I remember a day in 1978; I was 37, long an adult who contained my movements to normal daily routines of driving, teaching at a university, and appropriate exercise…running and weights. I was on a beach in Southern California with three men friends…sizable guys…when someone started a sand fight. We rolled, ran in wild patterns, and scrambled in a pile. I thought how crazy I was…these guys could trample me, but I was having more fun than I could remember. I felt ten years old and totally free. The only reason my grin did not spread all the way across my face…I would have a mouthful of sand!
My body listening to its inner guide and playing
Every bit of my body was alive, and today I understand a great deal more about what actually happened inside. About giving myself permission to move in any way my body wanted to move. About what my body knows that my mind cannot fathom.
Have you watched very young children as they play in a free environment…without little chairs and rigid furniture to conform to? How about a pile of kittens or even adult animals? Think of the large apes swinging in the trees or tying their bodies in knots as they reach for a remote itch. Our bodies long for that forbidden level of movement long after it has been “trained” out of us by family, school, church, society, the military, and advertising, etc.
These body-directed movements produce vital changes inside…increased oxygen through the circulatory system, improved cleansing of wastes in little-used parts of the body (brought on by our limited range of motion in daily life), stimulation of the piezoelectric effect which has the potential to stimulate the stem cell system (including the embryonic level) for all its healing power, and not least increased range of motion to engage long dormant parts of the musculoskeletal system, opening constrictions and delivering life and joy. With so many benefits why do we procrastinate starting our personal program of movement?
There are numerous movement systems that have evolved to give us the permission to move as we did at one and two years of age. Organic Stretching® is such a system, built on a structure of principles to guide the movements, producing positive results for countless people. It is the teaching system I developed from a background in The Wallace Method, a pain management program created by Heather Wallace.
Deane Juhan, author of Job’s Body: A Handbook for Bodywork and Touched by the Goddess: The Physical, Psychological and Spiritual Powers of Bodywork and TraegerWork® Practitioner/Instructor (CEU certified), wrote the following review for my video Organic Stretching®: The Principles and Movements:
Pat Henry’s DVD, Organic Stretching, is much more than just another how-to offering of poses and procedures. It is a dynamically exploratory invitation to sculpt your own yoga and to develop the strength and flexibility that are unique to you. Well thought-out and innovative examples of stretching movements are, of course, presented (with aesthetic beauty, I would add), rich ideas for getting started in the evolving of your own personal practice. But more importantly than that, Pat’s purpose is to lead you beyond the imitation of asanas and protocols, into an organic unfolding of your own body’s needs and capacities and your own individualized path to vitality. Very like Trungpa’s groundbreaking Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism in spirit and intention, Organic Stretching cuts through imitative discipline and opens the door to the celebration of your own idiosyncratic being and its expression–like no other’s–in your own joy of movement and self-development.
Give your body the Gift of Life, February 17 – 19, when I will be offering the Organic Stretching Weekend Workshop for the 2012 season at Inkarri Vallarta, a lovely meditation center easily accessible by bus in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The course includes ten hours of instruction over the weekend with convenient daytime classes and a copy of the video. See the calendar for the next scheduled workshop.
