Dis-ease is felt when the internal harmony of the organism is broken. Many problems are caused by parts of the body not collaborating with each other and not taking care of each other.
Movement Shiatsu can be seen as group therapy for the internal community. In the community of parts which is our body, each part needs to feel free to move. But, even more, each part needs to know that it is valued by the others. A good way to generate that feeling in a group is to give each person the chance to lead the group and to experience ‘being followed’. The Seaweed Qigong is a way of doing this with the body.
Seaweed Qigong
The basic principle from this bodywork is that for joints to move harmoniously, both sides of the joint need to move together like two dancers – both dancers need to move to make a dance.
Working with the Knee
Exploring and Becoming an Explorer
One of the basic principles of Movement Shiatsu is to help the client to explore themselves, rather than depend on the therapist to tell them what is wrong and what to do.
The Breathing Exercise we demonstrated in the class is a good way of starting this process.
- Get the client to notice their breathing.
- Ask them to touch the area that starts the movement of breathing
- Ask them to consciously start the breathing from that place.
(This uses the principle of “Start from Ability – Don’t start by focusing on the problem”) - Ask them to choose another place to start the movement of breathing – one which they feel they could do.
- Ask them to touch that place and to experiment with starting the breathing from that place.
- repeat this process, gradually exploring areas that are more challenging or unusual.
- Suggest places that don’t actually move with the breathing – it’s still possible to get a feeling of starting the breath from that place. e.g. the back of the knee.