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Tools of the Trade: Calming and Focusing the Mind

We are about to embark on an odyssey. Can’t really call it Homer’s or Judah’s because it’s steeped in all the Eastern mystery schools and is still practiced today!

If all it took to be a successful bodyworker was learning the original technique, everyone would be great. To improve you have to tweak your listening machines and in the ensuing posts I hope to elevate your skill set to an obvious new height. Not with new bodywork techniques, but by installing some new software into your lives.

If you have bought the cranial approach we offer, then you know about the practitioner fulcrum from which all the work springs forth. But, in those teachings we didn’t go too deeply into the concept because it would be inappropriate to inundate you with the deepening of the work unless you had done the footwork up to this point. One has to understand in their core how little control we have over our mental facilities. Anyone who does bodywork, or is attentive to their minds, is painfully aware of this fact. So, it’s my opinion that in order to elevate our capacities as healers, or whatever term you use, we have to ramp up the ability to rein in our wandering minds. Otherwise we are constantly disconnecting from our client’s field. [Read more…]

Tools of the Trade: Keys to the Kingdom

One of the most interesting observations as a teacher of Cranial Sacral therapy and Rolfing/ Structural Integration, is how people react to the knowledge they gain from a course and the expectations and frustrations that often accompany our educational systems. You have heard my mild rant about the “jack of all trade” syndrome before, so I will spare you. I was certainly guilty of that syndrome as well. At least until I knew exactly what I was most attracted to as a bodyworker, beyond my original training at the Rolf Institute. I honestly understand the frustration caused by how most of us were educated. A+B=C. Next!

The study of bodywork and especially cranial sacral therapy requires a very different mindset from how most of us were taught to learn. The best analogy and the one that I share with my students from the onset, is how long it takes to learn a musical instrument. It’s really a lifetime, and if you accept that, then you can relax and put one foot after another as you become more gifted at what you do. [Read more…]

Still Points: What’s The Point?

I am often asked about the elusiveness of the still point and its point in our work! Often stillpoints are the subject of great interest because students believe they have “accomplished” something when the still point is generated or the system is “paused”. In a more mechanical approach, the system is pushed into the still point. The student is aware of the success of their technique and they are on to the next technique, believing that by creating one successful technique after another somehow the system they are palpating is better off for it. This done without ever pausing to allow the system to potentially reflect its needs, and really feeling the outcome of their “technique”. Its like a dancer being led on to the floor and spun around and around before she ever got a chance to have a word with her partner. The outcome can have potentially unbalancing effects just as easily as a balanced effect. Much like a brand new practitioner without any skillset whatsoever, adjusting a sphenoid bone on his first day of cranial class. I have had some interesting sessions with students who have come into my office after their first 4 day training, sporting an uncomfortably disoriented feeling accompanied by a mean headache! Remember approaches to balancing the cranial sacral system can also unbalance it as well..it just depends!

I have cautioned many times before in our DVDs and in the blogs that the approach to this work from a biodynamic mindset as opposed to a mechanical one. And I have said many times how our educations systems have programmed us for outcomes. One of the most beautiful things about becoming a practitioner of this work is its effects upon us in our everyday lives after the sessions. How cool is it when you finally adopt the notion of what if I really didn’t have to have an answer to every system presentation? What would happen if I just had the patience to wait and allow the system to tell me its story? What would happen if in the first few sessions with a new client, I had the knowledge based on a felt sense that the system I was palpating was so under nourished, that its potential to be able to hold any work was barely possible? What would it feel like if I was really able to ascertain a life force “battery that was so dull that once a still point was created I could really feel a tangible outcome from that still point? But, to just execute one blindly in a literal sense, what will I have accomplished without some point of reference. Is it possible that wanting so strongly to create a still point, that I created some confusion in the system?

Ok if you still don’t get the point of this let me simplify it. Wait! Wait! Wait! Ask the system if its something thats needed. Or wait until you are prompted by the system. I teach to ask the system if a still point is needed, wanted or any word you chose to illicit a potential affirmative. It borders on magic when the system responds to the questions. Its really a beautiful thing because in reality, its my

believe system the thought enters my mind to ask, because the system I am palpating has created the need and it poses it into the field because it knows that with a little focus on my part, it will be facilitated more easily and effectively. The amount of change/healing isn’t about an outcome I determine. Yet, there is almost always a perceptible change in the system displayed by a more balanced rhythm or a larger scope of flow hydraulically. One might call that an obviously greater scope of movement in the fluids and the balance at the midline is often obvious to the practitioner. The more and more you develop the witnessing presence vision around the mechanics of this work, the more powerful and magical the work becomes! And I am willing to bet the more balanced, easy, and relaxed your life becomes. All this because you were willing to listen before speaking, to feel before doing, and to be unattached to every outcome. Riding the waves of the cranial sacral system is a profound journey that will change the world a little bit each time its observed and felt, because you begin to see how we are all connected on our Planet!

Ignition In The Cranial Sacral System 2

I would say that the concept of Ignition may be the most profound and elusive concept in entire cranial sacral system. It is the essence of the work and requires a great deal of practice and perseverance to begin to contact the Spark of Life that we call Ignition in the cranial system. It has been observed to carry the essence of who we are, knowledge akin to Jing in the Chinese system. When one is gifted to be Witnessed by this Divine Essence which is often called the Breath of Life in our work, one is changed at some level for ever. But, remember the classic teaching, you don’t go searching for it and muck things up by the power of your intention creating waves of motion. You must wait for that which transmutes all things into form! There is a spark that is palpable that creates motion within Primary respiration. Seldom is it the first thing that you become aware of when listening to the system you are holding. Wait, and don’t have expectations that this Spark will be evident just because you are told of its existence. The beauty of this Biodynamic approach is that you don’t have to know, its more of a state of quiet observation. Of course one needs to have established a blue print of what we are listening to with techniques to use appropriately when the situation calls for them, but other than this foundational training, its about many hours of work. One can listen to the subtleties of a classical guitarist playing a celestial piece by Bach, by I dare say it is felt more deeply as the wooden box is vibrating against the body of the player who becomes imbued with Bach’ divine connection. Sit listen and repeat many times. The spark of life will become evident. [Read more…]

IGNITION IN THE CRANIAL SYSTEM

Ignition in the cranial system is a deep topic and will require more than one post. And if I ramble, please forgive me as I am also going to first reflect on our industry or maybe our education system in general, especially in the USA. Although I have been practicing cranial for years, the amount of hours sitting and listening to the systems of many clients is dwarfed by those giants that came before me like Doctors, Fulford, Becker, Mangoun, Jealous and others. Its humbling! Our education system and many of our massage schools as well, encourages mediocrity. Sorry if that stings, I am not singling out anyone. Just look at the claims of graduating students who offer multiple disciplines on their business cards as soon as they graduate! Now, I know that in order to keep a licensure that isn’t supported by the ruling medical system, one is supposed to do continuing education in order to be considered legitimate. Unfortunately, that is often the driving factor, and not the actual knowledge of the work itself! I know this to be a fact, because I receive lots of emails through our website. Often times they will not buy the dvds we offer because they can’t get their CEU’s in time. There is the assumption that an online course should be quick and easy. And there in lies my entire point. When I was studying at the Rolf Institute, many of my teachers were practicing cranial sacral therapy as well and visceral work in addition to the foundational work taught by Dr. Rolf. When I asked why those disciplines were not being taught alongside Dr. Rolf’s work, the answer (which didn’t make much sense at the time) was get a Rolfer’s hands for 5 years and then move on. I totally get it now after 30 years of practice. It pays to play in “the fields of a discipline” for awhile before adding yet another. [Read more…]