Conscious Choice: Body Centered Learning

September 1995

Body Centered Learning

by Marilyn Rodgers

"Bodywork is practice in search of a theory."
— Jeff Maitland, Ph.D., Somatic Educator, Rolfer

The body reflects the feelings, thoughts, and desires of the mind. They are inseparable. From an early age, we learn reactions to the environment, and they can endure for decades, even though once we are adults, such learned responses may be inappropriate.

Deepak Chopra says in his book, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, that "Perception appears to be automatic, but in fact it is a learned phenomenon. The world in which you live, including the experience of your body, is completely dictated by how you learned to perceive it. If you change your perception, you change the experience of your body and your world."

In order to change the automatic reactions of the body, a plethora of body centered therapies have emerged. Each is based on a philosophy of education that incorporates an emerging awareness of the body and a reeducation that is congruent with the mental and spiritual components of the adult person.

Feldenkrais
Most of our behavior is learned. The language we speak, the way we sit, walk, talk, eat, see, and listen, we wired it in our own unique way. Yet we did it unconsciously. As babies we didn’t say "Oh, we are learning to speak English." Being curious, we learned and were habituated in a certain way.

Emotions, too, are learned, along with beliefs and the shaping of our bodies, according to Feldenkrais practitioner Harvey Arkin. "Our families gave us the information about how the world worked. We learned about what was acceptable and permitted, and what was not. It might have been okay for Dad to yell and scream, but no one else was allowed to express themselves like that. We were shaping our beliefs about the world and how it worked. Our bodies began to show how we were feeling," says Arkin.

These feelings and beliefs can manifest themselves in a myriad of intricate ways. "If someone feels shame, there is a tendency to slouch the upper body. They carry a burden on their shoulders and it rounds them. Many of us were told what we did wasn’t good enough and we slouched. Then we were told to sit up straight. The result is the child holds his chest and arches his back, going from one defensive position to another. This pattern becomes habituated, which means it feels normal. A more natural position feels wrong, he says.

He also notes the difference between spontaneous and compulsive actions. A compulsive action is habituated even when it isn’t a conscious choice. A child learns to play the piano when he or she wants to be out with friends. A compulsion is formed when we are performing to gain someone else’s approval and not out of our own internal need, motivation, and desire. The struggle comes in with the goal orientation. Adults are likely to focus on accomplishing the goal while ignoring the process. They need to go back to the baby-like state of being at play, he says.

The Feldenkrais method is a field of exploration of the ways in which we organize ourselves in gravity. People learn how their body functions and feels and are able to make different choices about how they use themselves, sit, stand or walk. According to Arkin, during a Functional Integration session the Feldenkrais practitioner inputs stimuli into the nervous system or the motor cortex of the brain through gentle functional movements and the person responds with a motor response. It means they use themselves differently. The practitioner explores movement possibilities that are first familiar and safe to the client and then slowly goes with them into new movement sequences. While this is being experienced kinesthetically, it does not have to be understood on a cognitive level. Persons become cognitively aware when they find themselves moving in new ways to find a place of comfort.

Moshe Feldenkrais, developer of the Feldenkrais method, said, "Functional integration turns to the oldest elements of our sensory system such as touch, the feelings of pull and pressure, the warmth of the hand, the caressing stroke. The person becomes absorbed in the diminishing of muscular tension, deepening and regularity of breathing, abdominal easing, and improved circulation. The person senses his most primitive, consciously forgotten patterns and recalls the well-being of a growing young child."

As an adjunct to psychotherapy, this type of work can be invaluable. "The premise of Feldenkrais is that as learning creatures, we have a vulnerability to learn faulty behavior patterns. So we don’t need to be fixed. We need to learn how to do things differently. In that process of learning to do things differently the old patterns become useless and unnecessary as the new ones become functional. It can facilitate the emergence of the memories and experiences that first produced the behavior. But you now have another choice that is much better. This can speed the process of integration and the release of dysfunctional or unwanted behavior patterns being dealt with in the therapy process," says Arkin. "The person is a whole entity, psychological, physical, emotional and spiritual. All of these elements are continuous in function. It would be schizophrenic to look at it otherwise."

Feldenkrais work is designed to help people reach their full human potential. Although most people come to this work through "having problems," this is really an opportunity to discover how to function with our full human capacity. The human structure is designed to function synergistically, or in an effortless manner. When we find ourselves struggling, there is something we can learn.

The Alexander Technique
"Talking about the body only enforces duality," says Beth Stein, Executive Director of Alexander Technique Teaching Associates. Alexander termed it reeducation, not movement or bodywork.

In his book, Universal Constant in Living, Alexander said, "My technique is based in inhibition, the inhibition of the undesirable, unwanted responses to stimuli, and then it is primarily a technique for the development of the control of human reaction."

Stein says, "It’s about learning how to learn. Since most of us think learning involves memorization and trying hard with our eyes constantly set on the goal, we think it’s about maintaining information we have collected. We aren’t aware of the process. In Alexander we learn how to learn how we think, create, and create the self. You become aware of habitual patterns of interference in coordination, balance or clear thinking. The teacher guides you through alternatives that do not require additional patterns.

An Alexander teacher will define the reeducation experience because we have developed systems of reacting to the environment which are unwanted, unchosen and habitual, according to Stein. The Alexander Technique focuses on three R’s of education: recognition, reevaluation and reorganization.

"Recognition" means increasing one’s sensitivity or one’s present awareness of perception. The human organism will ordinarily focus outwardly or inwardly but the fact is that your central nervous system is taking in information from the events of the world outside, as well as movement, bodily function and emotional response. A philosophy underlying the education is that you have to allow someone to become aware of that fact. The primary order of experience is kinesthetic. You hear a car crash and go into a startle reflex. In a body-centered method of education there must be an awareness of simultaneity of perception of both an inward and outward experience.

"Reevaluation" asks, What kind of belief system do I attach to my perceptions? If I have preconceived ideas I start looking for what I already know. I start to ensure habitual perception. One of the most common of these is, "If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again," say Stein.

"I help people experience perceptions. What Alexander discovered was that kinesthetic perceptions have faulty values assigned to them. If someone spends a lot of time on the phone with their head leaning to the right, they have developed a habit. They can assign a value to that and believe their head is straight up and down. The Alexander teacher can help bring that person’s head to center. Nine times out of ten the person thinks their head is being tilted to the left. They have a faulty value. A new experience is perceived as different from usual and customary. Hence habit is maintained. In body centered education, one must understand the nature of habit and how it’s maintained" says Stein.

"Reorganization" takes place after we’ve begun to have awarenesses. We’re beginning to reevaluate preconceived ideas of what is right and how things work. At this level, transformation begins to happen. You begin to understand the principles behind human reaction, according to Stein.

Hakomi
"In Hakomi, experiences are observed in a state of mindfulness and can affect any aspect of the person’s physical or emotional experience," says Susan McConnell, a Certified Hakomi Therapist who also conducts Hakomi Skills Training for bodyworkers. The Hakomi process involves lying on a table or sitting or standing up and a conversation begins. "I guide their attention inward so they can notice their physical sensations, such as how they notice muscular tension, emotion, frustration, fear, anger or joy. They direct their attention to it and how it’s being experienced

in the body which results in the emergence of thoughts, words, images, emotions, and memories that correspond with the physical experience. They can experience and release emotional underpinnings," says McConnell.

Developed by Ron Kurtz, the Hakomi method of body mind therapy whicch is rooted in Zen Buddhism and Taoist philosophy, combines elements of Reichian work, Bioenergenics, Gestalt, Feldenkrais, Alexander, Structural Bodywork, and is influenced by General Systems Theory.

McConnell says there are certain underlying principles of Hakomi. One is organicity, which is trusting in the principle of the body. "Trust that it will unfold the way it needs to. If somebody comes in with a pain in their neck, I’ll ask questions so they go more deeply into that experience. My attitude trusts that the body does what it needs to do. As they are exploring that tension, we’ll explore images," she says.

Another principle is somatic resonance. "Somatic resonance is a state of being aware of the energy field made up of you and the client. I’m noticing my own body too as part of the whole experience. Because the practice accepts all aspects of the person, their body, mind and spirit, it recognizes that it’s not just an object to be repaired, but is a living source of information that we can work through to address the entire person," says McConnell.

As in other types of bodywork, as the issue yields, the structure and alignment will change, the insights and emotions will emerge and integrate with the physical shifts. "When I train body workers in the Hakomi principles, I often hear them say they are tired of seeing people week after week with the same symptoms. You can’t just work with physical body. You have to integrate the client with an awareness of the emotions or memories that contribute to the body being shaped in a certain way," she says.

Non-violence is an overriding principle of the Hakomi method. "We go with the grain. When I’m doing bodywork it follows the direction the body seems to want to go. It’s not about changing the body to become ideal. If your shoulders are rounded, let’s find out what your shoulders know. If I take over that tension the person can relax and look at the emotions underneath," she says.

Hakomi also recognizes the interdependence of everything. "It is a participatory universe," says McConnell. Hakomi can also be described as a briefer form of psychotherapy that can last anywhere from one session to many years. Yet she notes that mindfulness is "an endless process. There’s always something to explore and more to be revealed," she says.

Recommend this page to a friend

Top Ten pages recommended to friends: