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Home - Fixing Backs, Pain, Stress and Tightness with
Structural Integration Free Booklets List Higher Function Booklet Intro Part 1 Part 2 Part 4 Part 5 |
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Your Body, and Mind,
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As you have read, the Structural Integration Method of Connective Tissue Manipulation is specifically designed to re-lengthen the fascial system and thereby properly re-align the whole body. The vertebrae will then be “put” into their proper positions. We are re-forming the shape of the chocolate chip cookie, so the chips go where we want them to. Then, chiropractic adjustments really do help, and the chiropractor has the expertise to know how to push those little bones back to the positions they’re supposed to be in. It also always turned out, that after my Bodywork had re-lengthened most of the person’s muscles and fascia, the chiropractors were able to get vertebrae to go in that they couldn’t get in before, sometimes for months before. It was also easier, and the person felt little or none of the pain or “shock” as before, when the bones were being pushed on. It was more comfortable because the back was longer and all the bones had plenty of room to fit into the proper, longer length of the spine. Plus, the Bodywork makes the muscle tissue softer and more pliable, so it’s easier to push through. The adjustments also held for a long time rather than the few hours or few days that they’d stayed in before. Then, if any vertebrae would later pop out because of some muscular movement the person did, a chiropractic adjustment put the whole back in easily and comfortably again. A lot of times, all some people had to do was a lot of stretching, and their vertebrae went back in by themselves. To get these results, we do a series of sessions because it takes a number of hours to re-lengthen lots of areas of the fascia. This is what creates a long-term change and removes a lot of neck, shoulder, knee and other difficulties, not just those in the back. And that change happens when we improve the shape of the body. It’s something you can obviously see when you look at the person or even look at yourself in a mirror or Polaroid photo. As we re-lengthen muscle group after muscle group, the interlocking tightnesses from all those knots get reduced more and more. We’re clearing up the pulling from one area of the body to another. So, in this system, we’re correcting the tightness in the body as if it’s one single unit. And it is. The sequence of steps actually follows the discovered way the body can unravel the best. And we can tailor that sequence to also work on a person’s tightest areas first. We fix a local area to some degree and that also releases tightnesses in a number of other areas. Then we do those next areas to clear up more local shortness and that simultaneously releases some more pulls to the rest of the body, including the first areas we already spread out somewhat. The additional release makes the first areas even better. We go round and round through the different sections and muscle groups, getting to re-lengthen deeper and deeper into the various layers of muscles. So everything gets more and more re-lengthened, and therefore, more and more aligned. The designed balance between the lengths of the bones and the lengths of the muscle fibers then simply “shows up,” In the first few hours of treatment, we’re working on muscles on the outside of the body, and most people feel greater flexibility and deeper relaxation. The tissue is then softer and “better toned,” too; it’s not so hard. Then our manipulations can “reach through” this softer tissue to the deeper muscles, and we can re-lengthen what’s been holding the bones in their misaligned positions. That changes the shape a lot. So the zig-zagging leans actually straighten out, and we can see it getting better in the Polaroid photos we take as we go along. When the leans are less, we also see that the person seems “longer” and more upright, even more relaxed, and maybe bigger, and less contracted. People say they actually feel these changes along with their greater flexibility. And they report that their mental and emotional demeanor improves in the very same ways. They feel more open, yet not as vulnerable. They feel more confident, and flexible in their lives. They feel more upright, balanced and centered. And they also feel more grounded and “back in their body.” This is a very common observation and is especially helpful for people who had a lot of physical trauma, especially to the head, either from an accident or from abuse. So the body’s sections are brought more and more into the vertical alignment, or “the balance” they’re designed to be in. That means the lower back excess curve is corrected, or made less, often times a lot. This “better shape” means the vertebrae are now less jammed up and they’re not arranged in such a sharp angle to each other. So the compression that was creating disk and nerve problems is also better. Another way to see this is that we’re re-lengthening all the tightnesses and pulls that were created just in trying to hold ourselves up. And if we do enough Bodywork, they can be corrected a lot, with no need to try to tighten again, because now we’re better aligned with the force of gravity. The weight of one part of us, like the head, is better balanced on top of all the other parts underneath it. And the torso is better balanced on top of the legs. Further, because each section of the body is not so “tied up” in holding each other in a fixed position, each of the sections then operates even more flexibly; they can move around much more easily, into more positions. People really say it’s like getting a “lube job.” The parts can even move around when the other parts are staying still. Yet the parts also work together better when we want to make “whole-body” movements. Even my top level Olympic Athletes felt this difference. That’s why we say we can become more “integrated,” and why we call this the “Structural Integration” Method. People also feel that their energy and blood flows are working better. Laboratory tests have shown this to be true. Athletes at all levels also notice that their cell nourishment and waste removal is better, their endurance picks up and their recovery time from intense effort is less. The muscle and bone system is also working more the way it’s designed to work with our nerve signals, so athletes find their movements go more where they want them to go, and easier. People also said they had more power and more than one man specifically said he could lift more weight. All of this is called a greater economy of effort. We can do more with less effort. That also means we expend less energy. So we feel better at the end of a day, or after a big workout, because we’ve used less energy and nutrients, our movements were easier and we felt better doing them, both our waste products went out and new nourishment went in, faster, and we didn’t tighten up as much. Further, because our bodies are now arranged so they want to be less tight, any short-term accumulation will more easily release by itself and definitely release better with stretching. --------------- The structural re-alignment and integration helps our long term psychological behavior, too, not just our immediate mental and emotional demeanor Because our minds sense the physical condition of the body and factor this in to how we are feeling, this better balance and integration lays a foundation for how we will relate inter-personally. When we were zig-zagged and tight, we were pulling against ourselves in opposite directions and fighting with gravity. That condition had a significant influence on the various relationships and activities we had during the day. A major part of our being was in a tense fight to hold ourselves up against our environment (gravity). This was an “overlay” to whatever else we might feel when we’re doing something or relating with other people. Now that we’ve become better in all these ways, we have actually changed the physical and energetic way we are relating to that environment. No matter that you might think it was just a physical strain against the power of the earth, that strain was affecting our physiological functions and energy flows and it was affecting our moment-by-moment consideration about how we have to be, in whatever social or business situation we happen to find ourselves in. We were still on planet Earth. And we were still frozen tight in those zig-zags. And that was negative. The new condition has a significant influence on our daily interactions with people in our environment, too, in many ways. And these are more positive. So, we are making better performing bodies, in sports, in the performing arts and in just everyday life. We improve both movement and physiology, and we improve what we call psychology, too. And this makes a big change, even when people are already elite level athletes or accomplished performing artists. Structural Integration also allows other treatments to work better. Once the long-term restriction is removed, the body responds better. Massage can go deeper, even more comfortably, and will also re-lengthen some of the daily re-bunching up. Chiropractic can, as I said, get more vertebrae to go in, and they usually stay in longer. Acupuncture gets better energy flow improvements. Stretching and yoga positions can be gotten into easier, and the stretch gives way better. Nutrition can do more because the removal of the tightness creates better circulation and “cell respiration.” The change in our shapes also makes breathing deeper, so we get more oxygen in, and there’s less tension on the abdominal organs so even colonics can do more. People even report their psychotherapy and personal growth practices are more productive, because they can see and understand their issues better, and there’s less resistance to developing new and better behaviors. Years, and even decades of accumulated tightness and stored emotional charge can be removed in a matter of hours. And once it’s gone, it’s gone! Over the past 40 years, Structural Integration Bodywork has been performed on hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, worldwide. And there are now thousands of people trained in how to do it.
It is a “wonderful
investment” that can significantly improve the rest of our lives. It improves
health, relationships, and even career development.
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