by Roger Tolle
Trager is an easy fit in a massage therapy context. A system of Movement Education and Mind/Body Integration, it allows massage therapists to work successfully with clients who have deeply held and often chronic problems – without adding strain to their own bodies. By approaching sessions with Trager principles and protocols, therapists can bring more subtlety and potency to their work.
When I teach this work to groups of massage therapists, I notice that some folks are already quite at home in their bodies, but there are many others who show signs of misuse or overwork: tired eyes, tight shoulders, aching wrists and thumbs, braced and compressed lower backs. And it is wonderful to see how powerfully penetrating the experience of just a day of pleasurable movement can be, and how long-lasting the impact when the “mind” of the tissue is reached.
I also notice how important it is to speak to clients’ bodies in “language” the body uses to talk to itself, and even more, in a “tone of voice” that will be welcomed by the bodymind. Becoming more eloquent in the body’s sensory/motor/neurochemical feeling language is a focus of my Trager workshops – accessing and practicing tools of feeling rather than tools of doing is at the heart of this work.
We live in an environment where everything is acted on by gravity. Our whole body and each of its parts has weight. Our bodies have learned from birth how to function in gravity. And some of what we have learned involved much more effort than it needed. Many of our patterns of moving about in life are not functionally efficient due to injuries, illnesses or emotionally charged tensions that make the movement less fluid and more stressful, and may eventually lead to a host of painful pathologies.
In class we investigate our touch and movement patterns, refining our awareness of how our weight moves as we work and as we walk in the world. As we listen inwardly to the sensations of weight, we pay attention to the need for subtle changes in the movement– smaller, bigger, looser, freer, quieter– to discover how much more can let go. And what that means to us.
Then with our own sense of weight still ringing in our awareness, we go to the bodywork tables to explore what happens for a partner when they are “weighed”. By tuning in on the sense of weight as we support, cradle, or rock their limbs, neck, head, torso, or even their individual bones or muscles, we give their bodies the pleasurable message of what it would be like if they let go of the responsibility of holding and controlling and moving that weight.
Oddly enough, this weighing action almost always creates in the receiver more feeling of lightness, of release from the heavy insistent pull of gravity, and an evaporation of some chronic tension and pain patterns. And we discover that we don’t need to expend effort to lift a client’s body weight. Instead, just engaging it, sensing it, tracking the distribution of that weight all the way through our bodies to the bottoms of our feet communicates the welcome and needed feeling of support.
At a recent workshop, a group of therapists and I shared a chuckle of commiseration as one student reported how much concentration it took to do something so simple and natural. Yes, to let go of our old habits of pushing hard against resistance isn’t always easy – especially when it calls into question our view of ourselves as dedicated “hard working professionals”. So I asked them what it would be like to make a living as “easy working professionals”? And that drew an even bigger laugh.
Want to experience some of this work first hand? Join Roger for An Introduction to Trager workshop 9AM-6PM Sunday, March 9 at FSM. To register or for more information contact Frank Merillat at (352) 371-0743 or fmerillat@mac.com. You can also check out the FSM continuing education/weekend workshops for more details: Intro to Trager®: Trager Tools for Massage Therapists with Master Teacher Roger Tolle
f you are interested in experiencing and learning more about Trager, Deane Juhan will be coming back April 11-13 for his Resistance/Release series. Deane is another wonderful teacher who had the pleasure of working directly with Milton Trager.
Roger Tolle has been a Trager® Practitioner for 30 years and currently teaches all levels of the Training Program for Trager International. He brings to his practice and his teaching a fluidity, playfulness and elegance from 15 years of professional dancing, and a deep knowledge of the body in motion from his extensive study with Milton Trager, MD, and other pioneers in the field of somatic movement education. Learn more and watch videos at www.RogerTolle.net.
