Mary Bond workshop
I thought that I should post some quick notes of what I can remember from this weekend's workshop:
First exercise was walking around the room, noticing what felt good, just noticing our bodies, our breathing, where the body weight was, how the feet felt and the arms.
(For me, I noticed that my toes don't do much, my left arm swings more, I have a lumbar lordosis around L3 and I was more aware of my right hip).
The next exercise was leading a partner around the room as they kept their hand on our shoulder and had their eyes closed. It was a different exercise leading versus being led. When I was leading the other person, I was very conscious of them and they had to tell me to speed up as they felt more confident than I did in my leading! We didn't collide with anyone thankfully. When I was being led, I found that I was most uncomfortable when trying to walk fast as I felt my leader might slip away from me. When she backed up or made me turn, I felt completely safe, in fact I liked it because I felt more pressure into my hand and body. (Maybe this is like how the horse thinks, or due to my track/MTB riding experiences? Who knows.) Everyone felt that they did not use their feet as much when they were being led. Interestingly, I could feel the footfalls of my leader. Odd. Mary asked us also to notice what we felt the moment that we separated from our partner. Instantly, I felt that I could breathe again, but before that I hadn't noticed that I had been holding my breath.
We did another leading/following exercise where we had to copy a person dancing (they had their eyes closed). One participant made the comment that it felt worse than being naked because not only were people looking at you and evaluating you but in a sense they were trying to be you and get into your skin, to feel what it was like to be you. It was good to experience the difference between being detail focused when copying someone (which lead to stress, tension and panic) versus following the idea and mood of someone (which was fun).
-Mary talked about some theoretical things. This included the idea that we have many 'diaphragms' in the body and by this she means that there are many places to hold stress including the tentorium, interosseous membranes, throat and pelvic floor.
She talked about the idea of being orientated to the ground or to space. To illustrate this, she made us walk, stop, walk and feel if we were leading our movement from the pelvis (ground) or chest (space orientated). She also got us to imagine that someone was calling our name and to note if this urgency of request changed our motor patterns. Basically to be ground orientated reflects a 'here and now' attitude, being relaxed and assertive/being able to stand your ground. Being orientated to space means that you are in more of a flight mode and are looking for escape modes. Personally I think it depends on your line of work and personality what postural habits you get into, but I see where she is coming from. She made the point that it is necessary to have both orientations but at different times in life.
There was a demonstration with someone who was ground orientated and clearly detailed focused as seen in this posture. This eye focus was narrow and this upper body posture tended to round in on itself. Mary made this man aware of the area of the back of his head by touching it, and informed him that all of his skin from the ears forward was part of his face. She then told him to be aware of the back of his head when walking. This immediately lifted his head and his peripheral vision expanded. When he was doing static neck movements, Mary made him think about moving the back of his head first (in the opposite direction). It was very effective.
For a person who was 'space' oriented, she did a lateral pelvic shift side to side to increase proprioceptive awareness of this area. This also help this man as he had stiffened the hip joints and was relying on pelvic rotation for a number of reasons. We all also did a 'weighted' exercise where we started lying on our backs and ended up rolling on to our sides. We had to think about letting go of as many areas of the body as we could, to be totally relaxed. After that, we slowly came back to the room and started walking while keeping the feeling of space but expanding the vision. Mary made the point that many people never fully relax or let go when they think that they do (eg sleeping or in front of the TV, I guess that's where the bad dreams come from). There is a difference between being lazy which is really being avoidant, and being fully present in a situation. But also if you have too much grounding it does make you feel heavy and lethargic; that if there is too much 'here' then there is no 'there'. I think that many elderly people suffer from this.
She talked about being aware of your peripersonal space- the area from the tips of your fingers on your outstretched arms. This is also interpreted as a part of you, which is how most people can use tools, weapons and vehicles reasonably well.
We then did a very interesting exercise which was about bringing awareness and change to a body part just through touch and attentiveness. We touched a partner's fibula and got them to notice the bone and indeed try to get the bone to touch their partner's finger. Then they were to be aware of the membrane between the tibia and fibula and try to get it to soften. This resulted in good foot releases and joint mobilisation in most cases. Just through mental awareness and stimulus! We did corrective exercises for high and low arches ( high arch- softening the distal tib/fib joint, drawing the calcaneus back, low arch- drawing the navicular to the cuboid and establishing the lateral arch of the foot). As a PT it was awesome to see and feel changes without 'doing' anything. I've always known it to be possible but you often put too much pressure on yourself as the therapist to be doing the work rather than engaging the client. Anyway you can do similar work with the clavicle and with the spinal joints- trying to glide the joints forward with inspiration (in this example, Mary did use some manual force for guidance). I guess it goes to prove that her rule of thumb is true- that you should assume that postural faults are due to inhibitions first, rather than by fixations. It's amazing how much you can achieve through imagery (auditory, visual, compare/contrast etc) and guidance alone. But still the PT in me likes to massage and prod!
We also did a little work on the TMJ, cervical joints and focused on breathing. I found the image of softening the maxilla (and the central joint/suture) helpful, as well as the image of it floating and lifting up your head. There was an image of the mandible being heavy and relaxed with head movements and the uvula also initiating movements (imaging a pen drawing inside your mouth).
Anyway was pretty good, mostly experiential (even got to pretend to be a tree in the wind for a bit).
Tooroo till next time
First exercise was walking around the room, noticing what felt good, just noticing our bodies, our breathing, where the body weight was, how the feet felt and the arms.
(For me, I noticed that my toes don't do much, my left arm swings more, I have a lumbar lordosis around L3 and I was more aware of my right hip).
The next exercise was leading a partner around the room as they kept their hand on our shoulder and had their eyes closed. It was a different exercise leading versus being led. When I was leading the other person, I was very conscious of them and they had to tell me to speed up as they felt more confident than I did in my leading! We didn't collide with anyone thankfully. When I was being led, I found that I was most uncomfortable when trying to walk fast as I felt my leader might slip away from me. When she backed up or made me turn, I felt completely safe, in fact I liked it because I felt more pressure into my hand and body. (Maybe this is like how the horse thinks, or due to my track/MTB riding experiences? Who knows.) Everyone felt that they did not use their feet as much when they were being led. Interestingly, I could feel the footfalls of my leader. Odd. Mary asked us also to notice what we felt the moment that we separated from our partner. Instantly, I felt that I could breathe again, but before that I hadn't noticed that I had been holding my breath.
We did another leading/following exercise where we had to copy a person dancing (they had their eyes closed). One participant made the comment that it felt worse than being naked because not only were people looking at you and evaluating you but in a sense they were trying to be you and get into your skin, to feel what it was like to be you. It was good to experience the difference between being detail focused when copying someone (which lead to stress, tension and panic) versus following the idea and mood of someone (which was fun).
-Mary talked about some theoretical things. This included the idea that we have many 'diaphragms' in the body and by this she means that there are many places to hold stress including the tentorium, interosseous membranes, throat and pelvic floor.
She talked about the idea of being orientated to the ground or to space. To illustrate this, she made us walk, stop, walk and feel if we were leading our movement from the pelvis (ground) or chest (space orientated). She also got us to imagine that someone was calling our name and to note if this urgency of request changed our motor patterns. Basically to be ground orientated reflects a 'here and now' attitude, being relaxed and assertive/being able to stand your ground. Being orientated to space means that you are in more of a flight mode and are looking for escape modes. Personally I think it depends on your line of work and personality what postural habits you get into, but I see where she is coming from. She made the point that it is necessary to have both orientations but at different times in life.
There was a demonstration with someone who was ground orientated and clearly detailed focused as seen in this posture. This eye focus was narrow and this upper body posture tended to round in on itself. Mary made this man aware of the area of the back of his head by touching it, and informed him that all of his skin from the ears forward was part of his face. She then told him to be aware of the back of his head when walking. This immediately lifted his head and his peripheral vision expanded. When he was doing static neck movements, Mary made him think about moving the back of his head first (in the opposite direction). It was very effective.
For a person who was 'space' oriented, she did a lateral pelvic shift side to side to increase proprioceptive awareness of this area. This also help this man as he had stiffened the hip joints and was relying on pelvic rotation for a number of reasons. We all also did a 'weighted' exercise where we started lying on our backs and ended up rolling on to our sides. We had to think about letting go of as many areas of the body as we could, to be totally relaxed. After that, we slowly came back to the room and started walking while keeping the feeling of space but expanding the vision. Mary made the point that many people never fully relax or let go when they think that they do (eg sleeping or in front of the TV, I guess that's where the bad dreams come from). There is a difference between being lazy which is really being avoidant, and being fully present in a situation. But also if you have too much grounding it does make you feel heavy and lethargic; that if there is too much 'here' then there is no 'there'. I think that many elderly people suffer from this.
She talked about being aware of your peripersonal space- the area from the tips of your fingers on your outstretched arms. This is also interpreted as a part of you, which is how most people can use tools, weapons and vehicles reasonably well.
We then did a very interesting exercise which was about bringing awareness and change to a body part just through touch and attentiveness. We touched a partner's fibula and got them to notice the bone and indeed try to get the bone to touch their partner's finger. Then they were to be aware of the membrane between the tibia and fibula and try to get it to soften. This resulted in good foot releases and joint mobilisation in most cases. Just through mental awareness and stimulus! We did corrective exercises for high and low arches ( high arch- softening the distal tib/fib joint, drawing the calcaneus back, low arch- drawing the navicular to the cuboid and establishing the lateral arch of the foot). As a PT it was awesome to see and feel changes without 'doing' anything. I've always known it to be possible but you often put too much pressure on yourself as the therapist to be doing the work rather than engaging the client. Anyway you can do similar work with the clavicle and with the spinal joints- trying to glide the joints forward with inspiration (in this example, Mary did use some manual force for guidance). I guess it goes to prove that her rule of thumb is true- that you should assume that postural faults are due to inhibitions first, rather than by fixations. It's amazing how much you can achieve through imagery (auditory, visual, compare/contrast etc) and guidance alone. But still the PT in me likes to massage and prod!
We also did a little work on the TMJ, cervical joints and focused on breathing. I found the image of softening the maxilla (and the central joint/suture) helpful, as well as the image of it floating and lifting up your head. There was an image of the mandible being heavy and relaxed with head movements and the uvula also initiating movements (imaging a pen drawing inside your mouth).
Anyway was pretty good, mostly experiential (even got to pretend to be a tree in the wind for a bit).
Tooroo till next time