"What are you doing during the treatment?" is a valid question to ask me. And I am trying my best to explain, but sometimes I can not find the correct words. At the moment I am studying for my CE (continuing education class) and here are some explanations that I have learnt years ago, but now am reading in this book. This explanation is my own version and will not give the whole picture about your pain or nervous system but explain the way I look at things.
*Tissues want to be in an ideal position of comfort.
This is both good thing, since the body always is trying to avoid (local) pain, and a bad thing when the most comfortable position is a learnt habit/posture which is not ideal in the big picture. I give you an example: our right leg is so used to be active during driving a car that our nervous system makes an assumpion to use that leg more than the other. That leads to over-compensation which leads to constant rotation of (right side of) the hip. That is comfortable and 'ideal position' for a leg, but not at all for the hip.
*In an injury of any muscle, protective muscle spasms are activated to guard the injured. This is pretty much a reflex at the muscle level which means that you can not prevent this reflex to happen.
Reflexes are amazing functions of our bodies and they are switched on instantly, but how can you switch them off, when this guarding function is no longer needed? That is a very complicated question, since our body very well adapts to it's current levels of functioning (for example, you need to check your blood pressure and blood sugars because you can't feel changes happening). Our body adapts itself in a various, complicated ways and in my work we sometimes find a client's kinesic chain of movement functioning in a weird, adapted way because it is used to do so. In these cases we are trying to re-educate the muscles (and other soft tissues) to function in a better (and usually also original) way.
One example of this can be a wrist pain after falling down: nothing is broken, but using your mouse on your computer will be a bit uncomfortable the week after and you will adjust your wrist and forearm movements a bit. So, first, muscle spasms were activated during the fall to guard the joints of your wrist. Second thing happened litte later, when muscles of the forearm adjusted to this and changed their ’normal’ pathways. Two or so weeks later there is no more pain in the wrist, but your elbow is getting to feel funky... So which one is to blaim: the wrist, where a protectice spasm did it’s job after a fall, or the elbow, which tried it’s best to change it’s movement patterns to adjust to the wrist?
This is a simple example of one pattern of kinesic chain I am trying to figure out in my work! Each and every part of the body functions with others and sometimes my work is to be detective. And, again, I need your help to do that: You are the expert of your body and your feedback during the treatment is essential! I can not make a change, but I can lead the way for your body to make it’s own changes.
You are very wellcome to experience my treatment: Balanced is Painless and Balance is Kata’s Way!
