My dog, the star of my canine mfr video "Jake", has come up with a new game. He goes into our backyard. This causes the rabbits to run under the deck to get away from him. This in turn keeps Jake on the deck looking and smelling through the spacing in the decking to "chase" the rabbits. He runs from one place to another, chasing after the rabbits, as they move to avoid his scrutiny. If one of the rabbits decides that the best solution to the dog is to stay still he scratches at the deck to get them to move. It frustrates the you know what out of him but he loves it. Or should I say he's addicted to it. It's really not much different to my addiction to TV or the internet.
As I'm writing this Jake and me are outside on the deck. He's taking a break from the rabbits. Perhaps he got bored with his cure for his boredom, who knows why he's on break?
It has me contemplating how much of my time is spent in my habitual pattern. This is something we talk about in Meditation as well as Rolfing. How we become habituated to our simple activities, the easy ones, or easy way of doing things. I have taken this a little bit further to suggest that this is how we survive. Through the a minimum expenditure of energy to accomplish a task. If we habituate something than it becomes "natural" and easy. From the Rolfing body view we can say that this habituation originates in an avoidance of a restriction, which makes it easier to follow a certain movement path. In meditation we could say that each action plants a karmic seed which will come to fruition later when the same conditions arise. In other words if Jake scratches on the deck to get at the rabbits and I get mad at him this plants a seed of being mad. The next time he scratches--the condition--that karmic seed of mad can come to fruition. If through meditation I become familiar with my mind and its speed I can make a break the habit and decide if I want to get mad or ? That plants the seed of decision which eventually may over plant the seeds of mad. Complicated eh?
Back to the body's habitual patterns. My premise is that a body will not, should not change what we consider a habitual pattern if that pattern is energetically efficient, unless we propose to it one that is more efficient. We can experience this on the micro level as a guide to our work at a more macro level. We all approach our work with hoping to see a change in our client's structure, movement, etc.. This is the macro. We all have to try and translate this macro strategy into a series of smaller micro interventions that will hopefully accumulate into the resulting macro change. Unfortunately we sometimes get hooked into a habitual pattern while working with our client that is not supporting the micro.
What I am saying is that every micro intervention has to be accepted as an energy efficient change by the body to be accepted. If not than we risk depleting the client's available adaptive capacity and not getting the results we hoped for.
My suggestion to people who train with me is to make small interventions. If these are accepted--as evidenced by local tissue change--than continue with that. If they are not accepted stop and reconsider the local intervention in favor or a different one that is accepted.
This is contrary to what happens in most massage settings or anything that promotes a routine--read habituated pattern--that does not allow for local evaluation of efficacy. This is a sacrifice of the local in hopes of a larger global change--usually one where the client becomes "spaced" out. I'm advocating for local change in support of a more global one. With this strategy we are working with the body and allowing it to direct its own change, one that benefits it more energetically.
Any thoughts?
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Where have the Innovators gone?
I've been on this tantrum about the lack of adaptation of human therapies to animals. For those of you who haven't been bored by this in the past, what I mean is that too often human therapies are applied to animals without thinking about how they may need to be changed/adapted to better work with the animal. For instance, massage therapists who are taught to keep their hands on the animal for the entire massage, similar to what occurs with human massage training, with no thought to how this affects the animal's nervous system.
There was a time when we had some pioneers in the animal world who were willing to "translate" their human therapeutic specialty to animals. For instance Linda Tellington-Jones, who pioneered the use of Feldenkreis techniques to the animal world, especially horses. Some would suggest that Jack Meagher did this with the work of Travell and Simmons and Trigger Point therapy, but I disagree that this was translated--it was simple copied over with some mistakes, like "rotator cuff"...
Recently I saw two examples of simply taking a human therapy's title and applying it to animals: Pilates for Horses, Yoga for dogs. The Pilates for horses is really troubling to me, since as a Rolfer I am concerned when someone who is not trained in Rolfing calls their work this. (It's an irrational response but one I acknowledge having.) This so called pilates therapy for horses consists of some simple stretches that are induced by using a treat--this is the only way my horses get any "finger" food, they have to work for it by stretching. (When I was first developping my equine series I videoed my horse before and after while inducing these "treat" stretches since they repeatable and the tissue response was evidently different.)
Calling these new interventions by a name associated with human therapy--pilates or yoga--is a misleading way of subsuming the reputation of the human therapy and suggesting that these animal "versions" have the same therapeutic benefit as the human one enjoys.
This use of a human therapies branding leads to a dumbing down of the therapy when it is applied to animals, which in turn leads to a dumbing down of the therapist who applys these therapies with humans. What I mean is that the animal therapist stops their critical thinking about how the animal views the world, moves through the world and is motivated. I read another article in which an equine massage therapist was qouted as saying that horses will, I'm paraphrasing hold emotional stress in their shoulders. just like humans in stressful jobs will. Huh? To me this kind of statement can only come from ignorance of the difference in how humans and horses view their environment.
There was a time when we had some pioneers in the animal world who were willing to "translate" their human therapeutic specialty to animals. For instance Linda Tellington-Jones, who pioneered the use of Feldenkreis techniques to the animal world, especially horses. Some would suggest that Jack Meagher did this with the work of Travell and Simmons and Trigger Point therapy, but I disagree that this was translated--it was simple copied over with some mistakes, like "rotator cuff"...
Recently I saw two examples of simply taking a human therapy's title and applying it to animals: Pilates for Horses, Yoga for dogs. The Pilates for horses is really troubling to me, since as a Rolfer I am concerned when someone who is not trained in Rolfing calls their work this. (It's an irrational response but one I acknowledge having.) This so called pilates therapy for horses consists of some simple stretches that are induced by using a treat--this is the only way my horses get any "finger" food, they have to work for it by stretching. (When I was first developping my equine series I videoed my horse before and after while inducing these "treat" stretches since they repeatable and the tissue response was evidently different.)
Calling these new interventions by a name associated with human therapy--pilates or yoga--is a misleading way of subsuming the reputation of the human therapy and suggesting that these animal "versions" have the same therapeutic benefit as the human one enjoys.
This use of a human therapies branding leads to a dumbing down of the therapy when it is applied to animals, which in turn leads to a dumbing down of the therapist who applys these therapies with humans. What I mean is that the animal therapist stops their critical thinking about how the animal views the world, moves through the world and is motivated. I read another article in which an equine massage therapist was qouted as saying that horses will, I'm paraphrasing hold emotional stress in their shoulders. just like humans in stressful jobs will. Huh? To me this kind of statement can only come from ignorance of the difference in how humans and horses view their environment.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
How much translation is needed?
I've been working on a tantrum lately about how little the animal body therapy world is doing to develop itself as a unique industry. Rather than approaching the quadruped's body and mind as unique and requiring it's own approach, we too often just take the work being done with humans and assume that they'll work with animals--by this I mean animal quadrupeds.
In the past I worried that animal massage therapists were simply taking human techniques and applying them to animals without any translation for the structural and nervous control differences of between the species. Anthropomorphism in body therapy if you will. This even goes so far as to have the ridiculous measure of time--a marketing measure, not a therapeutic one--applied to the animal in the same way it is to the human. I mean where did 1 hour come about as anything more than a possible way to sell oneself? Chiropractors don't sell their services by time! Neither do medical doctors or dentists or farriers... but the animal therapist copying the human therapist sells their services by the hour, rather than the benefit or by surface area of the animal. OR, perhaps more appropriately the animal's ability to remain focused on the work.
The latest contribution to my tantrum is an article I read on "Pilates" for horses. This was a report on how one of my favorite researchers has fallen into the trance of thinking that work developed for humans--in this case core stabilization, which I'm not sure about--can be used with horses with translation. This requires that the quadruped's transverse abdominus acts the same in both species. The the quadrupedal "core" is the same as the human "core". (It seems to this simpe Rolfer that standing on two legs is more difficult than standing on four, and that human back pain may be caused by a completely different action than bi-pedal pain is.)
I'm really concerned that unless we animal therapists start to do our own research and develop our own methods that we'll be marginalized.
It's time to feed the horses and walk in the mud.
In the past I worried that animal massage therapists were simply taking human techniques and applying them to animals without any translation for the structural and nervous control differences of between the species. Anthropomorphism in body therapy if you will. This even goes so far as to have the ridiculous measure of time--a marketing measure, not a therapeutic one--applied to the animal in the same way it is to the human. I mean where did 1 hour come about as anything more than a possible way to sell oneself? Chiropractors don't sell their services by time! Neither do medical doctors or dentists or farriers... but the animal therapist copying the human therapist sells their services by the hour, rather than the benefit or by surface area of the animal. OR, perhaps more appropriately the animal's ability to remain focused on the work.
The latest contribution to my tantrum is an article I read on "Pilates" for horses. This was a report on how one of my favorite researchers has fallen into the trance of thinking that work developed for humans--in this case core stabilization, which I'm not sure about--can be used with horses with translation. This requires that the quadruped's transverse abdominus acts the same in both species. The the quadrupedal "core" is the same as the human "core". (It seems to this simpe Rolfer that standing on two legs is more difficult than standing on four, and that human back pain may be caused by a completely different action than bi-pedal pain is.)
I'm really concerned that unless we animal therapists start to do our own research and develop our own methods that we'll be marginalized.
It's time to feed the horses and walk in the mud.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Caution Pay Attention
I just finished instructing an basic myofascial equine course. We worked with horses at the Colorado Horse Rescue (CHR). The staff at CHR picked a number of horses, two per student, for us to work with, when I spotted one that I actually liked the look of. It turns out that this horse was a "surrender", which means that the people the had it previously gave it up voluntarily for some reason. The horse had a very bad wind sucking addiction, the horse would crib on every wooden post in the pasture. When I inquired about the horse to the manager of the day I was told he had a vicious habit of biting people.
In the fifteen years I've been rolfing horses I've drifted towards wanting to work with horses, or dogs, that are more "challenged" in their relationship to humans than to those that are simply having performance problems. So, the next day we brought out this troubled horse to work with him. When working these kinds of horses it's imperative that one be fully aware of what is happening. I like to work with them alone, in a round pen is best, with the handler outside the pen so I can fully concentrate on the horse.
I worked with the horse for two sessiosn with no real attitude problems. There were a couple of minor bucks when I tried to work around a vertebral subluxation, but nothing too dramatic.
By the third session the horse came up to the pasture gate to meet me when I went out to get him. I was really confident that he was sooo much better that I stopped paying attention to him as a potentially dangerous horse and worked on his back. It happened with lightening speed, all I felt was the teeth racking my back. Luckily--this is actually a terrible thing to say--the horse had cribbed so much that he had worn his teeth down to knubs and what I felt on my back was the knubs scratching my back. It was actually kind of pleasant. There was no aggression in what this horse did, it was just his way of protecting himself, and when it was over I, assisted by one of the students who is very fine horseman, was able to continue to work with the horses back, no more trouble.
Ok, a little more trouble came when I decided to work with the horse's adductors in a way I never work with them and I got a lightning face kick to the lower leg. It sounded horrendous, but didn't really hurt that much and in fact I don't even have a mark on my leg--thick boned Italian.
The point I want to make is that horses are fast and their size relative to us makes them dangerous. We need to always be aware of where we are with them and what they are telling us.
In 15 years I've been bit twice now and kicked twice, by two horses not a bad record, but I would prefer that it was still at one time instead of two.
Be aware and be careful.
In the fifteen years I've been rolfing horses I've drifted towards wanting to work with horses, or dogs, that are more "challenged" in their relationship to humans than to those that are simply having performance problems. So, the next day we brought out this troubled horse to work with him. When working these kinds of horses it's imperative that one be fully aware of what is happening. I like to work with them alone, in a round pen is best, with the handler outside the pen so I can fully concentrate on the horse.
I worked with the horse for two sessiosn with no real attitude problems. There were a couple of minor bucks when I tried to work around a vertebral subluxation, but nothing too dramatic.
By the third session the horse came up to the pasture gate to meet me when I went out to get him. I was really confident that he was sooo much better that I stopped paying attention to him as a potentially dangerous horse and worked on his back. It happened with lightening speed, all I felt was the teeth racking my back. Luckily--this is actually a terrible thing to say--the horse had cribbed so much that he had worn his teeth down to knubs and what I felt on my back was the knubs scratching my back. It was actually kind of pleasant. There was no aggression in what this horse did, it was just his way of protecting himself, and when it was over I, assisted by one of the students who is very fine horseman, was able to continue to work with the horses back, no more trouble.
Ok, a little more trouble came when I decided to work with the horse's adductors in a way I never work with them and I got a lightning face kick to the lower leg. It sounded horrendous, but didn't really hurt that much and in fact I don't even have a mark on my leg--thick boned Italian.
The point I want to make is that horses are fast and their size relative to us makes them dangerous. We need to always be aware of where we are with them and what they are telling us.
In 15 years I've been bit twice now and kicked twice, by two horses not a bad record, but I would prefer that it was still at one time instead of two.
Be aware and be careful.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Playing Hooky
I'm feeling a little guilty, since I'm supposed to be finishing an article for a magazine and instead I'm writing here. But that's not the only thing that's keeping me away from the article. I've been working in a number of animations for the online course, which leads me to what I wanted to write about.
One of the things I like to do, to get inspiration for doing the animations, is look at the work of other people. I was having a problem with a "particle system", which I'm using to illustrate an embryology concept--this is one of those things that Rolfers seem to all do when we are explaining fascia, that being we resort to embryology to show that the body is not made up of "parts"--and searched the net to see if anyone else had solved this problem. What I found was a great website for a film/media school that had a montage of their work. www.brandnewschool.com
At the beginning of the montage the video had a roll of welcome text in different languages. Each language was in a different color and each sentence was on it's own line. So, the first line in each language came first. Then the second line in the paragraph...so that the languages were interspersed and you had to pick yours out of each paragraph. At first this was really confusing to me, but soon, within one or two lines my eye was locked on to the white english text.
This really interested me, so I ran the montage again and tried to not read the english but the concentrate on the german. Again, my eyes locked on the english.
Now I'm fascinated and wonder if this is indicative of how we see things we "know" but don't see things we don't know. You know?
Do any of you know if there's research into this kind of thing--beyond "what the blib do we know..."?
Ok, back to the article.
One of the things I like to do, to get inspiration for doing the animations, is look at the work of other people. I was having a problem with a "particle system", which I'm using to illustrate an embryology concept--this is one of those things that Rolfers seem to all do when we are explaining fascia, that being we resort to embryology to show that the body is not made up of "parts"--and searched the net to see if anyone else had solved this problem. What I found was a great website for a film/media school that had a montage of their work. www.brandnewschool.com
At the beginning of the montage the video had a roll of welcome text in different languages. Each language was in a different color and each sentence was on it's own line. So, the first line in each language came first. Then the second line in the paragraph...so that the languages were interspersed and you had to pick yours out of each paragraph. At first this was really confusing to me, but soon, within one or two lines my eye was locked on to the white english text.
This really interested me, so I ran the montage again and tried to not read the english but the concentrate on the german. Again, my eyes locked on the english.
Now I'm fascinated and wonder if this is indicative of how we see things we "know" but don't see things we don't know. You know?
Do any of you know if there's research into this kind of thing--beyond "what the blib do we know..."?
Ok, back to the article.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
How much should we "dumb-down"?
When I decided to leave engineering for health care, I took a year long anatomy and physiology course at the University of Colorado. Since I was late in applying to school I had to get on the "wait" list for the class. There were 300 people in the auditorium when I went to the first class!
I asked the professor after the first lecture if there was any real chance to get in the class. He, told me to wait until after the first exam and there would be plenty of room. He was right. After the first exam over 50% of the class dropped since it was so hard.
When the professor was challenged about how difficult the exam was he responded " So many of you want to be doctors. If I ever have to go into surgery and one of you are the surgeon I will be very comfortable knowing you know your A&P.".
This is how I run my classes, they are for people who are willing to push themselves to learn what they don't already know.
It seems like we--this is the collective we of people who instruct others--try to dumb things down so much that I wonder if we know what we are talking about. This will only harm the field of animal body therapy.
I asked the professor after the first lecture if there was any real chance to get in the class. He, told me to wait until after the first exam and there would be plenty of room. He was right. After the first exam over 50% of the class dropped since it was so hard.
When the professor was challenged about how difficult the exam was he responded " So many of you want to be doctors. If I ever have to go into surgery and one of you are the surgeon I will be very comfortable knowing you know your A&P.".
This is how I run my classes, they are for people who are willing to push themselves to learn what they don't already know.
It seems like we--this is the collective we of people who instruct others--try to dumb things down so much that I wonder if we know what we are talking about. This will only harm the field of animal body therapy.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
What to do?
These days people are all trying to figure out how to make ends meet. This may mean that they won't be spending as much on their and their animals alternative health care. This will be mostly true if they don't perceive a direct relationship between the therapy and they achievement of some goal they may have.
When I worked for Hewlett Packard as an engineering manager the country went through another recession, companies weren't buying our products. During this time I heard about the strategy that Intel Corporation had for these types of economic downturns; they spent more money on the research and development to be able to produce better products and lead the market once there was a turn around in the economy.
We can and should do something similar to Intel, by investing in our own training. By gaining a new skill or, better yet, improving one we already have, we'll be poised to help our clients when they are able to afford our work again.
Spend time keeping in touch with your clients so they know you are still out there and that you are continuing with your development. You want to be on the "top" of their mind when they think about alternative therapies for their animals again.
Take time to get together with your colleagues and share our knowledge with them. If you belong to a discussion group participate in it. I recently started a discussion forum on www.animalsi.com please feel free to join it. I am asked every week for referrals to good body therapists, this is a way to make yourself known.
I like to spend my down time going over my course notes from my previous trainings, re-reading books, and looking for new ideas.
The most important thing is to stay involved with your work, keep your hands tuned up and let people know you're still out there.
When I worked for Hewlett Packard as an engineering manager the country went through another recession, companies weren't buying our products. During this time I heard about the strategy that Intel Corporation had for these types of economic downturns; they spent more money on the research and development to be able to produce better products and lead the market once there was a turn around in the economy.
We can and should do something similar to Intel, by investing in our own training. By gaining a new skill or, better yet, improving one we already have, we'll be poised to help our clients when they are able to afford our work again.
Spend time keeping in touch with your clients so they know you are still out there and that you are continuing with your development. You want to be on the "top" of their mind when they think about alternative therapies for their animals again.
Take time to get together with your colleagues and share our knowledge with them. If you belong to a discussion group participate in it. I recently started a discussion forum on www.animalsi.com please feel free to join it. I am asked every week for referrals to good body therapists, this is a way to make yourself known.
I like to spend my down time going over my course notes from my previous trainings, re-reading books, and looking for new ideas.
The most important thing is to stay involved with your work, keep your hands tuned up and let people know you're still out there.
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