When I started the Anatomy Trains Structural Integration training, I was sitting by the dock when my Dad whispered,
“You are going to be given the keys to the human body, what are you going to do with them?”
The meat and potatoes of ATSI is a sequence of myofascial release sessions coupled with movement education, designed to evoke easy alignment in gravity. It’s roots lay within Dr. Ida P. Rolf’s groundbreaking 10 series recipe, which Tom Myer’s extended to the 12 series, based on his theories of myofascial lines of continuity through the human body. Alas playing into the overused, never seems to get old bodywork joke that “it’s all connected.”
It truly is all connected and the 12 series is designed to reveal what that “it” actually is.
So in answer to my Dad’s question, I’m going to start with what feels familiar. We take everywhere we’ve ever been, everywhere we ever go - so these keys will sit alongside Visionary Craniosacral Work, Peruvian and Celtic Shamanism, Visceral Manipulation and Soul Tarot. But I promise, Dr. Rolf, to always keep my physics under my metaphysics.
When neat and tidy, the 12 series can be seen as three parts consisting of four sessions each.
The first four revolve around the superficial sleeves of myofascia; front, back, sides and spirals. They are the first line of the Major Arcana of the Tarot, which asks, Who Am I? How have I been shaped by the world around me? Our goal is to introduce the work, get this layer free, open, and receptive. Ultimately the best way I can describe the experience of the first four sessions is that it’s similar to the feeling of waking up in a new country. You’re plenty aware that the roots of your life are alive and well back home (or maybe not so well), but the new scenery and reality provides a fresh and liberating perspective.
The second set of four is the deep core, shall we say the dark knight of the soul? We are in line two of the Major Arcana, the chrysalis. With the superficial layers open, we can begin to address the deeper keys that might be behind the right side compression, pelvic rotation or head forward posture. We methodically work through the anatomical representations of your core, and that is as real as it gets folks. My best advice - stay the course, be open to process what arises (you may be surprised). Pay attention to the situations that come up in your life, the emotions, stories and dreams.
In every journey there is a fulcrum, a still point, where the tide changes from one direction to another. The concept of a fulcrum in bodywork always seemed quite elusive to me, until I experienced one in real life. I found myself at a full moon swim in Ireland, standing chest deep in the chilly Atlantic Ocean surrounded by a circle of women. There was one woman in the middle, wearing red lipstick, pearls and she was singing opera. I don’t like opera, but it was so potent, akin to an out of body experience, but I couldn’t have been more in my body at that moment. But that’s what a fulcrum does, it opens the door to the heart’s most prominent unanswered questions. The things we haven’t been willing to see, but once we do, we can make the choice to move forward. “Growth is a paradox”, Fritz Perls founder of Gestalt Therapy is quoted saying, “it requires both effort and surrender.”
In part three, we begin to reintegrate the superficial with the deep. We will revisit that sacred wish of yours that inspired this journey in the first place. Are there any stones that we have left unturned? What have we seen and accomplished thus far? Where does your healing want to go next? Ultimately our goal here is resolution, like Humpty Dumpty, we put you back together again and prepare you for completion.
Now you may ask, am I ready for this work?
Do I really need this work?
Fritz Perls used to challenge his clients by asking,
“When did you die?
When did you stop singing?
When did you stop dancing?
When did you stop enjoying the sweet territory of silence?”
So the question is not if some of us need this work and others of us don’t. It’s a matter of when are you ready, I’ll see you the airport.
P.S. My Dog Moss Man has also been certified by Tom Myer’s to practice Structural Integration.
