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4) How
and why was Flextasy™ developed?
Flextasy™
was developed out of my desire to minimize the need of frequent
physical therapy for myself and my clients and to alleviate
and hopefully eliminate the chronic aches and pains I, like
perhaps you and a vast majority of others, endure on a daily
basis.
I had the good fortune of having as a teacher,
mentor, friend, and bodyworker, an exceptional healer from
India, named Usha. I enjoyed frequent (difficult) lessons
and life-changing therapy for over a decade (into the present,
though sporadic). I had little need of personal maintenance
as I knew that help was only a phone call and some dollars
away. She was, among the other things listed above, my insurance
policy. Perhaps you have a similar human insurance policy?
Everything was fine until she decided to get married and relocate
to the other side of the country. It was at this time that
I realized that I had better come up with some way of taking
care of my body by myself, as I knew that trying to replace
Usha would be a futile and frustrating process.
It was also at this time that my own process
of practicing bodywork was becoming increasingly frustrating.
I would see changes in the clients I was working with but
was not pleased with the percentage of the change which was
lasting. I had been under the impression that 100% of the
results were dependent on the hands-on work I did with my
clients. Over time I came to understand that the hands-on
work entailed only 1/3 of the phenomenon which would create
lasting change in a distorted, painful body. The other two
missing parts, equal in importance, I discovered to be Awareness
and Maintenance.
Three aspects need to be addressed if any
form of physical therapy and rehabilitation is to succeed.
These are Hands-on Work, Body Awareness, and Self-Maintenance.
This realization was crucial to the development
of the Flextasy™ series of movements which includes all
three of these aspects necessary for lasting change. As you
practice your Flextasy™ movements you are performing
bodywork of the highest degree on yourself, affecting circulation,
structure, energetics, and movement reorientation. Positive
effects, both physically and emotionally, will be noticed
as tension drains from your body and you learn how not to
internalize the stress which accumulates to produce tension.
By paying attention to your breath and to what every part
of your body is doing at all times, your sense of how your
body moves through space and relates to gravity is heightened.
Practicing Flextasy™ is like having daily treatments
from a whole platoon of different therapists working on every
aspect of your being!
There is tremendous power in taking responsibility
for your own malfunctions and healing, to whatever degree
is possible.
I began thinking of things my clients could
do which would support the hands-on work I was doing so that
I would not have to repeat the same work over and over again,
session after session. It was becoming clear to me what movements
the client would have to do on a daily basis in order to integrate
the change which was occurring during the bodywork sessions:
that meant MAINTENANCE! It was also apparent that the client
would have to step out of the role of passive participant
and begin taking responsibility for what they were doing with
their bodies throughout the day when not with me: that meant
AWARENESS!
After all, aren’t our bodies the way
they are as a result of what we do with them consistently
on a daily basis?
I began to think of myself less as a healer
and more as a coach. In addition to hands-on bodywork, I brought
their habitual movement patterns to their attention and showed
them specific movements which I knew would help reorganize
their bodies and help them to become aware of new possibilities
of movement. I also tried my best to inspire them to pay attention
to their body mechanics as they went about their lives in
their bodies.
I had experimented with traditional stretching,
martial arts, calisthenics, and yoga, as well as running,
swimming, and weight training. I knew that all of these things
were supposed to be good for me, but my body was still in
fairly chronic pain (originally stemming from a herniated
disk injury suffered at age 21), and my body was not that
much more flexible (if at all) than it was when I started.
I had received well over 200 deep bodywork sessions, including
all the well-known modalities, but I still knew very little
about my own body. Proper posture was still a tormenting struggle
to maintain and even though the pain in the various parts
of my body would diminish or seem to disappear, it would only
be a matter of time before I would be forced to call someone
again to try and fix me, or if my finances were not up to
it, to stoically grin and bear it. Sound familiar?
Realizing that I would like to be able to
move better than most people I saw getting older, I set about
assembling a series of movements which I knew I would like
to be able to do now and as time passed by. My logic and experience
told me that any movements I would like to be able to make
as I grew older would need to be performed on a daily basis.
Exercises which involve a shortening of the
tissues used for the workout, like weights, running, cycling,
etc., cause a loss of flexibility. Whereas flexibility range
of motion exercises would not only keep me as flexible as
I started out, but would over time, allow my body to become
even more flexible. (This turned out to be the case and at
45, I am very much more flexible than I was at 30, 20, or
even playing the full range of sports in high school.)
Piece by piece, I observed and added movements
to my collection. During this whole time I was also busy teaching
myself and then others the rare, wonderful art of Tightrope
Walking. How that came about is a whole story in itself, which
I won’t go into now, but suffice to say, the wealth of
enlightening information I gathered about balance and body
mechanics was immensely enlightening and something very few
others have as a frame of reference. I discovered, from my
own practice and from watching and teaching others, what was
necessary to accomplish the remarkable phenomenon of walking
and performing tricks on a rope, even blindfolded!
Over a 3 year period I gathered movements
from many forms of physical culture. On these I superimposed
my experiential and working knowledge of body mechanics, balance,
hands-on structural release bodywork, and my intuition. I
accepted, rejected, or modified these moves to fit into my
understanding of flexibility, and movement reorientation.
Gradually, the series fell together into
its present form which is perfectly capable of taking your
body apart piece by piece and then reassembling it correctly.
This movement series will also give you a
new perspective of your body on a skeletal level. This is
something which is absolutely necessary, if dense, painful
tissue and a mis-aligned skeleton are to be normalized.
This set of movements I’ve named Flextasy™
is by no means the complete list of all possible range of
motion movements. It is though, a perfect place to start on
the long path which leads to a pain-free, flexible body immune
from most injuries. As your body, and your attitude towards
it, begins to change, your new knowledge of body mechanics
and your logic and intuition will guide you into other movement
forms which will be right for you.
Even if this initial set of Flextasy™
moves is all you ever practice for your flexibility maintenance,
you will be well enough off, (far better than most) and extremely
pleased, with the degree of flexibility, body awareness, and
the state of health and well-being which you will have attained.
Seek and you shall find.
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