This page explains the movements that babies use to develop integration of different parts of the body. The first video explains the stage of infant development where these movements appear. The second video explains more about the connection between the meridians of the Integrating Family and the movements. The third video demonstrates bodywork to activate the Jue Yin, particularly the leg Jue Yin whose movements basically develop along the Liver Meridian. The fourth video shows some Inner Qigong exercises to activate the psoas.
The Key point of working with the Psoas is to get an experience of ‘Lengthening with Tone’. You can use the same process in every and any muscle of the body and then muscles become communicators and connectors rather than controllers. The more that muscles learn to keep tone while lengthening, the less need the nervous system has to control movement. Instead of the movements being controlled from the central nervous system as a pre-programmed pattern, the movement of one part of the body connects to its neighbour and activates the next movement in a way that smoothly adapts to the situation. So movements become smooth and graceful rather than awkward and jerky.
I find that working with these movements also helps other forms of jerkiness in movement such as essential tremor, spastic cerebral palsy and dyspraxia. Particularly these movements lessen the load on the thalamus in the brain. The thalamus is like the central switchboard in the brain – receiving sensations from all the senses (except for smell) and integrating them before passing them on to the cortex. Also receiving efferent messages from the motor cortex intending movement and, with the cerebellum, using feedback from proprioceptive senses to modify the action to create the movement that the motor cortex is ‘wanting’.
The more detailed the proprioception is, the less load is put on the thalamus to integrate movement and intention. This is why these “Lengthening with Tone” movements help integration because they increase the sense of connection between different body parts and thus give more detailed proprioceptive information to the thalamus and cerebellum.
The third and fourth videos (the practical ones) focus on the foundation of connection in the body – the Yin side of the Integrating Family guided by the Jue Yin meridians (the Liver and Pericardium). This give the body a feeling of being whole and connected while resting. The next stage is to develop connection while moving.
To practice this we use the spiral movements of the Shao Yang (Gall Bladder and Triple Heater meridians). Spiral movements in the body naturally connect the movements of one part to its neighbours, which then develops movement progressively through the whole body. The videos of the Inner Qigong of the Shao Yang show how to develop and practice these spirals.
Infant Development of Integration
Explaining the Integrating Family of Meridians
Bodywork to Activate the Psoas Muscle
Inner Qigong: Self-Activating the Psoas Muscle & Leg Jue Yin