Monday, September 26, 2016

Staying on top of Things: NEW TREATMENT

The fall and everything in pumpkin spice is here! I do like the colors of the fall (orange is my favorite), but I don't like pumpkin spice at all, so what a pathetic beginning of the post...

After the loooong and hot summer I have been trying to put together all the things I have recently learnt and make some kind of the synthesis in my head. I still haven't finished the Principles of Osteopathy, the book I have been reading for a long time. That's because this book is not an easy read at all, and I really want to understand what is meant in each an every page. I will get through it eventually, when my brains are ready for it.

But at this point I am very satisfied to look my life a few months back and see how much I have learned! After the move to US and struggling to begin and develop my business in the new country, I am so pleased to be in the point of my career where I can say that I have learned some new treatment techniques. I am developing  a new way of assessing and treating the rib cage area as a synthesis of everything I have learned so far.

In my original training in Finland the treatment of the ribs is mostly done in a seated position, so that the therapist sits behind the client and glides his/her fingers from sacrum area up towards cranium. When erector spinae and rotatores of the spine are softened, the therapist gently glides his/her fingers laterally to open up intercostal and serratus anterior muscles. This part of the treatment is one of my all time favorite (as a therapist, but also when receiving treatment myself), but that's pretty much what was taught for me about ribs.

This spring I learned basics of Total Body Balancing in the Ambrosio Institute, where a lot more emphasis was put on the front side of the rib cage. It is so amazing, how delicate, passive movement of the arm can affect the tissues on the surface of the sternum and ribs! In the Ambrosio Institute I also truly understood the meaning of parasympathetic nervous system in massage. Now I have more concepts and words to explain, what needs to happen during my treatment  from the nerves point of view!

As a topping to all this, I had an honor to meet Dr. Bruce Rind from Washington D.C. and see the treatment pattern he uses to help his patients. His technique is a result of years of practicing medicine and osteopathic treatments and contains many elements, which I do not or can not perform, but he gave me much information and confidence to put all my skills together! I do know how to relieve muscular tension in thoracic and abdominal area and along the spine. I have a training and skills to use Total Body Balancing technique. I can learn to utilize more kinesiology (I don't have kinesiology training in U.S. yet, only in Finland). And everything I have learned is under the principles of osteopathy.

I am so excited to help you with any structural or functional issues in the rib cage! You will be in safe hands, because I do work at the Chiropractic Office, so if we run into any questions I can not answer, there's more expertise advice in hand. I have developed a pretty large assessing tool to test the structural/functional differences between left and right side and in my treatment plan this assessment will be done in every 5th treatment, so we can monitor the change. I am anxious to test how this really works, so please contact me, if you feel like (or know) that there's a structural imbalance in your ribs! I will never use force or adjustment, my technique is gentle, massage and movement based soft tissue relaxation technique. I look forward meeting you soon!

This is Kata's Way and it means that Balanced in Painless! 

Monday, September 5, 2016

How am I doing this?

That is the question that I have to make myself every once and a while, and it's also a question my clients ask me, when they are worried about my fingers handling this job. My fingers and hands are doing really well, what sometimes bothers me, is actually my lower back. And that, my dear clients and friends, is the reason why I started my career as a bodyworker in the first place.

Let's put it this way: when I no longer have any low back (hip issues actually) trouble, I'll probably be dead. Because the truth is that all amazing bodyworkers' and therapist' have (had) some issues, so they are able to relate how it feels to be in pain and frustration. On our path of growing to a healer, you need to face different bodies, different issues and different situations, because you need to learn! You need to learn from books, from others, at school, in different situations and learn to make connections! That's actually my main thing: how different things connect to each others and what my role, as a facilitator for healing, in that process is. So, I am, actually, happy, that I need to face my own issues.

I also believe that everything we have experienced in this world, is stored in our body. The tension of the body, in it's simplest way, can be described as a guarding mechanism from pain. That is actually the most important function for muscles (together with moving the bones). Simply to keep a pain away. Sounds simple enough, but get s a bit trickier, when emotional and psychological pain is taking into consideration. An that is something I have tried to avoid for the longest time. I have always profiled myself as a healer of the physiological body. Recently I am getting to understand that you really can't separate the different parts of our being.

And that is the biggest lesson to learn. Don't get me wrong, I am, and will always be, the healer of the physiological body, but I also need to see the bigger picture: tho whole body and how it works. I, and you, need to respect the body's own ability to heal. When I will be a brilliant 88 years old grand old lady with all the knowledge and information about human body, I can still only be a facilitator for healing! That has been a big step to comprehend and some days I am still uncertain about my role as a BODYworker. 

So back to my body: I have these layers and layers of past experiences stored in me and everything seems (at this point) to linger around my (left) hip. It's like an onion (yes, it makes me cry) that I need to recognize and peel off, to get to the innermost. And I needed to learn all I have learned so far, to get to this point, and, I needed to leave my country to be able to see things more clearly. There is so much left to learn, but what I know now is the factual respect to our own bodies: nothing is left to undiscovered nor without consideration. My body knows the (different) truth (than my brains).

The wisdom lies not in the brain, but in the body. And that's why I need to do what I do! But I would never be where I am without this great network of mine. Because I'm so Finnish and modest, I won't list any names here. But you all who gathered to my house, live in my house, or who I met or messaged during past few days, are essential for me to keep developing in my path.

This is Kata's Way and that's Balanced just because Balanced is Painless! 

P.S. Our First Workshop this Fall is right on the Corner!