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4^th Hour

Sitting in Lotus Position

Structural Integration Theory

1^st Hour

4^th Hour

(0:09) At any rate, look at it. Be alert for the gracilis, and if you’re not alert for the gracilus be alert for the shortening that you get on the inside of the leg, and it will lead you to the gracilus. So there you have the whole 4^th hour. Is this clear to you, Don?

(0:34 student) Also, adding the-, working down the hamstrings

(0:40) Yea, but the hamstrings are in order to clean up the ischial tuberosity. You’ve just gone around the whole lower edge of the pelvis, that’s all you’ve done

(0:53 student) The ramus, the tuberosity, and then down finishing in the hamstrings

(1:00) The hamstrings are in order to clean the-, clear the tuberosity, just as the adductors are in order to clear the pubic area. So the hamstrings, you’re to work with the hamstrings to clear the tuberosity area. And you must remember that back there on that tuberosity, adjacent to the hamstrings, is the adductor magnus and that in these terms it is very easy to forget to clear up the adductor magnus. Because you go back to the tuberosity and you think in terms of the hamstrings. Oh yes, you have cleared the hamstrings, but, oh no, you haven’t cleared the tuberosity until you take a good look at the magnus too.

(2:07 student) It’s very confusing. It’s usually buried underneath

(2:11) yea. All kinds of things happen.

Sitting in Lotus Position)

(2:17) Now take a look at this point, you people, not me. Take a look at this point, and Don you are the particular sinner here, at what happens when you go into these various oriental positions, either the true lotus, or the half lotus, or the just sitting with your knees apart. Not doing it once, I’m not talking about once, I’m talking about the person who consistently and persistently sits that way. What is going to happen?

(3:07 student) Well I had always thought of these positions as being very beneficial, and that they give you the type of Rolf stretching.

(3:13) They are if you do first one and then the opposite of the one

(3:18 student) oh. Well. But, true yoga should do this

(3:21) true yogis should do this, but do you see any of these people around this considering themselves true yogis doing that? Practitioners of true yoga, have you seen them doing that? The only time it’s ever done is in a yoga class that is supervised by somebody who knows his business, and this isn’t the way it’s handled around here. It’s handled as a parlor trick. Now a person who’s really been trained as a yoga teacher understands this problem.

(4:04) Now, part of the problem comes from the fact that these people go into these positions, oh at 14 or 15 or 17, and they already have all kinds of knottings and shortenings in those muscles to begin with, that comes from a time they fell on the picket fence, or something of this sort. Or they rotated their fibula. Now, this gives you justifying strength. But they don’t know that. They only know that they see Johnny Jones sitting over there in the lotus position, and “oh my, that’s a sweet trick. I’m going to do it too.” And so they force themselves past these areas and into a brand new strain. And invariably these people get the whole groin structure tight, and the head of the femur is tight; it’s short in. you’ve seen so many of these pictures of “there is not enough room here.” And not all of these people were doing yoga, but all the people that do yoga will show that picture.

(5:25 student) I think Irving has done quite a bit of yoga

(5:27) They all have around here. They all have around here. Now there are ways of doing yoga where that yoga is beneficial, but I have yet to hear of anybody who hasn’t sat at the feet of Rolf knowingly

(5:45 student) I-, what would be the opposite of the lotus position? I can’t think of that

(5:50) The opposite of the lotus position is sitting with the legs back and the knees together.

(6:03) Now you see, any of those positions that you sit in with the knees together and the legs straight back, will do you less damage than those lotus jobs, because the lotus positions, all of them, send the sacrum way forward. If there is any weakness in the sacrum, the lotus will bring it forward. If there is any weakness in the 4^th and 5^th lumbar, the lotus will bring it forward. The semi-lotus will do the same thing. Anything that keeps those knees wide will do the same thing.

(6:43) And all of those people with anterior sacrums like to get in the lotus position because it’s comfortable to them. Why? Because there sacrum is anterior to begin with, and they are pandering to the weakness of the sacrum when they get into the lotus position, and it’s comfortable. And then somebody says, “Oh you look so impressive. I watched you at the lecture the other night and you sat there without stirring in the lotus position. How can you do that?” and by this time they really think they’re somebody. They are, in there own way; they’re somebody whose getting that lower part of their spine into a mess.

(7:18 student) There’s movement in the 2^nd chakra. they’re moving up

(7:22) There limiting their [movendara]

(7:27) now don’t believe me, but go home and think about it. Watch what you see.

(7:32 student) Go visit Tasahara

(7:35) go visit Tassajara, and God have mercy on you, and shut your eyes

(7:40 student) It’s true

(7:42 student) It’s true

(7:43) Its true, indeed it is

(7:47 student) Well it’s a matter of real goal though. The people at Tassajara-, and there’s a guy that gave us a one hour lecture on how to behave in the Zen dome; what to do, you know. And he talked about the lotus position. I mean this position, and it’s a way of shutting off awareness below the waist, because these guys-

(8:07) It’s more than a way of shutting off awareness below the waist, it’s a way of stopping the circulation and sending it up to the head; which is what that position was designed for

(8:15 student) Which is where they want to be. It’s also stable in terms of sitting

(8:22) Yea, but that doesn’t say that this is what you want to do as an active western working man

(8:28 student) No. it’s what those guys want to do when they say, “it’s time that we sit for 12 hours,” and-

(8:33) Alright. Let them sit. Look at them. Do you want to look that way?

(8:38 student) Zombie’s; they’ve got a zombie look

(8:42) I know. They’ve got some fine goals, but they’ve got no perspective in how to fit those goals into the environment around them. They are in the west, not in the east. You’ve been to Japan, Al. Have you ever seen some of those monks that have gone green, literally green, with the diet and the positions, and the green tea?

(9:08 student) All people don’t look healthy

(9:12) some look unhealthier than others look unhealthy. Ok.

(9:19) lets quiet down now, and figure out what we’ve got to do in the 5^th hour.

(9:25) Now I am not-, my ax is not out for yoga. My ax is out for the uninformed use of it. There is no other system of exercise that I know on the face of this earth that is as good as yoga, taught by a good teacher who really knows what’s what. Not just what the positions are, but what to do in terms of balancing out the positions that they are using.

(10:04) Ok. Don? If you get into the 5^th hour, what are you going to do, and why?

(10:11 student) Well this I still have a personal feeling for-, so.

(10:21) You see even if you don’t sit in the [medial] position, but you sit in a position to make your self comfortable, you bring your knees wide, and if you watch yourself, you will see that you are dragging your sacrum under, and your whole tail end is inadequate, and it has been for a long time, and you make it more inadequate by this. Yea. That’s the way you do it. But let’s get into the 5^th hour. Let’s forget the applications of it in terms of exercise.

5^th Hour

(10:53 student) So, previously here then-, our goal here then is the abdominal-, loosening the diaphragm area; the entire diaphragm area through the pubes. In fact, from the-, I’d say the clavicle to the pubes. Previous to this we’ve loosened the superficial fascia. Now we want to go through this, and go right in-. the goal being in my mind, being the sacral vertebrae, or the-, perhaps the lumbar vertebrae.

(11:45) How did you end up to the clavicle? That’s the first place you tripped me up

(11:47 student) Well, I’m speaking of where loosening the lower layers of fascia from the pubes to the clavicle

(11:54) What are you aiming for in the 5^th hour? What are you really aiming to do in the 5^th hour?

(12:07 student) Well I know part of it is lengthening the rectus abdominis. I don’t know if that’s the [ ]

(12:16) This is just as much a key of the 5^th hour as lengthening the adductors is the key of the 4^th hour. The rectus abdominis. And anything else that you do up around the clavicle or what have you, you are only doing to assist that rectus; to get into position to do its stuff of holding up the pelvis from the front. That’s all you’re doing

(12:44) Fritz? Show Don exactly where the recti attach on the pelvis

(12:54 student) They hook-in right down here, and then they run up and then they hook in on 5th 6th and 7th rib, which would be 5, 6, and 7, here. Here down to here is a muscle which is narrower at the bottom and fans out as it comes up. And of coarse there are two muscles on each side

(13:25) Now see if you are going to get a horizontal pelvis, the only way you can get it is by picking it up in the front, and making that front balance the rest of it. You’ve got to pick it up in the front. Now when you free the-, I’ve got a beautiful picture of a horizontal pelvis in here. The guy didn’t know what he was saying, but he said it very well. Find the chapter that’s labeled ‘pelvis’, and its right at the head of the chapter.

(14:12) If you try before the 4^th hour has been accomplished, to pick up that pelvis and make it horizontal, you can’t do it.

(14:28)Now maybe if I had been a real bright girl I’d have known all these things, and I’d have gone on a head trip and said this is the way we’re going to do it. But I wasn’t a real bright girl, and when I started this whole thing I didn’t know where I was going, but all I did was follow what was perfectly obvious and hit my eyes

(14:45 student) Is this it?

(14:49) That’s right. That’s the picture. Now this is what you are trying to get; a pelvis that has horizontals like this.

(15:09 student) Unlike that one on the skeleton

(15:10) Unlike that one on the skeleton. Unlike this one. Even this one is tipped forward. You’re trying to get that. And everything you’ve been doing is to free it so it can get to that position.

(15:27 student) I understand your desire to correct an anterior pelvis, but my concern, as I’ve been observing this week the 5^th hour, is that by preventing the type of exercise that I’ve been doing , which has been giving me a nice flat abdomen, that now it will continue to spread out

(15:47)Ok, keep worrying about it. You have [ab] stuff to worry about anyhow; keep worrying about it for a while and see what happens.

(16:06) if you tip that pelvis under, where will the abdominal contents go? If you tip this-, if you get the abdomen flat, where do the abdominals go?

(16:18 student) Well, they have to go towards coddling

(16:23) They sit into the basin. And a non-flat abdomen is an abdomen whose contents are not sitting into the basin. And you tip the basin like this, or a little more than this, and what happens? The contents of the abdomen spill out. And anyway, even if you don’t like that explanation -

(16:55 student) No, I see

(16:57) Tell me this, would you rather have a flat abdomen or would you rather have your head 12 inches ahead of the rest of you? Pay your money, take your choice. You have a limited number of options. They are very limited. And if you are going to get your head up on the top of your spine, and your spine straight, you have got to have that kind of a pelvis, and no other will do it! And if you don’t believe me, think about it; see it in your mind’s eye.

(17:30 student) It’s obvious

(17:33 ) Ok. Well, we’ll see what we can get you to worry about next

(17:38 student) Dr. Rolf, one of the things about those Zen monks, their lower back was horrendous, you know, with their over lordosis, but somehow they had there heads on there shoulders pretty well

(17:55) Yea, but you see [this was yea] just saying it; they put all their compensation into their lower back. There are lots of ways to compensate

(18:02 student) So they threw it so far forward that they were able to lean their head back.

(18:05) Sure. You saw the same thing with Bill Williams when he came in first. And the next thing we did as we got his back better, his head got terrible.

(18:14 student) Yea. They just threw it so far that way.

(18:19) And you see, that horrendous lower back gives them a god awful whole digestive mechanism.

(18:29 student) So consequently they don’t eat as much and it’s –

(18:34) So they don’t eat as much they starve, and if they do the glandular organization of the gut suffers, so that they don’t have what it needs to digest the food and they [ ]you see

(18:54 student) Maybe they’re happy they don’t [ eat that much]

(18:56) They do. This is a matter of economics. This is a matter of economics. And if you go over behind the scenes in Japan, you begin to this economics at work. You begin to see what is given to the monks, and what the men that are at the head of the organizations do in terms of diet. They are paid enough that they can have a decent diet on their table, and they do. And the monks are fed on God knows what because someone is feeding them on about 25 cents a day for 3 meals! It’s that simple

(19:39) You see nobody ever really digs down and takes a look at what has determined these patterns; what has determined the way these various people behave. And all the young people look at is a “here is something different, therefore it must be something good.” And they haven’t looked at why it got that-, there. And that’s all right. They haven’t had time in there lives to look at all these things.

(20:11 student) And some of them live in beautiful places Dr. Rolf. Most of those people just seem beautiful, I mean they just-

(20:16 student) Especially at the Tassajara

(20:22) So what you’re saying is they’re beautiful people, but you’re not saying they’re beautiful structurally.

(20:26 student) I mean even with all this torment of the body they are somehow-

(20:28) alright, I’m not arguing this one way or another.

(20:32 student) But if they did it the other way it would be so much easier to get it in line, their backs straight.

(20;38) You go talk to them and you’ll run up against the same problem that you’re running up against in diet; what are the economics of the situation? Now in Tassajara they can handle it, but in a monastery in Tokyo they can’t. they’ve got just that much money to keep these guys fed. And when another one comes, he’s [ emoted ] too, and then they’ve got just that much less money, you see. Tassajara they’re really living on the fat of the land compared to the Tokyo-, the Japanese situations.

(21:19 student) I want to say something which I know won’t ingratiate myself, but I just -, just thinking about it sort of physically, structurally, the lotus position or something equivalent makes a lot of sense if you want to give up your legs. Because there is a beautifully triangular stable position for sitting

(21:41) Exactly. Exactly. Alright. There’s also another problem; if you want to give up-, if you want to go into a control of the sexual function too.

(21:55 student) no thanks

(21:56 student) You mean to reduce [ functioning]

(22:03 student) You know in the tantric method that’s built into the diet too. We eat protein at certain times, regularly

(22:06) Certainly, certainly. Those boys were pretty smart boys. Those old Tantrics, we can’t hold a candle to them in terms of what they understood about bodies. But they weren’t around to tell us about what they knew

(22:18 student) I’m not satisfied with the sitting stability even in a processed body. Something-, like we’ve got to somehow find some better way-

(22:35) you do it. Let’s go on to hour 6. maybe that you haven’t-, your 6^th hour isn’t properly in you.

(22:45) So what are you going to do in your 6^th hour if you’ve done this in the 5^th hour?

Sitting in Chairs

(22:53 student) I can‘t sit [ ]

(23:00) Tuck your head up, and you’ll sit better!

(23:03 student) I can’t sit in those chairs anyway, they tilt back. They tilt back in the [feet] and the tilt back in the back. You can’t [ ]

(23:11) You certainly can. What’s a rocking chair? What do you see me doing all the time; I’m rocking from the pre-vertebral to the post-vertebral all the time. Watch me. I do that ‘casue it’s comfortable. I don’t do it on a head trip, I do it because it’s comfortable.

(23:25 student) Well I can see it in that chair. I can do it in that chair too. I have [ ]one of these chairs

(23:29 ) You can do it in that chair

(23:31 student) I find this chair comfortable, except that it doesn’t seem to be-, I mean it seems like you need longer forelegs

(23:42) Ok. How about these long-legged boys, where do we set them? Eddie for instance. He says that that chair is too low for him

(23:53 student) we need one of those piano stool things

(23:53) In my house at home I had one particular brass rocking chair. The seat is very high, and one person can always rock in it. When a person like Eddie comes in and I’m going to talk into in the living room, I can always gently steer him into that brass rocking chair [ ] mess. His legs adjust. With my son, one of my sons is long-legged, not as long as Eddie, and I went out and found an old stationary rocker that had belonged to his granddad that was a very beautiful old antique. And I gave it to him for a present, and I said, “don’t let anybody ever have this. You need it in your life for your chair.” And that’s his chair because he can adapt his legs to that. But these nice little girls, with these relatively short legs from knee to ankle aren’t going to be happy in chairs that are made to accommodate longer legged people [ ]

(25:10 student) Your chairs important

(25:12) It is exceedingly important. Exceedingly important. And the value of rocking chairs you see, that you adjust-, the chair tips so the leg is not always [under you]. A guy like Eddie, I can’t understand how they can live, because where ever they go somebody’s trying to shorten their bone! I’m so glad Eddie doesn’t understand that he [ ]. See, he makes his bones adjust, and how does he do it? He does it by inverting his whole spine. Anything? No.

(26:00) Ok, we still haven’t got this 6^th hour

(26:04 student) I’m just sort of-, Don’s doing the same thing I tend to do in these situations, kind of shorten the back of your leg

(26:08) I know. Don is short of leg

(26:14 student) No, it’s because my tuberosities are so sore, that when I pull my legs back I get a little weight on the back of my thighs. These benches are God awful to sit on

(26:27) give that guy a chair somebody, so his tuberosity isn’t sore

(26:27 student) no. I think I’m processing, because I’m having the same problem with chairs [ ]

(26:35) good for you. Put it there.

(26:45 student) Wait till your 6^th hour and we’ll get some padding back there.

(26:50) We’ll get it nicely cleaned off.

6^th Hour

(26:53) Now look, what about this 6^th hour? Everybody is talking at once about everything else

(27:05) What happens in the 6^th hour Hal?

(27:11 student) Well, we’re going to work up from the exterior, move up into the lower end of the pelvis again from the back side. Which our goal really is the rotators, and we’re moving up into the rotators to-

(27:35) Why do you want to go in the rotators at all? after all, that’s just what you sit on

(27:48 student) Well obviously it’s the one area we haven’t been able to get to ‘till now. We’ve been preparing ourselves to get into the deeper layers of the pelvic girdle, and the rotators are such. And they attach onto the femur, via the greater trochanter, and in order to get your legs, so to speak, under you you have to deal with the rotators. Because they will help, you know imbalance the legs and not get them underneath you. So we have to get to this area if we’re going to get proper balance in the legs, with the legs and the pelvic girdle. And so we proceed to work up the back of the leg-

(28:43) This is what you see as the importance of the rotators; that it balances the legs up?

(28:48 student) Well I see that as one of the major importances, and I also see it as again in balancing the pelvic girdle; the rotations and so forth, that they’re pulling on one side due to have a slight [ ori-] rotation in the pelvis is to balance the pelvic girdle. Both sides of the anterior posterior. This way

(29:23) Up to this point, you missed the boat.

(29:27 student) Oh. And the sacrum

(29:33 student) I was with the fact that the rotators are attaching on the anterior side of the sacrum

(29:40) That’s right. That’s the point of the rotators.

(29:42 student) So you get it

(29:45) That’s the point of the rotators

(29:48 student) The other is [ ] rotates on the anterior surface of the sacrum

(29:42) You remember we went into this at great length yesterday; That this is a unique situation, where you can get the prevertebral organization of the sacrum from the outside of the body. And you just-, any of you that want to, offer me a suggestion as to what single bone of the body [in] it’s position is more important than the sacrum?

(30:30) Now, in order to get to those rotators, you have to have a fair degree of resilience up the back of the leg, because if you don’t, the gluteus maximus will not let you in. and you see again, it is that simple.

(31:10) And that is what the whole idea of yesterday was about. Getting to the place where you can get that sacrum organized with reference to the lumbars, with reference to the ilii, with reference to the coccyx, so that the 6^th hour is really the hour of the sacrum.

(31:58) And you balance that sacrum by the function of organizing that Piriformis basically, the obturator in the second place, which does the inside of the pelvis, not really to the inside of the sacrum.

(32:36) So for my money, if that 4^th 5^th and 6^th hour isn’t clear, I don’t know what [have I] left you with.

(32:47 student) Much clearer

(32:49 student) I’d like to add on that 6^th hour yesterday, I felt this so much when you finished working on me, is the floating of the sacrum on respiration that’s tied in with the respiratory function

(32:59) Now what is this floating sacrum and respiration business?

(33:05 student) That when the sacrum is more organized, that with the normal inspiration, the breathing, that the lumbar spine is able to straighten and the base of the sacrum can come out and the tip of the sacrum rotate in. so it tends to straighten the spine with each breath

(33:25) (sigh) Yea. I really don’t know Don, Fritz, whether the breath organizes the sacrum or whether the sacrum organizes the breath.

(33:39 student) I’m not putting-. I don’t know. I’m just saying this is a fact

(33:43) No. I don’t know. I’m calling your attention to the fact that I don’t know. All I know is that when that sacrum is free as that sacrum is supposed to be, this happens.

Breathing

(33:55) Do you know anything much of the work of Sutherland?

(34:00 student) I know the name, but I can’t quote what he’s done.

(34:04) Well Southerland was the guy who devised, promulgated, cranial-osteopathy

(34:10 student) I know some cranial work

(34:14) And Southerland said that the basic respiratory method is not the ribs and the lungs, but is this pumping of the spinal fluid through the spine by virtue of this coming in and out. And as I said to you, I have reason to believe that Southerland picked this up from [Swedenborg] but the fact of the matter is, you see, that he had a vision of an entirely different mechanism, which nobody else seems to know how to implement, Including the cranial osteopaths. They don’t know how to get this movement up and down. But somehow or other Sutherland said that it should be there, and I don’t think that Southerland understood that if you didn’t have that movement of the sacrum, that you weren’t really getting the pumping action of the spinal fluid. I think that Southerland visualized that there was a pumping action anyway. And this is what makes me suspicious of the fact that I don’t think this came from-, I think that Southerland found that statement somewhere and didn’t know how to implement it.

(35:57 student) The cranial sacral [ribald]

(36:01 student) Dr. Rolf, some of the workshops at Eselan, some of the people, I think of Ed Mopin, and a few other people, and talking about breathing disseminating awareness about breathing will often say things like, “experience your breath going out through the ischial tuberosity, or thru your tail, or down your legs.” It really sounds kind of non-seismically when you first hear it. but at a certain point sometimes, when you are doing the kind of breath that they do you do experience this. and it suddenly occurs to me that this is something like what must happen, or this at least-, it happens sometimes I’m sure, but that somebody knew about this a long time ago. Some kind of Yogi kind of thing. Because this was the -

(36:55) Yea. Somebody has known about a lot of these things a long time ago. As you’ve heard me say in the old-, in that other class, those old 14^th century anatomists knew more about anatomy than anybody that’s around today. And those 14^th century anatomists probably had actually experienced this spinal thing. But you see, what I think you’re describing in terms of what Ed Mopin has done in dealing with describing in terms of awareness, is a dealing with a different, a non-physical body. Now when Ed Mopin talks to you about feeling it going through your ischial tuberosity or through your leg, I’m sure there is no movement of the leg. And I’m just as sure that I saw and you saw and everyone else in this room saw yesterday, that that sacrum moves.

(37:45 student) Yea, Hal’s especially was good

(37:48 student) But probably, what I’m saying is that that concept has probably come from somewhere back where people were able to do this, and so it’s come down to us, and maybe in this diluted way, but it’s come down.

(38:07) Agreed. But you see, as you work with bodies you get a certain reality on the fact that there are various bodies; like a body of awareness, and like a three-dimensional cellular body. And that sometimes these bodies, so to speak, can literally superimposed one on the other; they can be perfectly matched within their patterns, one on the other. And that when something goes wrong in a body, this matching falls apart. This is what some of these mediums see. That this other body, this energy body, this whatever-you-want-to-call-it body, isn’t matching. It doesn’t have the right relation to the physical body, and this is what I think you are doing here. You are putting the physical body on the pattern body, and not the pattern body on the physical body.

(39:18) and particularly-, well, no I don’t think this is true. In any pathological situation these people who are seers can see holes in the aural body. Even that guy that worked with colored lenses, that Englishman, what was his name? [Whippet.] could see holes in those bodies,

(39:56) And those same seers, and I have had them in the fringe of my groups so to speak, will tell you that after the first couple of hours, the holes in that aura are very rapidly mended. That’s what you feel when you feel so much better after the first hour.

(40:15 student) tugging up all awareness

(40:18) its an awareness body

6^th Hour

(40:25 student) I have a question about the 6^th hour. I recall when you worked on me on [agnue’s], and sometime in January, that there was some work on the rectus femoris in the front, and getting it kind of loosened up to the-, in the 6^th hour. We didn’t do that yesterday, is that just sort of a matter of the person?

(40:45) It just depends. If you now what you’re goal is in that 6^th hour, and you look at that person and see something interfering with that goal, you’d go and get it wouldn’t you?

(41:00 student) Now these people who do a lot of skiing will always have very tight rectus femoris areas, and if that rectus femoris is tightened up, you won’t be able to balance it with the stuff in the back.

(41:27) In terms of a general description, your 6^th hour deals with all kinds of things below the waistline. Anything below the waistline that’s interfering with establishment of that sacral floating is appropriate to your work. You see if you really have a thorough going understanding of what you are trying to do basically, then you will draw yourself a map as to how to get there

(42:10) Supposing we have some coffee, and then-, [Hal] you come next.

(42:22) (Tape Break)

Structural Integration Theory

(43:24) Give a quick review right from scratch, because we have a guest here this morning who may be working with us, and it’s important that he know how we got where we got. Don, would you like to take this assignment on?[ ] come as soon as you can, you’ll be welcome when you get here

(44:00) I was looking out the window, and I kind of disappeared. You want to start with general theory or the mechanics of our-

(44:06) With general theory so he knows how we have progressed; what the assumptions are.

(44:18 student) Ok. We start out with the assumption that bodies get into unnatural positions and structural arrangements through physical and I like to add, emotional trauma

(44:40) Don’t you dare not add emotional trauma

(44:42 student) that’s my bag

(44:44) Well, but it’s everybody’s bag.

(44:46 student) yea

(44:49) It’s everybody’s bag and we would be utterly, intolerably stupid if we said all the problems that you meet up with, or even half the problems that you meet up with are pure physical trauma. In the second place where you get a physical trauma, as you very well understand, the chances are you’ve got an emotional trauma which determined it in the beginning.

(45:12 student) Or as a priority to it [even if it didn’t determine it- ]

(45:14) Yea. Alright. Alright. But I object to you’re pulling yourself out and saying, “I think there’s an emotional trauma.” I say its part of the general assumption. Alright, alright, alright. We’re not mad; either of us.

(45:35 student) So we assume that bodies have gotten into predicaments or abnormal structural arrangements

(45:40) predicament's is the right word. That’s right

(45:41 student) through these things that have happened that you hear about, or in adult life. And the whole task is to permit the body to return to a more functional, structural arrangement through the use of the technique here; which is freeing up the structures that have become bound to some extent permanently in inefficient structural arrangements.

(46:26) Well, you’ve got to go right back to the primary cause of the structural predicament. You haven’t mentioned that. It isn’t that you don’t know it, but it’s that you haven’t put it into the picture. Do you know what I’m talking about Bill?

(46:42 student) I think you may be referring to the fact that all sorts of accidents happen that effect or cause the imbalances of the body

(46:46) Yea, and then?

(46:49 student) And it starts splinting itself

(46:56) Yes, and then it starts adjusting itself to gravity, and this is the predicament, the real predicament. It’s not the original problem, or it may not well be the original traumatic episode. It’s the splinting that goes on. The compensating that goes on in the rest of the body, than giving rise to various symptoms, etc, etc. This is what is the predicament.

(47:27 student) Then the muscles begin to be used as structural components instead of motion components.

(47:33) That is right. That is right. That is right, and that is very well expressed, and I hope that got on the tape. Shall I repeat that Don said, “then muscles begin to be used as structural components instead of motor components”

(47:54) Ok

(47:58 student) Ok. Now the other assumption that we have to make in order to do what we do is assume that the body is plastic, and that it can be reorganized back or forward, I’m not sure which it is, into a more efficient arrangement, so the muscles can then become motor-, can be used as motor components instead of structural components.

(48:28) Right.

(48:3 student) I don’t like the word ‘back’. I’d rather think of it in terms of forward

(48:35) It is in general. It is forward, but I’m talking about structural versus motor component, which I very much like that presentation. I don’t see why we say [done] that I never did it myself.

(49:01) It reminds me of one time I had an osteopath in the class long ago, and this was in Cedar Rapids. And then he had occasion to need to drive to Chicago from Cedar Rapids for something or other. And when he got back he said, “Well I spent the two whole days while I was driving castigating myself about, ‘why couldn’t I have been bright enough to have gotten this idea?’” and he said, “ I finally came to the conclusion that it was too trite for me to get.”

(49:40) its so trite that none of us could have figured that out! So, go ahead, go ahead. You heard.

(49:50 student) seems like I could figure out [another]. So we’re going to take this body, that’s gotten in this predicament and through the use of gravity, and our energy, and the client’s energy –

(50:04) Through the use of gravity as a tool. And I like-, I sort of like that concept too, because this is actually what you are doing. And it is actually expressed that way. It is expressed in a fashion which I have never seen anybody else put forward; to be able to consider that you are really working by means of gravity, and you are.

(50:35) You see, the Alexander people though that you could use gravity, but they never expressed it. What they thought and what they did was in terms of telling you to get your head up, that you would then be using gravity. But you see they never threaded it out as far as I know into the various paragraphs and sentences and words that were involved there. But they thought that they were out on a mind-body trip. They figured they could affect the body through the mind. They weren’t affecting the body through the mind at all, they were affecting the body through the use of that gravitational tool, which they were pulling into, which they were gearing in through a mental suggestion. But you see, their idea was good, only it wasn’t basic enough to release the actual fundamental predicaments. Now, in some cases it was. We’ll not belittle them. The Alexander people did some beautiful things. I won’t say that they still are. I don’t know enough about what is going on currently. But I know that the old man was a genius. And a very erratic difficult to get along with genius, which made him a genius and made him a leader. You see I try to be real hard to get along with, in order to validate my claim to leadership; Made it or not.

(52:30 student) You made it. Super-genius.

(52:40) Anyway, lets-, I am anxious to get you people having a lot of reality on the fact that you are depending on the use, on your appropriate use of gravity to get you were you want to go. It’s important that you figure this. Ok. The ball is back with you

(53:11 student) So we kind of lightly brushed the concept of the general theory. Do you want to hear more in depth at this point?

(53:21) Yea

(53:28 student) Well. I think in terms of what we are doing and in general theory what we are going to do is take this body, using the three tools - the body, ourselves, and gravity - we’re going to begin to unwrap the structures that are bound in their unnatural configurations, preventing the body from doing it’s appropriate thing.

(53:47) Mm hmm

(53:50 student) And we do this by starting peripherally and working toward the center as the hours develop. At the end of each hour we try to get a little nearer the center to prepare for the next hour. And we kind of keep circling until we can make little excursions into the center where we ultimately want to get

(54:09) mm hmm. This is true. This is right. This is so.

(54:17 student) I feel like I should say something about the segmentation but I’m not sure how to bring it in

(54:22) Go ahead. Work with it.

(54:28 student) The reason I’m having trouble is that whole concept isn’t clear in my-, I’m aware of segmentations and [analogs and zoology] and all this stuff I’ve learned, that you know, creatures are segmented in various ways. I’m not quite clear how our hours and our theory correlate with segmentation

(54:47) Well I’m not quite clear with the-, about what has been in your mind concerning creature segmentation

(54:55 student) I think of worms and things, more primitive forms, where repetition of segments or jellyfish, segment in a circular thing.

(55:02) Yea, but you see, this isn’t the way it is

(55:05 student) I’m having trouble translating this into people. That’s why I’m having trouble

(55:09) Well I don’t think you can-, I think if you’re going to translate it into terms of people you can’t go below the level of the vertebrates.

955:21 student) Ok. Maybe that’s where I’m having my trouble.

(55:24) Because you don’t have a non-differentiated, you don’t have anything in our bodies that’s non-differentiated.

(55:28 student) In vertebrates or in-?

(55:31) In human bodies. So you have to compare it to other differentiated structures, not non-differentiated structures. A worm is sufficiently differentiated that you cut him in two and you have two worms

(55:51 student) Well perhaps I’m thinking in terms of real concrete segmentation, and I should be talking more in terms of mechanical or functional segmentation. Maybe that’s where I’ve gotten off the track.

(56:02) I think so. I think you tried to expand too wide too quick. And if you’re really going to make a wide expansion like this, I’m thinking you can only do it by sitting down and doing some hours of meditating as to how this will fit together and eventually-, of coarse it will. I mean you’ll bring this thing up the line, but I don’t see that it’s serving any purpose at this point, to go below vertebrate level.

(56:35 student) Well, the functional segmentation I have a bit more clarity, and it’s easy enough for me to divide the body into components of legs, pelvis, thorax, and upper extremities and head. Lets see, I think 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 [ ]-

(56:58) I don’t know whether an abdomen should be considered a junctional segment or not. You see they should-, don’t tell anybody, they should be abdomen between elbows and ribs

(57:12 student) Right

(57:14) . It’s quite true you don’t see it too often

(57:16 student) Whether it’s a functional component on its own though, is not real clear

(57:20) I don’t know. I’m not clear either. And I don’t know that it matters that much.

(57:24 student) we could make another division and talk about the thorax and the pelvis as separate entities, extremities as another group, including arms and legs

(57:38) Well of coarse, actually we do this pretty much before we’re through, we just haven’t gotten there yet. Go ahead.

(57:48 student) there I’m kind of stuck with how we work with these segments. I never got a reality on the pattern that we’re working-

1^st Hour

(57:55) Alright. Now, go into your 1^st hour

(57:58) Ok. In the first hour we spend the entire hour giving what you call a once over lightly

(58:06) Which nobody ever believes

(58:15) thinking back on it I can see how that’s a very appropriate term because we did everything really, but very lightly.

(58:21) Well, this is the place where there is slight difference of opinion.

(58:25 student)) Well, after 4^th hour, 1^st hour looks very, very light.

(58:33 student) More of a [massage]

(58:37) So at any rate, 1^st hour our goal is to begin to prepare the body for deeper work later, and we do this by concentrating on very superficial layers of fascia in the major areas. We begin by working on the thorax, especially the upper front part of the thorax, and places corresponding on the posterior surface that are bound back and forth. And we do this in order to increase two things; one is oxygen exchange, and the other is cardiac output, so that in general the body will be –

(59:15) you were watching Mr. Owen’s work the other day, I think you were being worked on over here

(59:15 student) I saw part of it

(59:22) To me that was the most illuminating 1^st hour that we’ve had around here, because it was so hard to get it going; so tough to get it going. And yet when you got it going you really saw something, you know? It was a magnificent commentary on 1^st hours. Now Pete had apparently already given to Owen a 1^st hour, and I would guess that Pete was afraid to put as much onto him, whom he realized was a cardiac patient, as I’d put onto him. As a result you see, he just didn’t get this moving. And to me, as I say, this was a most illuminating 1^st hour. That when you really got that fascia so you could get through it, ,you begin to get things happening. How is your father?

(1:00:24 student) He’s fine. So much of his problem is in his head now. I mean physically he is much better, and –

(1:00:31) What do you mean, that it is in his physical head, or is it in his mental head?

(1:00:35 student) in his mental head

(1:00:38) this too will pass

(1:00:41 student) he had to take afterward, I don’t know, he took at least 3 doses before the evening was out

91:00:50) Of what?

(1:00:53 student) nitroglycerin

(1:00:53) Oh that was a mistake

(1:01:00 student) Well I think so to. I mean not because of the session here. I didn’t mean to tie it in

(1:01:05) Well, it’s important that you do tie it in, because sooner or later you’re going to have a patient come back and tell you this and tie it in in his mind. And it’s probably tied in in his mind.
(1:01:12 student)) He said that I don’t think it was. I think he’s so used to that every time he exerts a little energy he’s afraid now, because that’s what happens; he walks across the room and just starts pounding, so he drops a pill, so it’s just gotten to be a whole mental mind thing.

(1:01:34) You see the two; Hector, and is it Don? No , Hector and Fritz both sort of looked this situation over and figured that that heart actually wasn’t that bad. But at any rate well see how-, as I say, the thing that interested me in terms of a demonstration by Mr. Owen was this quite remarkable, nothing got going until you got through that fascial envelope.

(1:02:20 student)) I think that that’s really [ ]

(1:02:27) Ok

(1:02:30 student) Ok. We begin the 1^st hour by generally improving respiration oxygen exchange and cardiac output. I think that in preparation for the future and I think it’s a really nice ploy too, because I think with improved respiration and cardiac output most people feel a sense of kind of elation or wellbeing, and it sucks them in to go on with the other 9 hours

(1:03:00) I was interested in reading Shutz’s book last night, in which he correlates the business of what goes on in that 1^st hour, the beginning of the 1^st hour, with the 4^th center, yogic center; the center for communication and-, you know, emotional communication. The heart center. And he did a beautiful job in really selling you a bill of goods that this was what happened. That really you were saving the heart center, rather than the heart. Well, not rather than the heart, but I mean this is where [the consensus is].

(1:03:42 student) Whatever you want to call, it you feel pretty good

(1:03:46) You feel pretty good. Yea.

(1:03:50 student) And it’s a nice way to start. I imagine people who return would be less if it were the other way around, if that were a very heavy hour. I mean there’s-

(1:03:58) Well God knows, it’s a heavy hour. Sometimes you really-

(Tape End)