Tag: posture

Health & Fitness, Massage Therapy, Meditation, Uncategorized

On Getting a New Perspective

heather

I’ve written before about Balance and how the theme of balance keeps surfacing in the ocean of my experience – the need for balance in thoughts and opinions, balance in work and fun, balance in movement practices. Eventually everything needs to wobble back to center – it’s just that we don’t know the timescale!

I took a manual therapy training class recently that is helping me embody more balance in how I think about manual therapy and in how I practice hands-on work.

I was trained in a school of thought that was very much posturally focused. We were taught how to analyze someone’s posture and note where the patient was twisting or shearing or in some other way moving out of “neutral.” These deviations from neutral provided clues to what muscles or organs or systems needed some attention.

It was/is a useful analysis, and many people WAY smarter than me are using it every day to literally change people’s lives. But, the more I read and learned about other modalities, the more I realized that posture is only part of the story. And in my own personal practice, I noted that many of my clients were feeling much better after seeing me, yet their posture remained essentially unchanged. How to reconcile this??

To further confound myself, I worked on an article for Tune Up Fitness on the importance of posture. I had the privilege of talking to several experts in the field of human performance and well-being, and most of them stated the same thing – posture is just a piece of the puzzle of pain. Oh. And the research says there really is no “perfect” posture. The really important thing is being able to move through a variety of postures depending on your need in the moment.

This whole exploration of the importance of posture helped me practice the skill of believing almost mutually exclusive things to be simultaneously true. Is posture important? Yes. And also No.

So to further develop the skill of becoming comfortable with uncertainty, I took Walt Fritz’s class, Foundations in Manual Therapy. Walt also comes from a therapy lineage that focuses on posture as a primary indicator of pain. However, after taking several classes in several different modalities (that all worked), he realized that while they all worked, their explanations were often not founded on scientific literature. YET THEY ALL WORK!! Why??

Essentially, his answer is, because of the Therapeutic Alliance – that connection between the client and the therapist – the exchange of energy and attention and intention – that communication between two nervous systems – that is really where the magic of therapy happens. It’s not that the therapist released a trigger point or freed up a restricted nerve, or unstuck some fascia. It’s that the therapist jibed with the client.

The core of his approach, “Rather than using a protocol or trusting your knowledge and experience, you’ll instead listen to your patient.”

I so love this.

I am ever grateful for what I learned at the Center for Neurosomatic Studies. But, man, the human body is all sorts of complex, and when my brain starts trying to follow the twists and turns and flexes and extensions found in a body, my insides start to get all wound up too, and my brain gears start overheating. And guess what happens then? I get all up in my brain instead of my in my body, present and accounted for with my client.

BUT

When I have scientific “permission” to focus instead on what the human being in front of me is telling me with their voice, their eyes, their body language, and I can focus on that instead of solving a puzzle, wow – then I can be present, aware, and open to possibilities that the client/therapist partnership can open up. And there is so much beauty and freedom in that.

So that is what I am experimenting with – taking all I know, all I don’t know (SO MUCH), all of what the client needs and wants and expects – and putting all that together into an experience for the client that helps them find more space, freedom, and ease. And, oh yeah, trying to have fun in the process. 🙂

Come join me on the exploration, if you want to see what opportunities for healing we can discover together!

Health & Fitness, Massage Therapy, Uncategorized, Yoga

Space to be Human

heather

Hello My Friends!

As you may have noticed, I finally completed my name change. Heather Longoria Bodywork & Yoga is now Space to be Human LLC.

When I work with you, my main intention is to help you discover more space – more space between the muscles and fascia of your body, more space between stimulus and automatic response, more space in your bodymind to see new ways of being, thinking, and doing in the world.

I also love the sentiment of grace that come with that phrase, “space to be human.” None of us has the Right Answer. The only way to find an answer that works for you or me or him or her specifically, is to approach life with a sense of discovery, curiosity, and humor – to have the grace and self-compassion to try new things and be OK with them not working out sometimes, and to celebrate when you find The Difference That Makes a Difference.

We all need that space to be human – to do our best, keep trying, and keep learning with and for each other. As a thank you for being part of my tribe and for getting to Month 11 of 2020 together, I am offering $25 off all sessions for rest of November 2020. Use code THANKYOU25 when booking here.

And if your spine has been feeling compressed and locked up from the weight of the world (or too much computer-time), here is a short movement practice you can do that will help you start to invite more space into your spine.

If you want more tips and videos like this, check out this article on posture that I wrote for Tune Up Fitness. So many good nuggets in there!

And with that, I’ll leave you be!

With love, Hlo

P.S. If any of your friends or family are struggling with pain or tension, I would so appreciate it if you would pass on my info to them. THANK YOU!

Health & Fitness, Massage Therapy, Uncategorized

On Balance

heather

“Everything flows out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right, is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates”

― Three Initiates, Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece

And that, my friends, explains everything – Life, The Universe, and Everything. Oh, and Neurosomatic Therapy too.

The universe, our bodies, our lives – we all strive for homeostasis, for balance. In NST, we look at the body and observe where it’s tipping, tilting, twisting away from balance. Not that any of these movements are bad, in and of themselves. But over time, done repetitively, the body starts to adapt. It shortens and lengthens muscles (Davis’s Law), it grows and destroys bones (Wolff’s Law). It adapts to be more efficient at the positions you put it in most often. Unfortunately, this means that if/when you want to move and hold your body in a different position, your muscles and joints doth protest, and that protestation can manifest as pain.

In NST, we do 84 measurements of bony landmarks in your body to see where you have made accommodations over time. Based on these measurements, we can target muscles that need incentive to relax and let go or that need stimulation to get the attention of your brain, so that the brain can start operating them better.

I have been listening to a great podcast, The Optimal Body, which is hosted by two physical therapists who have an easy-to-understand balanced approach on getting people out of pain. They introduced me to the concept of 30 for 30. For every 30 minutes that you are in a static position, spend 30 sections doing the EXACT OPPOSITE thing!

For example, if you are (like me right now), usually sitting, hunched over your computer, wrists extended, shoulders rolled forward, head craned toward your computer, eyes focused intently 2 feet in front of you, then ===> Stand Up. Extend your spine. Ramp your head back so your ears are stacked over your shoulders. Flex your wrists. Stretch your arms out to the side and point your elbow pits up to the ceiling. Look out your window and at the farthest, farthest tree. Do that for 30 seconds.

This is SUCH a simple exercise – no fancy cueing, no complicated instructions to remember. Just DO THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU USUALLY DO. You remember that episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza does the opposite of everything his instincts tell him to do, and his life suddenly turns around?? Well, in this rare instance, follow George’s example.

I am in the process of figuring out when/how to return to NST practice. Miss Rona is being very difficult. But I will get it all figured out soon. In the meantime, feel free to reach out to me with questions, comments, suggestions for what you would like to hear about next. Thanks SO MUCH for reading!!!

Take care, My peeps!

Health & Fitness, Meditation, Uncategorized, Yoga

After further thought…

heather

My students Thursday night asked me a couple of questions that I was not really prepared to answer.  I tossed out the first thing that came to the top of my head, but after further reflection, I have more to add. It takes awhile for my brain to get into gear!

Question 1:  What is the biggest change I have noticed with doing yoga regularly?

This one caused a rush of conflicting thoughts in my head, even though it seems like a simple question.  A lot of this tumult of thought circled around, “I don’t actually DO yoga regularly!”  I have a varied movement practice – I jog a couple of days a week, I lift a couple of days a week, I attend a yoga class once every couple of weeks, I do one of Jill Miller’s videos once or twice a week.

I’m conflicted about even calling myself a yoga teacher, in point of fact, because I feel as if it can give people the impression that I practice 6 days a week for 90 minutes everyday, and I can do handstands and splits and crazy binds.  I can’t do any of that stuff, so I don’t teach any of that stuff.  I help people understand their bodies better with the aid of the Yoga Tune Up® balls and mindful mobility and strengthening work.  We crawl, we swing, we roll, we look at pictures of muscles in books.  Is that “yoga”?  Technically yes (as I understand it), but I fear it’s not what people typically consider yoga to be.

So once all of that darted through my head, I settled back on the question – what is the biggest chance I have noticed?  I told the class that after taking the YTU Level 1 training, I noticed that I felt myself stacked over my feet better – like I wasn’t leaning forward all the time.  That was the biggest change for me.

And that is true, but, upon reflection, what I have really noticed from my mindful movement practices is that I have more Awareness now.  I notice when my shoulders start to creep up around my ears, I notice when I start breathing shallowly, I notice when random parts of my body tense up (like my hands or my belly), I notice (with a slight bit of detachment) when I feel annoyed or angry, I notice when my mind is going a million miles per minute.  Sometimes I just notice these things. Sometimes I notice them and then try to change them – I will stretch, or roll on the balls, or reflect on whether it’s worth it to get angry about this situation.  That Awareness is what I have noticed most from doing yoga.

Question 2:  Does it ever get better, or do you have to constantly work at it (re: muscle tightness)?

My answer to this was, you really do need to keep working at it.  You can’t just roll and relax and be done with it.  You need a relaxation maintenance package. 🙂

And that is true!  But what I forgot to mention was that if you change your habits (especially postural habits), you can start to alleviate tension all over the body.  For example, if you stack your ears over your shoulders, it releases strain in the back of the neck, the back of the head, the tops of the shoulders, and the jaw.

So, while you still should continue to move your body as much as possible (whether in “yoga” or some other mindful movement practice), if you move your body BETTER and use Awareness to re-position yourself in a joint-stacked position, you will over time reduce pain and tension in the body.  Instead of trying to fit another exercise class into your day to keep yourself supple, you can continuously adjust yourself as you are walking, reading, doing the dishes, working at your computer.  As Katy Bowman always says, Stack Your Life!  Improve your mobility while doing the other things in life you have to do.

I’m still not sure that fully answers both questions, but if I wait until I have a perfect answer, I will never get this posted!

Hope you are having a great Memorial Day weekend and that you can get out outside, put your toes in the grass, laugh with your friends and family, and eat delicious food!