Basic Tenets of Movement Vulnerability
1. All body posture and movement creates mechanical stress.
2. Some mechanical movement stress is necessary, therapeutic.
3. Some mechanical movement stress is injurious.
4. Over time injurious movement can stress inflames tissue, degenerates disks and joints.
5. Repeated faulty posture and movement cause a vulnerability to their mechanical stress.
6. Repeated faulty posture and movement lowers the threshold to movement stress that soft and bony tissue can tolerate.
7. Faulty posture and movement is unskillful and unconscious.
8. The body can lose the “catch-up” game. It can process just so much inflammation.
8. The body can heal itself, if given the chance.
9. Skillful movement is healing.
10. Movement can be relieving or provocative.
11. Relieving movement reduces muscle tone, opens joint space, relieves disk pressure, supports strained ligaments, tendons, puts the body at rest.
13. Provocative movement, done poorly, will create more soft tissue inflammation and joint degeneration.
14. Provocative movement, done skillfully, will create stability, mobility, and manage movement vulnerabilities.
15. Hatha Yoga is skillful, conscious movement
16. Hatha Yoga can teach someone with movement vulnerabilities how to heal themselves
posted by Greater Baltimore Yoga @ 2:41 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Hi Stan,
I see that no one has yet commented on your most recent post. Since this is the information that sent me running to find a phone and schedule an appointment with you, I'd like to take this opportunity to share my thoughts. I first came across this information on your web site under "yoga as physical therapy".
In my five-year absence from seeing you for physical therapy I spent two years with no therapy, doing absolutely nothing proactive for my body on the advice of an unnamed doctor who said that I had reached my potential therapeutically. Not only did this send me into a period of emotional distress and depression, but over the two years I also developed severe back pain that would make me cry. During this period of my life I lost what little mobility I had retained. I was in so much pain that I couldn't sit in my wheelchair to complete my schoolwork pain-free. I didn't know whether returning to physical therapy would help me walk better (I had always wanted that to be the case, but too many professionals had said that I'd reached my potential, so I gave up on walking.), at that point, I was just desperate to be pain-free.
I've found it difficult to find physical therapists willing to treat me given my CP and my age (I am now 24 years old.) in the traditional approach. Many physical therapists have said that what motor movement I have now will stay with me or decline as my body continues to age. This is not an encouraging prospect for anyone and I'd like to think that I have a good many more years left to me on this earth.
I don't really know how I came across a woman who crossed physical therapy with Feldenkrist and yoga to create her own unique approach to physical therapy treatment. I wanted to send you this message because I am excited that your “basic tenants of movement vulnerability” seem to be right in line with her thoughts. I only wish that I had been open to what you tried to teach me when I saw you for physical therapy as a child. I could have learned so much more from you, if only I had listened.
I have been using a yoga approach to my physical therapy for three years now and I don't want to go back to a traditional physical therapy approach again. Something would be missing. I like the practice of yoga because it has taught me many things that are useful in life in general, such as keeping an open mind. It has also given me a sense of empowerment and responsibility. I must now work together with my physical therapist. Therapy is no longer something that I am being told that I must do, I have to want it, and want to assist in the process in order for gains to be made. There is also a sense of empowerment that comes from knowing how to listen to my body. My body tells me things about itself, to which yoga has awakened my mind. I have been told that my body has lots of “unused movement potential”. I believe that the practice of yoga for me is an integral part of my life in that it is the most effective means I’ve found to help me get inside my body. Yoga has changed the way that I view CP. CP obscures the connection between my body and my mind. Yoga has allowed me to become aware of the connection that still exists within me, as it does in all people. CP just makes that connection harder to find at times.
I have learned to listen to my body. I know that when I have back pain, more often than not it's because I've been sitting improperly hunched over my desk. What I can’t seem to understand is why pain doesn't occur until hours after I've left my desk. I guess that's because the body does have the capacity to heal itself, and I know that it can tolerate a lot of abuse. If I'm supposed to use pain as my guide to either continue or change what I'm doing, then why does the pain come so late? I've learned to view pain and breathing, for that matter, as signals along the path through which my body is guiding me. Bones provide the structure for the body that is a system, muscles provide movement upon the structure, and breath energizes and feeds the system. I recognize that breathing is extremely important to life, and as such, is also important in the practice of yoga. But why, then is it so easy to forget, especially when I'm practicing yoga.
I do yoga now because I like knowing that yoga is something that I'm doing to positively affect change in my body. I like the fact that I can practice yoga independently after I've left physical therapy to continue the wonderful benefits that it affords me between my therapy sessions. Because of my CP, sometimes I need lots of help from my physical therapist to facilitate certain movement patterns or positions. Other times, depending on what I'm trying to accomplish, I can practice independently. Sometimes, positions and movement patterns have to be adapted so that I can perform them, given my CP. Even so, I can see that practicing yoga over the past three years has given me a sense of being “inside my body”. CP can so often make me feel as though I'm looking at my body and trying to analyze its movement from the outside looking in, as a doctor does when he looks at his patient's x-rays. The practice of yoga has taught me to become acutely aware of my body and to appreciate the awareness that I have. It has given me a language and a means to communicate about how I feel and how my body is reacting as it moves through space. That is very empowering for a person with CP, because CP so often obscures that knowledge. Additionally, I have received the benefits of the traditional approach to physical therapy using yoga those being, coordination, flexibility, and strength. Coordination and flexibility are undeniably required is one tries to move toward and through the different positions and postures. Strength is required in one's attempt to maintain the positions and postures for any length of time. For me, the practice of yoga can also be very intimidating and made me feel vulnerable, at times. CP can be like a monster inside of me that seeks enjoyment from making me feel “outside” of my body. Sometimes, when practicing yoga I feel vulnerable and intimidated because it is a very scary thing to be suddenly “inside” my body again and so acutely aware of that which had remained hidden before. In times when I feel vulnerable, my first reaction is to tighten those muscles in my body which have become newly awakened. I think that's spasticity. While this “spastic reaction” is comforting to me because I immediately find my body giving me feedback that is familiar, it is counterintuitive to unlocking my hidden movement potential, which is why I had showed up to physical therapy in the first place! So, the battle between the familiar versus the unfamiliar and the brave versus the vulnerable is the battle but I have begun and continue to wage over the last three years. I have a great respect for yoga because of the benefits it has given me, but also some fear because the path upon which yoga has and will continue to take me, is a path into the unfamiliar.
Maybe that doctor was right, maybe I have reached my movement potential, but I don't know. I'm not willing to say that I have or that I haven’t. What I know, and what I'm trying to say is that I'm so glad that I fell into physical therapy again, but more importantly physical therapy with a yoga approach. I don't know if it's giving me more functional movement that others will notice. What I do know is that I feel better and I know that I can move better. What I have learned about yoga, I know I still have a long way to go, will stay with me. The practice of yoga has become an integral part of my life now.
I hope I have explained myself well so that you understand. I'm not sure that I have as yoga has been such a personal and very enlightening journey for me, but I wanted to take the time to at least try and explain these things to you because I now realize that you had tried to teach me all of that when I was younger, I just wasn't open to it. Now, I will listen and I understand.
I look forward to seeing you at the end of this month.
Sincerely,
Lauren
Good brief and this enter helped me alot in my college assignement. Gratefulness you as your information.
I must now work together with my physical therapist. Therapy is no longer something that I am being told that I must do, I have to want it, and want to assist in the process in order for gains to be made. There is also a sense of empowerment that comes from knowing how to listen to my body. My body tells me things about itself, to which yoga has awakened my mind. I have been told that my body has lots of “unused movement potential”. I believe that the practice of yoga for me is an integral part of my life in that it is the most effective means I’ve found to help me get inside my body. Yoga has changed the way that I view CP. CP obscures the connection between my body and my mind.
yoga
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