” reconditions the muscles of biting and chewing to normal levels — ending all symptoms of TMJ Syndrome / TMD. CLICK HERE
To discuss each of these symptoms, we will have to discuss a little bit of anatomy.
This simplified explanation obviously does not discuss the various muscles of jaw movement individually — but you’ll get a basic, clear understanding.
Earache
The jaw joints — the TMJs or temporo-mandibular joints — exist just in front of the ears. The excessive compression caused by chronically tight jaw muscles causes pain in just that location, which triggers muscular contractions in the muscles surrounding the ears. The net result — muscle and joint pain.
Tinnitus / Tinnitis
Tinnitus is “ringing in the ears.” Compression of the TMJs induces or increases tinnitus. One explanation is that the muscles of the middle ears, which attach to and tune the resonant frequency of the three sound-transmitting bones of the middle ears (hammer, anvil and stapes), reflexively tighten with jaw tension. You may have noticed that, while you yawn, your hearing fades. That indicates the reflexive connection.
Jaw Joint Pain on One Side
As I said, earlier, most dental trauma occurs on one side. The trauma reflex triggers muscular contractions — and pain — on that side.
Orofacial PainThe trauma reflex triggers muscular contractions — and pain — in the muscles of the face.
Bite Deviations
Uneven muscular contractions alter jaw movement and bite.
Inability to Open the Jaws Fully
Since those muscles are constantly held reflexively in contraction, they limit how far the jaws can open.
Bruxism / Teeth Grinding
Jaw clenching and grinding are the behaviors of tight jaw muscles. Nocturnal bruxism may be associated with speech and emotion during dreaming. Just as rapid eye movement (REM) during dreaming is a recognized phenomenon, the muscles of speech also move during dream-speech. Combined with hightened jaw tension, such movements could account for nocturnal bruxism. This is a point of reasoning, not of empirical studies — but it does make sense.
Headaches
One set of muscles of biting — the temporalis muscles — connect from the sides of the jaws to the sides of the head, near and behind the temples. When tight, these muscles compress the bones of the head, producing headache at the sides of the head. Other muscles, the suboccipital muscles that connect the rear of the head to the neck, reflexively tighten with mouth-opening movements and may become conditioned to a heightened state of tension that goes with the heightened effort needed to open jaws held tight by muscles of biting. Tension headaches at the forehead and in the eyes result from such tension.
The jaws have connections both above and below. The muscles below go to the neck. When tight muscles above the jaws displace movement from center, the muscles below tighten reflexively, pulling the head, which weighs about twelve pounds, off-center, causing muscle fatigue and pain in the neck.
Spine Pain
When the weight of the head gets displaced off-center, the muscles of the spine tighten as part of the counter-balancing act. Fatigue and pain result.
Postural Changes
Patterns of reflexive tension thus to all the way from the jaws down the spine and throughout the trunk, changing posture and movement.
Ida Rolf wrote that the characteristic of a well-integrated body is a sense of lift.
What does that mean?
This post contrasts the effort to be erect with no-effort to be erect and in so doing, debunks misconceptions about good posture.
The Myth of Spinal Curves
Yes, the spine has four natural curves. However, the significance of those curves isn’t that the spine has them, but that the spine can have them. The curves change with movement and general tension level. What makes the curves change is muscle tension in the spinal muscles, which pull on the vertebrae and change their positions, and in the legs, which pull on the pelvis and change spinal curvature at the connection of spine-to-pelvis, above.
Here’s the thing: Your spine consists of vertebrae that are not square, but trapezoidal (except for one: L4, which is “square” — meaning that the upper and lower surfaces are parallel). “Trapezoidal” means that the upper and lower surfaces have different slopes. It is the meeting of the upper and lower sloped surfaces of neighboring vertebrae that gives the spine its curves — but those slopes are separated by discs that have a certain elasticity, so the curves change with movement. So, the myth is that the spine has a certain amount of curve or that their is a “normal” amount of curve. Curve, in a healthy person, changes from moment to moment; only in an unhealthy person are the curves fixated.
Now, even though the spine has curves, the spine can feel straight. That happens when the upper and lower surfaces of neighboring vertebrae meet squarely, and that happens when the spinal muscular tensions are balanced to arrange them that way and to make that arrangement the “home” position to which a person naturally returns in movement.
The feeling is of being effortlessly supported, balanced, and uplifted — poised. In the literature of Tibetan Yoga, the description is of the spine “feeling like a stack of coins” — a description that applies to sitting or standing positions, but not to action. So, the description has that limitation and in any case, these words can’t mean much of anything to you unless you’ve experienced the feeling, so we have to leave it at that.
Now, here’s an oddity of human beings: In order to feel strong or supported, people adopt efforts or various kinds. We tend to think we have to.
What happens, then, is that spinal muscles contract, pull on vertebrae, shorten the spine by compressing discs, and change the alignment away from effortless support or equilibrium.
In that way, people substitute “strength” for balance.
So, whereas a person whose back muscles are balanced feels supported and balanced from within, the person whose back muscles are tight feels “strong” — at the expense of that sense of support, balance or effortless lift. They also feel tired, sore, and stiff.
People are endlessly trying to conform to various ideas and standards, and in so doing, they are adding stress to themselves, to their back muscles, and sacrificing balance, effortless support, and lift.
People are also endlessly experiencing stress, anxiety, guilt or shame (variations of cowering), all of which trigger the muscles of the front to tighten and the spine to bow forward. In order to counter that condition of cowering, people must tighten their backs, and counter cowering with “indomitable will” or “self-righteousness”.
That condition (co-contraction of front and back), shortens the spine, literally compresses discs, and robs people of their sense of support, of equilibrium, of lift; their spine is not fully erect. We’re left with pressure and stress, the experiences of “indomitable will” and “self-righteousness”, which we may take as inevitable, right, or necessary.
It’s clear that back pain is as much psychological as it is physical. Both aspects must be addressed for a fully erect spine — for a person to stand at full stature, which is to say, feeling supported, balanced, and uplifted. It is also clear that departures from “good alignment” or good posture are as much a matter of misguided effort evident as muscular tensions as of objectively observable misalignments and their clinical consequences.
Although the psychological aspect I’ve noted above must be addressed on its own terms, the residual effects of stress and back tension can be dispeled. For more information on that topic, please see
In this entry, you also have instruction for Emotional SuperPandiculation, a technique for freeing emotions. Negative emotions are always states of contraction, actual contraction, of the musculature.However, they’re organized differently that the motor behaviors of movement, so you use a slight difference of technique, given below. You can use the same technique to dissolve pains that you don’t know how to move, to re-create.
Onward.
In his original instruction to us, his students of his 1990 Clinical Somatic Education training, Thomas Hanna showed us how to use The Pandicular Response to free people from the grip of The Landau Reaction, which tightens the back/posterior side of the body and, when excessively activated for long periods of time, causes back pain, sciatica, tight shoulders and tension headaches.
In Lesson One (Green Light lesson) for Landau Reaction, he showed us how to coach our client through a Whole-body yawn (pandicular maneuver), beginning with a lifting action of one leg and its opposite shoulder, arm and hand, and head, as in the video, below — to lower them by stages in steps of relaxation, with a mini-in-breath with each mini-lift . . . . . before lowering some more.
First, the video, so you know for sure the maneuver to which I refer.
I have found that “staged” or “stepped” relaxation can be made more powerful by a technique that I have named, “The Diamond Penetration” maneuver (or SuperPandiculation). The reason I have named it The Diamond Penetration Technique (like drilling through rock with a diamond bit) will become clear to you once you start doing it. For now, I say that uses The Power of Recognition, as I have described it in the linked article, “Attention is a Catalyst“, to amplify pandiculation, or any other therapeutic or educational technique, for that matter. Assisted Pandiculation is accelerated learning, and learning involves recognition and development, based upon memory. Memory, learning, recognition, function and development are five development stages of a single function. There’s one more.
Memory — the ground function, memory — persistence of pattern, memory
Learning — modification of the ground function into a durable pattern of memory
Recognition — the closely approximate match of some memory with an experience happening now
Function — initiation of action, memory activated and applied to this moment
Integration — facility to move freely and functionally among different remembered patterns
Evolution — expansion of attention beyond both memory and the moment — the space of emergence of newness, for patterns newly emerging into the moment, to be remembered into existence.
Take the starting initials of each, and you get MLRFIE! Well, that’s as far as we’ll go with that one, folks — at least for now. We’ll come back to that strange, unpronounceable acronym, later (or not).
In his demonstrations to us, Thomas Hanna had the person on the table lower the leg part way, then lift a bit, then lower some more, repeating by stages, to complete rest. He even commented that that same maneuver was what Joe Montana did, spontaneously, after his back surgery and commented ruefully about to what the rapid improvement was attributed — namely, surgery and physical therapy!
Here’s the “inside” of that maneuver: The lifting action produces a sensation. By re-lifting after lowering part way, the client re-locates the sensation of lifting (contracting the muscles of lifting the leg). To re-locate the sensation activates the power of recognition, which is central to all learning. (No recognition — no learning.)
That’s the central principle of The Diamond Penetration Technique. I give detailed instructions, below.
Hereare the advantages of using The Diamond Penetration Technique. It:
rapidly penetrates Sensory-Motor Amnesia
rapidly awakens sensory awareness and motor control that has never been awake, before (penetrates Sensory-Motor Obliviousness)
speeds integration of multiple “movement elements” into a single coordinated action
increases the result of a single pandiculation — relaxation and control
decreases the number of repetitions needed for pandiculation to get the desired result
shortens the time needed to get a good result from a somatic exercise lesson
Obviously, these benefits are interrelated and just “a tiny bit” useful when working to transform yourself.
I have elaborated that principle into a very powerful technique, “Diamond Penetration” or SuperPandiculation. Very powerful. Clinical practitioners can apply this technique to assisted pandiculation maneuvers; clients can apply it to somatic exercises, and to free-form pandiculations you may do to work out pains or restrictions for which no somatic exercise currently exists.
I have developed several increasingly powerful variations of The Diamond Penetration Technique, which I outline, here.
“The Quick Return”
“The Quick Return and Sustained Hold”
“The Two-Movement-Element Combination”
“Twos and Threes”
“The Diamond Pattern”
“The Multi-Movement-Element Combination Sequence”
As you can see, these variations increase in complexity. The way to learn them is to do them, not to memorize them as instructions. Learn only one at a time to full proficiency.
Now the instruction. I’m going to spread things out in detail, so stay with me.
The Quick Return
Repetition is basic to recognition.
In The Quick Return, we contract into movement and feel the sensation of the end-point of movement (“where we end up in the movement”), then relax part-way for an instant, then re-contract and re-locate the exact same sensation.
Contract and feel what’s tight.
Relax part-way.
Re-contract to feel the exact same thing.
That’s a Quick Return. It activates The Power of Recognition (familiarity, or memory). We might call each repetition “a pulse of sensation.”
An example from Lesson One of the Myth of Aging program would be,
“Lie on your belly, head turned, with your thumb in front of your nose, your hand flat on the surface. Lift your elbow to the limit. Feel what that feels like in your neck and shoulder.
Now lower it a bit, and immediately lift again. Find the exact same sensation at the same place and intensity. That’s called, ‘a Quick Return’. Remember that for use, as we go along.”
“Mini Quick Returns”
During the relaxation phase of pandiculation, you can do many “mini” Quick Returns on the way to complete relaxation.
PRINCIPLE
It takes two incidents or occasions to activate memory; prior to that, it’s just sensory awareness or cognition — no recognition. In fact, without recognition, something happening is identical to nothing happening; we don’t know what it is, other than that it’s “something but we don’t really know what”, which makes the experience somewhat evanescent.
Now, the thing that makes one occurrence different from two occurrences of the same thing is the contrast between “happening” and “not happening”. “Not happening” has to separate the two occurrences. That’s the principle, “Somas perceive by contrast,” or “Somas can perceive only changes.” In somatic education practice, the common contrast is between activity and rest — which is why I instruct clients, “Come to complete rest between repetitions.” Without “not happening”, there’s only one long incident.
The Quick Return and Sustained Hold
We know that for a sensation to emerge, and for attention to steady on a sensation, takes time. Quick things escape our noticing.
So, after the Quick Return, we sustain the action (“sustained hold”) to let it “fade into view”. Attention steadies in and on the sensation. The sensation becomes more vivid.
To apply a sustained hold, you first do a series of Quick Returns (however many) then hold the final Quick Return; during that holding time, remember the pattern and tempo of the Quick Returns that got you there, i.e., brought you into this holding pattern. Then, you slowly relax, taking time at least equal to the amount of time it to to do all of the Quick Returns . . . . . or longer . . . . to complete relaxation.
Thus, you
first sense and do the movement and a number of quick returns
hold the final quick-return, then
remember the movement (counting out the same tempo) while holding the contraction, then
back out (ease out) of the movement slowly and deliberately to complete rest.
You come to know the beginning of the movement, its middle, and its end — initiating it, sustaining it, and letting it go.
How useful do you think that might be for learning to occur?
The instruction would be:
“Do a Quick Return and hold. Now, slowly relax.”
PRINCIPLE
Experience takes time.
Sustain the hold for the total amount of time it took to do all the Quick Returns. For two Quick Returns (three movements into position), sustain the hold for a “count” of three — equal to the time it took to contract and then do two Quick Returns — then relax during a count of three. (That doesn’t mean, “Relax and then count to three.” It means, “Take a count of three to go from contracted to relaxed.”)
Comparing Memory to Action
Integrating the flesh-body and the subtle-body (mind).
Having done a Quick Return and Hold, you now remember the sensation of movement (while holding the contraction)and then do another quick-return to compare the sensation of doing the action to the memory of doing the action. Are they the same? If not, keep making new memories until they match.
You might then repeat the movement and compare to memory until the movement and the memory closely match.
PRINCIPLE
Memory is the root of action.
HIGHER INTEGRATION
While sustaining contraction, create a memory of the feeling. You have two things going, now:
doing the action
creating a memory that matches the feeling of the action
STILL HIGHER INTEGRATION
With each act of creating a memory, scan yourself for any sensation you may have missed, in earlier repetitions, and include it in the memory. Compare your memory to the sensation of the action.
STILL HIGHER INTEGRATION
While sustaining an action, scan the rest of you for any effort that doesn’t directly help the action, and relax it (usual result: elongation).
Emotional SuperPandiculation
This is an opportune time to tell you about Emotional SuperPandiculation. You use Emotional SuperPandiculation to free yourself of any painful
emotions associated with your condition (or any negative emotion, altogether).
To do that, identify any emotion
that you have present and do
the Diamond Penetration Technique with it,
with the following subsitutions.
Instead of doing a movement, merely put
your attention on the present emotion.
Instead
of relaxing out of
contraction, merely release your attention
from the present emotion
(while, as appropriate, retaining attention on
the memory of it).
Instead
of releasing the memory of the sensation of
contraction, merely release the memory of the
emotion.
Repeat with a
single emotion until
you’ve released it. Then address
whatever emotions remain
the same way.
The Two-Movement-Element Combination
Coordination develops when we combine two actions (“movement elements”) into one.
In the Green Light lesson, we lift the elbow-hand-head-shoulder with the opposite-side leg, as in the video. Those are the two movement elements.
Using the Quick Return, the instruction could be:
“With your hand flat on the surface, lift your elbow to the limit. Now do a Quick Return (relax and re-contract) and hold.
Now, lift your straight leg. Now lower it a bit, and do a Quick Return.
Now, do a Quick Return of both, together.” (combination Quick Return)
When doing the Quick Return of both, together, the movements should be synchronized to start and end together. That develops coordination (integration).
HIGHER INTEGRATION
I have discovered another kind of “three part action” that rapidly integrates two movement elements. It goes beyond The Equalization Technique.
It goes like this.
Do a Quick Return of the first movement element and hold.
Do a Quick Return of the second movement element and hold.
Both movement elements are now active. Now, integrate them with each other in a three-part maneuver:
Pulse the first movement element to firm up the second movement element.
You’ll feel it. If you don’t feel it, you’ve partially lost the second movement element. Bring it back and pulse the first movement element, again, until you feel it make the second movement element stronger.
Pulse the second movement element to firm up the first movement element.
Pulse the first movement element to firm up the second movement element.
You’ve now forged a better connection between the two movement elements. That’s the other kind of “three” maneuver, an integration maneuver.
You can use this “three” maneuver with any two synergistic movements of any somatic exercise (“synergistic” means that the two movements help each other).
Twos and Threes
Now, we get a bit more sophisticated.
Once you or a client have done a combination Quick Return, you’re in a position to do two Quick Returns. That makes for, not two quick experiences of the same thing, but three — the first action and the two Quick Returns.
If that’s confusing, lie on your belly with your thumb by your nose and do two Quick Returns. You’ll see it creates the same sensation three times. Just do it.
Here’s the thing: If, with a single movement, you alternate between one Quick Return (to complete relaxation) and two Quick Returns, you alternate creating two experiences of a sensation with creating three experiences. That’s a contrast, in itselfand it keeps attention fresh.
When done as a combination Quick Return, it’s a very powerful way of creating learning that causes a series of internal shifts of sensory-motor organization.
The instruction could be:
Lift your elbow. Now do a Quick Return and hold.
Lift your leg. Now do a Quick Return and hold.
(two movements at the same time)
Now, do two combination Quick Returns (a “three”). Relax completely.
Now, do one combination Quick Return (a “two”). Relax completely.
Alternate doing two and doing one. Continue until you get better coordinated.
PRINCIPLE
Changes of patterns awaken the Power of Recognitionand trigger learning.
Do (some action, such as lifting the elbow) and hold. Now, relax completely.
Do one Quick Return (2 experiences of a sensation) and hold. Now, relax completely.
Now, do two Quick Returns (3 experiences of a sensation) and hold. Now, relax completely.
Now, do three Quick Returns (4 experiences of a sensation) and hold. Now, relax completely.
Now, do two Quick Returns (3 experiences of a sensation) and hold. Now, relax completely.
Now, do one Quick Return (2 experiences of the sensation) and hold. Now, relax completely.
Now, do the action without a Quick Return (1 experience of the sensation). Hold before relaxing to complete rest.
The experience “backs a person out of contraction” and gets them able to feel more and more with less and less stimulation.
To see the value, try it with any movement or combination.
PRINCIPLE
Bucky Fuller pointed out that four incidents or occasions of an event were the minimum needed to recognize a stable pattern.
It goes like this: one incident or occasion:
internal experience: “Something has happened.”
(capture of attention)
two incidents or occasions of the same thing:
internal experience: “This seems familiar.”
(recognition)
three incidents or occasions of the same thing:
internal experience: “There seems to be consistency.”
(building upon recognition – “There is something to learn, here”)
four or more incidents or occasions of the same thing:
internal experience: “There’s a consistent pattern, here.”
(development of knowledge)
Test this out in yourself through introspection.
APPLICATION
The Diamond Penetration Techniquecan be applied to single movements, to simpler somatic exercise lessons (e.g., those of “The Cat Stretch” or “The New Seated Refreshment Exercises“), to more complex somatic exercises that involve as many as seven movement elements in combination (e.g., “Free Yourself from Back Pain” or “The Five-Pointed Star“), or to inherent action patterns such as those of walking (“SuperWalking“), twisting, or wriggling.
This technique lends itself to The Equalization Technique, discussed in The Evolution of Clinical Somatic Education Techniques. In a combination Quick Return, match (by feel) the effort of one movement to the effort of the others; equalize them. Read the article.
The Multi-Movement-Element Combination Sequence
In general, it goes like this:
Do a Quick Return of the first movement element, and hold.
Do a Quick Return of the second movement element, and hold.
Do two combination Quick Returns of the two movement elements, and hold.
Do a Quick Return of the third movement element.
Do two combination Quick Returns of the three movement elements (with Equalization Technique).
Do a Quick Return of the fourth movement element (if there is one).
Do two combination Quick Returns of the four movement elements (with Equalization Technique).
Keep adding movement elements that fit together (synergistically) until they are all assembled into one Grand Coordinated Movement.
You can do Mini-Quick-Returns with the entire movement pattern, through the relaxation phase to complete rest.
Calibrating Memory (Subtle Body) to Sensation (Dense Physical Body)
Having done any of the variations, above, you can end a sequence by alternating a single quick returnwith a moment of rest (or a moment of holding the contraction), during which you remember (or imagine) and compare what you just felt with what you remembered.
You alternate a single quick return with remembering/imagining until your memory matches the experience very closely.
Then, you do a final contraction, hold and remember, then relax very, very slowly.
When the memory matches the experience, you have integrated your subtle and dense physical bodies. Relaxing at that point enables you to come out of contraction much more completely than otherwise.
PRINCIPLE
We perceive by means of contrast; we correct things by making a comparison. We gain control by means of the memory of action combined with the memory of sensation.
SUMMARY
Each pulse of movement creates a sensation that you locate as your “target” for Quick Return.
In each repetition of a pulse, you locate the identical sensation in the identical location.
In combination Quick Returns, you locate the identical feeling of the whole movement each time you do the combination movement.
Each pattern of repetitions (2’s, 3’s, “diamond pattern”) magnifies the Power of Recognition.
I know this is complex. That’s why you start simply, at the beginning. Internalize each level of complexity until you have it all under your belt.
Then, teach your clients to their capacity, but not beyond. If they “lose it”, coach them until they’ve mastered what you’ve covered, before going further.
COPYRIGHT 2011 Lawrence Gold ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
reproduction by permission, only
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The Gyroscopic Walk is a form of “super-walking” — a high-efficiency walking pattern that gives you more walking speed at less effort and that integrates your whole-body movements so you feel more free in movement, better balanced and better put together.
The Gyroscopic Walk is very good to do after any other somatic exercise or after a clinical somatic education session, to rapidly integrate (absorb and reinforce) the improvements in physical comfort and movement.
Walking is a peerless organizer. — Ida P. Rolf
The four people who attended my training day, “Trauma Lesson Calibration and Pandiculation Extravaganza”, saw me demonstrate and then learned and practiced a walking pattern I call, The Gyroscopic Walk (which I first called, “The Magnetic Walk”). This walk integrates beautifully with Thomas Hanna’s walking lesson in his “Myth of Aging” program (lesson 8, in his book, Somatics) and with my program, Superwalking.
The Gyroscopic Walk efficiently conserves and recycles the kinetic (movement) energy of walking in a way that increases walking speed with the same amount of walking effort — or — that reduces the effort of walking at any speed.
They learned the basic pattern of that walk in a four-step process:
See.
Prepare yourself.
Do.
Refine.
The basic pattern of The Gyroscopic Walk involves arm movements (while walking ) of a stylized kind. You keep the palms of your hands facing your hip joints while your arms swing forward and backward. The motion involves a swiveling motion of your forearms. Try it; you’ll understand.
The movement of your arms swinging with your palms continuously facing your hip joints produces a sensation in the hands and arms of containing and moving a mass around a central point — which is, of course, is what sets up a gyroscopic force. With a bicycle, the gyroscopic force of the wheels keeps us up; in walking, it keeps us balanced as we pivot around our “spinal axis”. In both cases, gyroscopic force conserves and recycles kinetic energy (movement).
Now, there are three developments of the Gyroscopic Walk, maybe more, that come after this one.
NOTE: Click here for an audio overview of, and instruction in, these and more developments.
Here’s the first:
bouncing that ‘ball of mass’ contained in the palms of the hands forward and backward with each step
As your arms swing, you keep your palms facing your hip joints; your forearms turn forward and backward with each step.
You contain or restrain your forward-backward arm movement (reduce the amount of swing), while maintaining your walking speed, enough that you can feel the force transmitted to your legs. That’s the experience of recycling kinetic energy.
Your walk will spontaneously accelerate with the same amount of effort as before and you’ll feel your feet anchor to the ground, better.
Another is
exploring the Gyroscopic Walk at different speeds
There’s something to be discovered, there. I need not say more.
and a Third is
adjusting the location of twist you feel in your trunk up or down.
You do this action by feel, once you have understood and can do the basic Gyrosopic Walk.
a Fourth is
alternating Gyroscopic and ordinary walking
Do the Gyroscopic Walk only until you can feel the force transmitted to your legs, then revert to ordinary walking. We’re talking a few seconds, here. You repeat the action many times.
You’ll feel things connect and relax in a new way, leading to smoother, more powerful walking.
And there are more — but I think that’s quite enough to chew on, for now.
Lawrence
PS: Oh, here’s an afterthought ….. just a little happenstance one.
Listen: We can use the Gyroscopic Walk, when alternated with the
Scottish Geezer’s walk, to re-set our idling speed and to tune up our
walking movements, whole-bodily.
Just in case you don’t know what I mean by, ‘idling speed’: the higher the idling speed, the higher the tension level overall in that individual — also known as “stress level”, “being somewhat wound up” — and the ever recommended and approved of, “toned” (partially tense and ready to go).
The two walking patterns are, in a sense, opposite and complementary, so they provide contracting sensations that heighten perception. We can use the Gyroscopic Walk, when combined with the Scottish Geezer’s walk, to re-set our idling speed so that we can explore and find the “idling speed” and/or “tone” we like best.
The “tuning up your walking, whole-bodily” part is something for which you need satisfactory experience with the Gyroscopic Walk to understand this discussion.
PPS: I wrote this message for Hanna somatic educator colleagues and clients with experience.
If you are not a Hanna somatic educator, these words may be “helpful”: To do the Gyroscopic walk, you must already be free and well-coordinated enough to get into a movement rhythm; stiff places and pains interfere, so get some somatic education to free yourself.
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To free tight hamstrings, it’s important to understand their four movement functions.
leg extension at the hip joint
leg flexion at the knee
rotation of the lower leg at the knee joint
stabilization of the pelvis when bending forward
To free hamstrings, we must free them (gain control of tension and relaxation) in all four movement functions.
If we do not gain (or improve) control in all four movement functions, one or more of those movement habits will dominate control of the other movement(s).
In addition, the hamstrings of one leg work alternately with those of the other — as in walking; when the hamstrings of one leg are bending or stabilizing the knee, the hamstrings of the other leg are extending or stabilizing the other leg at the hip. In those movements, the hamstrings coordinate with the hip flexors and psoas muscles. (Co-contraction of hamstrings and hip flexors/psoas muscles leads to hip joint and ilio-sacral (SI) joint compression.) So our approach (being movement-based) must take those relationships into account. Otherwise, we never develop the feeling of free hamstrings in their familiar movements.
LEG EXTENSION AT THE HIP JOINT
That’s the “leg backward” movement of walking. The hamstrings are aided by the gluteal (butt) muscles, but only in a stabilizing capacity. The major work is done by the hamstrings. In this movement, the hamstrings, inner and outer, work together in tandem.
LEG FLEXION AT THE KNEE JOINT
That’s the “getting ready to kick” movement and also the “pawing the ground” movement. In these movements, the hamstrings, inner and outer, also work together in tandem (same movement).
To the anatomist and kinesiologist, it may seem incomprehensible (“paradoxical”) that the hamstrings are involved in both movements — leg forward and leg backward — but that’s how it is. Though the hamstrings are involved in both cases, different movements cause a different feel.
LOWER LEG ROTATION AT THE KNEE
That’s the turning movement used in skating and in turning a corner. In this movement, the inner hamstrings (semi-membranosis and semi-tendinosis) relax and lengthen as the outer hamstring (biceps femoris) tighten to turn toes-out and the inner hamstrings tighten to turn toes-in as the outer hamstring relaxes and lengthens.
STABILIZATION OF THE PELVIS WHEN BENDING FORWARD
The hamstrings anchor the pelvis at the sitbones (ischial tuberosities) deep to the ‘smile’ creases beneath the buttocks (not the crack), so one can bend forward in a controlled way, instead of flopping forward at the hips like a marionette. In this movement, the hamstrings coordinate with the front belly muscles (rectus abdominis).
In most people, either the rectus or hamstrings dominates the other in a chronic state of excessive tension, so freeing and coordinating the hamstrings involves coordinating and matching the efforts of the two muscle groups. When the hamstrings dominate, we see swayback; when the rectus muscles dominate, we see flat ribs.
TRAINING HAMSTRING CONTROL
In training hamstring control, it’s convenient to start with the less complicated movement, first. That’s the anchoring movement that stabilizes bowing in a standing position. (See first video, above.)
After we cultivate control of “in tandem” hamstring movements, we cultivate control of “alternating” hamstring movements. (See second video, above.)
By cultivating control of “in tandem” and “alternating” movements, we fulfill the requirements of functions (1.), (2.), and (4.). The exercise linked in the paragraph above indirectly addresses function (3.) (lower leg rotation at the knee). Other exercises that have this effect exist in the somatic exercise programs, “The Cat Stretch” and “Free Your Psoas”, for which previews exist through the preceding links.
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A basic understanding of muscle tone recognizes that the seat of control of muscles and movement is not muscles, but the brain, not “muscle memory” but “movement memory”, not “posture” but habitual or learned movement patterns.
Lasting changes in muscle tone require movement training at the neurological (i.e., brain) level, something that manual manipulation of muscles accomplishes, at best, slowly, but which can be achieve quickly by somatic education, a discipline that rapidly alters habitual posture, movement, and muscle tone through an internal learning process.
The “new and entirely different” approach I describe here can dissolve trigger points permanently in minutes, restore your comfort of movement, and make you independent of therapy and therapists.
In this piece, I’ll explain what causes trigger points, discuss the common therapeutic approaches used to eradicate trigger points, and present a newly available approach to trigger points that works quickly and decisively where other methods produce slow, partial, or temporary improvements. Then, I’ll show where you can get access to the newly available approach.
TRIGGER POINTS EXPLAINED
Trigger points are pressure points in muscles that are very tight and sufficiently sore to to trigger tension and pain in other muscles linked to them in patterns of coordination. That’s what makes them “trigger” points. “Patterns of coordination” means complex movements (e.g., walking) that involve multiple muscles. Simple enough?
The term, “trigger point”, was coined by Dr. Janet Travell (physician to President John F. Kennedy, who had chronic back pain from an injury sustained during wartime on the boat, PT-109). Dr. Travell did a masterful job of mapping out the relation of these points to pain felt at distant points in the body. However, only in the past twenty years has a clinical approach been available that equalled Dr. Travells insights, and that approach has yet to become mainstream.
TECHNIQUES FOR ERADICATING TRIGGER POINTS
The common techniques for eradicating trigger points are based upon a mechanical view of the body and of muscles. Muscles with trigger points are considered by therapists to be “stuck” and certain common therapeutic techniques used are said to “break” trigger points, generally by working on the muscles or trigger points, themselves.
This approach to trigger points fails to apply the basic facts of muscular control — that the center of control of muscle tension (tone) is the brain (not muscles, themselves) — and that muscle tone is learned and alterable by experience, and that once learned, becomes so automatic that it may seem to be permanently set. However, it’s understandable since, until relatively recently, no effective way existed to apply neurophysiological knowledge about muscular function to a therapeutic approach, and all that was available were more primitive approaches based upon massage techniques and drug therapy.
Common therapeutic approaches to trigger points operate as if the source of muscular tension is the muscle, itself; therapeutic approaches based on this view produce poor and unreliable therapeutic outcomes that lead to the need for repeated therapeutic interventions.
Here’s the correct understanding of trigger points: they are pressure points in habitually tight muscles — caused to be tight by brain-conditioning (generally from injury or stress). Trigger points are caused by brain conditioning, not by muscles, themselves. So, muscles are not “stuck”, but responding actively and in the moment to what the brain is telling them to do; trigger points do not exist as a result of mechanical stuckness of muscles; they exist as habitual states of muscular overactivity.
A therapeutic approach based upon this understanding acts not upon the muscles, themselves, but upon the brain-level conditioning that causes chronic muscle tension and trigger points. Such an approach produces decisively reliable results that typically do not require repeating.
Let’s review the common therapeutic approaches to trigger points.
Therapeutic attempts to eradicate trigger points take two approaches:
mechanical pressure
injections of salt water (saline solution)
MECHANICAL PRESSURE
Therapists using the “mechanically stuck” model attempt to get trigger points to release by applying manual pressure to trigger points. The idea is to deprive “triggered” muscles of blood flow, and by so doing, to get the muscles to a state of fatigue, so they let go and lose their trigger points.
Such an approach produces a temporary disappearance of a trigger point. The trigger point re-appears soon thereafter (much as with ordinary massage) because no change of brain level conditioning has occurred. (The one advantage of “trigger point therapy” over massage is the recognition of the relation between trigger points and pain at a distance from them.)
SALINE (SALT) SOLUTION INJECTIONS
Injections of this type produce heightened sensation in the involved muscles, which sends a signal to the brain that the muscle is more contracted than it really is. The brain, which regulates muscle tension “by feel” (sensation), allows muscle tension to decrease to the level or intensity of sensation to which the brain has become accustomed. At this lower level of tension, trigger points disappear.
For obvious reasons, the results of this approach are also temporary.
Both methods (manual pressure and injections) treat the muscle as the problem and the trigger point as the target of therapy; both overlook the fact that, since the basic function of muscles is to produce movement, a change of how the brain regulates movement is necessary to change how the brain regulates muscle tension.
The answerto trigger points may be an unexpected one, but it’s obvious from a moment of consideration: movement education. Movement education teaches regulation of muscle tone (tension) and of coordination.
However, most methods of movement education are primitive and inadequate to decrease the conditioned level of muscle tone. A more sophisticated approach is needed.
That’s where somatic education comes in.
WHAT’S “SOMATIC”? WHY “EDUCATION”?
The term, “somatic”, derived from the Greek word, “soma” — meaning “living body” — means having to do with the living body, as experienced and controlled from within — your experience of yourself, as you are to yourself.
“Education” means, “the process of developing our faculties or abilities”.
So, “somatic education” means the process of developing our faculties as a living, self-aware embodied person.
Its special meaning, in the context of the discipline of clinical somatic education, has to do with gaining control of our own living processes, those otherwise treated with medicine or therapy.
The meaning of “somatic education” is different from a doctor or therapist “working upon” another or administering some treatment such as a drug, electrical stimulation, or injection, which are the methods of medicine and therapy.
Where trigger points are concerned, somatic education brings about improved self-control or self-regulation of our muscular system and movements. The practical outcome is alleviation of condition muscular contractions that create trigger points to begin with, through gaining better control of our faculties of strength and movement.
THE TECHNIQUE
We learn control of muscles and movement, starting with learning to crawl and creep, stand and walk.
The techniques of somatic education make use of this natural process of learning and to it, add techniques powerful enough to override and replace conditioning that keeps muscles tight and creates trigger points. The process occurs far more quickly than the natural learning processes of movement — and than the therapeutic approaches commonly applied to trigger points.
One of the major techniques involves an action pattern similar to yawning, but applied to varieties of movement and coordination. In the clinical techniques, a lasting shift of muscular control and relaxation of muscular tensions occurs in less than one minute, for any movement pattern addressed. A few repetitions over a period of minutes can restore highly contracted muscles to comfortable, natural rest, comfort, and full strength without the usual methods of manual manipulation, injections, stretching or strengthening — and the changes are durable and long lasting.
Examples of the clinical techniques can be found on YouTube.com, channel “Lawrence9Gold”; a specific example, used to alleviate back pain, can be seen here.
GET A HANDLE on what’s behind trigger points here, WIPE OUT YOUR OWN TRIGGER POINTS with somatic exercises: programs good starting program here.
From here, nothing remains to be said, except, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”
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