Tall tales are associated with the lore of the American frontier and spun around such legendary heroes as Paul Bunyan, the giant lumberjack of the Pacific Northwest; Davy Crockett, the backwoods Tennessee marksman, and Johnny Appleseed, who planted apple orchards from the east coast to the western frontier.
In the field of Clinical Somatics we have our own tall tale heroes such as F. M Alexander, Moshe Feldenkrais, and Ida Rolf.
One lesser known somatic pioneer was Gerda Alexander and her tale was about freeing the body, mind, and emotions from the stresses of modern life. Her great somatic discovery was that overly constricted tonus (muscle tone) can be relaxed by simple proprioceptive techniques.
Gerda Alexander influenced many other somatic pioneers including Moshé Feldenkrais, who based his Awareness Through Movement exercises on Gerda Alexander’s ideas and explorations.
For a first-person experience with some Gerda Alexander inspired (not official) proprioceptive exercises click here.
“Alexander’s long, intense sessions of sensory exploration had an effect not only on her own students but also on an Israeli admirer of her work, Moshe Feldenkrais. Feldenkrais, already trained in the techniques of F. Matthias Alexander when he was living in London, devised his famous Awareness Through Movement exercises by following Gerda Alexander’s format of intense sensory exploration while lying quietly on a floor.”
Moshe Feldenkrais with Thomas Hanna during the first American Functional Integration training (summers of 1975-1977)
Tonus
The concept of tonus is central to the practice of clinical somatics. In the book Somatics, Thomas Hanna explains,
All muscles have tone, or tonus; that is, a natural elasticity or ability to stretch and contract in response to stimuli. In the resting state, tonus is zero. So, if we have complete control of a muscle, we can achieve a muscle tonicity of zero complete relaxation. But if we lose our voluntary control of the muscle, its tonicity can increase to 10, 20, or even 40 percent. This is chronic muscular tension. (Hanna, 1988, p.13)
It is important to note that high tonus is not the same thing as muscle strength. Someone who works out at the gym can have strong muscles and at the same time have low tonus meaning that even though they have strong muscles they still have the ability to fully relax their muscles. To explain how muscles lose their ability to relax Thomas Hanna used the analogy of a running motor.
The chronically contracted muscle is like a motor that one cannot turn off. It continues to run and to burn up energy. This is why muscles with a high tonus are always sore. The glycogen, which is stored in the muscle for the energy of contraction, is constantly being burned up. The combustion of glycogen creates contraction, and the glycogen is then turned into lactic acid. If there is constant combustion, then there is a constant buildup of lactic acid, and the more acid there is, the more the muscle's sensory cells become irritated. A constant 10 percent buildup will create enough activity to make the muscle feel tired. A constant 40 percent buildup will create so much hot acidity around the pain receptor cells that the bloodstream cannot flush it away, and the muscle will constantly feel painful. (Hanna, 1988, p.13-14)
Eutony
Gerda Alexander considered eutonic, or organic, exercises as essential to relaxing tonus. Eutonic movements are instinctive and innate gestures such as stretching, yawning, sighing, energetic rubbing to warm oneself, or spontaneous movements of joy.
When yawning, for instance, the respiratory organs, considered as a system of tubes, open more fully, allowing for the intake of surplus air (oxygen). The breathing out which follows is often amplified by a sigh, the effect of which liberates the lungs in vigorously expulsing stale air. Yawning puts the respiratory organs into good condition and prepares the body for activity. (Alexander, G., & Brieghel-Muller, G., 1982, p.103)
In Eutony, all organs, the blood circulation, and breathing are involved, not just the muscles. Eutony is intended to free and balance the tonus in the whole body, affecting the entire nervous system and eliciting an overall sense of well-being and relaxation. Eutony, in addition, is intended to go beyond simple muscular-skeletal work and into more psychosomatic realms. Gerda Alexander, in fact, inspired psychotherapist. Alexander Lowen to integrate the Eutony principle of contact, into his use of “grounding” in the field of Bioenergetics.
Functional Systems in Eutony
There are three functional systems in Eutony, feeling, understanding, and trusting. All three are interconnected without conscious awareness unless deliberately explored.
Gerda Alexander working with a musican
“Just as in music where the elements of melody, harmony, rhythm, dynamics, and form can be perceived separately, leading to a deepened appreciation of music, so can our distinguishing between the individual parts of the body lead to a deepened awareness of the whole person. ”
Three Functional Systems in Eutony
The first system is feeling:
feeling the envelope of the skin – your boundary
feeling the structure of the skeleton – your inner frame
feeling the presence of the floor – your support
feeling the action of the force of gravity – your architect
feeling those around you – your environment
feeling the quality of your movements – your life force
The second system is understanding:
understanding by practical explorations
understanding by study of anatomy
understanding by verbal exchanges
understanding by creativity & playfulness
The third system is trusting:
trusting your spontaneity
trusting the world around you
trusting your body’s individual way of finding its own balance
Eutony Exercises
The individual Eutony exercises are organized into four broad areas.
1) Rest and passivity
2) Control positions
3) Concentration exercises - contact and current
4) Eutonic movements.
(My descriptions of these below are quite limited- there is a huge variety of Eutony exercises utilized in the work that are not described here)
Eutony Concentration Exercises
The rest and passivity exercises are concentrated learning exercises that can be applied to any technique, whether it be a sport, the playing of an instrument, or the use of a machine. All efficient psychomotor skills demand the application of partial passivity. The first rule for being passive is to do nothing except to feel the relationship with the floor (bed or chair) and the support it gives. This will gradually bring about relaxation.
Active-Passive Movements are essential for muscle control and consequently the passage from the active to the passive state. These require specific attention to each of four phases of muscle engagement. 1) Active movement, 2) active hold, 3) decision to stop holding, and 4) repose after letting go. By breaking down each part of a movement as a conscious and separate decision, sensory motor awareness is activated in a clear and distinct way.
The control positions are specific postures and allow the person to subjectively assess the degree of tightness of their muscles. A taut muscle is shortened and will stiffen the joint, a relaxed muscle is lengthened and will render the joint flexible. These positions are arranged from easier to more challenging. A person who is tense will not be able to take up a position correctly nor maintain it. If the positions are not possible because of tensions, then one can use their concentration and relaxation skills to focus on relaxing those specific muscles.
Concentration exercises involve careful observation of the body as a whole as well as specific areas. There are different methods of directing attention, two of these, contact and current, are described below.
Contact exercises start with a relaxed awareness of being supported or “carried” by the ground whether lying, sitting or standing. Objects such as sticks and balls are then placed under, or on, certain parts of the body. The person is instructed to notice the sensations coming from the feel of the object and to describe them, in their mind, as they are felt. For example, their shape, smoothness, roundness, length and so on. In addition, sensations on the skin as it touches the object are important to describe. The object itself, in an objective sense, as well as how the object feels subjectively.
Exercises of current concentrate awareness to one part of the body by observing sensations of tingling, or warmth, from inside the body and then passing that current (feeling) onto an adjacent area. For instance, when clasping hands, first feel the current in the right hand, then pass that current to the left hand or to another adjacent area. These exercises often move in circular patterns around the body.
Eutonic movement exercises, as opposed to relaxation and concentration movements, these exercises seek to answer the question, “does relaxation exist in movement?” The movements are built on instinctual, innate reflexes such as stretching and yawning, sighing and slumping when exasperated, or opening one’s mouth and eyes when excited or surprised. These movements focus on the lightness of movement, for example tracing an imaginary line in the air and allowing that line to lift the body effortlessly, and the opposite idea of pressure, or pushing, against an object such as when getting up from a low arm-chair by pushing down on the arms of the chair.
Exercises of lightness
Exercises of pressure (pushing)
Continuing Tales of Somatics
Gerda Alexander
The work of Gerda Alexander is rich with ideas for enhancing proprioceptive abilities in order to reset high tonus levels and balance the entire psyche. Her work is lesser known than other somatic thinkers, but her ideas and techniques are incredible. Whereas humans are taught how to handle and react to stresses and strains outside ourselves, we are not taught how to handle what is going on inside our bodies. The first step is sensory since we can’t change something we can’t feel. Gerda Alexander understood that a person is more than the sum of their parts, however, by understanding each part, how it feels, how it can best relax, how it interacts with other parts, both inside and outside of the body, a balanced psyche can be achieved.
As we have seen with the pioneers of somatics, they were not lone super heroes, they relied on others for ideas and inspiration. Somatic practitioners of today will become the somatic heroes of the future not by reinventing the wheel, perhaps, but by designing it differently, more smartly, and putting their own unique perspective on their work. Sadly, what often happens after pioneers move onto the great beyond, their once open and evolving work becomes stagnant and rigid after their death. Associations, guilds, and institutes take over for the sake of preserving the purity of the work. While this intention is good, it often has the effect of shutting down new innovation and creativity in those fields. The work can become atrophied and fossilized in time.
My father, Thomas Hanna, believed that Somatics should be a huge umbrella under which we all can share. From the very start, Tom had a vision that the field of somatics would be interconnected and flourish in many varied directions.
In the first issues of the journal Somatics Thomas Hanna announced the Somatics Society: The Nexus Connection Facilitation for all Somatic Educators and Body Workers. Today that vision is being furthered by groups such as The International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association (ISMETA). Tom would have been very happy about that.
Tall tales of legendary somatic pioneers are epic to be sure. There is no doubt of the great works they produced. Gerda Alexander in particular is a shining example of a somatic heroine whose work, though lesser known than other somatic pioneers, is still brilliant and should be used to inspire somatic practitioners today.
Despite the somatic pioneers’ great achievements, these heroes were human beings too, they borrowed ideas from others and were constantly evolving their work as they went along until the day they died. I know this from personal experience speaking with my father the evening before his fatal car accident in the last weeks of the first Hanna Somatics training. Tom admitted that he found transmitting the work, that he instinctively did with his clients, was harder than he realized and would be spending much of the next year working hard to clarify the next two summer’s curriculum. Tom told me that he had much more to do in order to develop his conception of the philosophy of Somatics and was looking forward to the time when others would be trained to carry on the work so he could focus on new creative endeavors.
In writing these personal reflections on Somatics and Thomas Hanna, I am only able to convey one view point. But from my perspective these tall tales of the somatic pioneers are indeed, pretty grand. Considering the possibility for the incredible expansion of somatic fields, perhaps we might dare to be innovative in creating our own bold new tales. What if it is possible for humanity to no longer suffer needless chronic stress and pain and to live- happily ever after? The somatic pioneers became legends for a reason, but now it is time for us to carry the tale of human freedom forward and into the future, and we, thankfully, can lean on these somatic greats from the past, to support our vision of the future.
References
Alexander, G. (1985). Eutony: The holistic discovery of the total person. Felix Morrow.
Alexander, G., & Brieghel-Muller, G. (1982). Eutonie. Psychologie Medicale.
Hanna, T. (1990). Clinical somatic education. Novato, CA: Somatics. Autumn-Winter, 4-10.
Hanna, T. (1988). Somatics: Reawakening the mind's control of movement, flexibility, and health. Addison-Wesley.