INVASION OF THE BODYWORKERS

BODYWORK, in the laid-back land of California, refers to a group of odd physical therapies aimed at “freeing the mind.” Considering the source, many Texans will take these therapies as just one more reason to hate a state that, after all, was ready to make Linda Ronstadt its first lady. When Texans talk bodywork they want to know if the price includes parts and labor, Mention massage and we envision a 300-pound ex-wrestler chopping away at some guy who’s just been steamed at the YMCA.

Well, my bruised-but balanced-body and I are here to tell you that things are changing. Propelled by that endless stream of trend-consciousness that flows from west to east and sometimes stops in the middle, bodywork has arrived in Dallas. The new state-of-the-trend health club at the Crescent has hired a shiatsu masseur. Six Rolfers in the Metroplex boast of brisk business. A certified Trager-worker has set up shop in University Park. These hands-on therapists are plying their trade while spreading the word of their illustrious mentors, gurus with names like Milton and Ida and Moshe.

With body workers getting their hands on more people than ever before, a House bill that created the profession of “massage therapist” recently became Texas law. Seedy massage parlors have been condemned to Winnebagos and banished to the outreaches of Preston Road. But for the legitimate bodyworkers, the legal way has been cleared.

The basic premise of bodyworking-if you can call any of this stuff basic-is that skilled hands can relax, lighten, balance, manipulate, reeducate, realign and reprogram the body and/or the mind. (Skilled hands can also hurt like hell, but more about that later.)

The concept of a body/mind connection dates back to the ancient Chinese, who advanced the theory that all illness is a result of imbalance and disharmony between the body and the mind. For the doctor of Oriental medicine, health is a balancing act. The cure for the sick? A little massage, a few herbs, some acupuncture and you’re back in balance in no time.

But it took Wilhelm Reich, a German psychoanalyst dubbed the “father of bodywork,” to bring the body/mind connection into the 20th century. Reich, a contemporary of Freud’s, believed that emotions don’t just float around in the brain. They also show up in the body, often becoming trapped in muscles, where they-the emotions, that is-remain unexpressed. It’s tough to scream, presumably, if you’re stuck in a bicep.

To get his patients back in touch with these unexpressed feelings, Reich manipulated and massaged their bodies, pressing emotional buttons in an attempt to call up traumatic memories. Once this new information was brought to the surface, Reich believed, he could make use of it in more traditional talk-oriented therapy.

Scientific as well as psychological notions abound as to why bodywork is beneficial. The most popular theory is that toxins such as lactic acid accumulate in the muscles through normal metabolism and exercise. Most are removed through the body’s bloodflow, but sometimes knots, blocks or pockets of pain remain in the muscles, restricting movement. Stroking, kneading and other manipulations used in Swedish (feel good) massage or deep tissue (hurt plenty) massage increase circulation throughout the muscles, encouraging the hasty removal of toxins.

That’s the left-brained rationalist’s explanation, but most bodyworkers feel uncomfortable offering scientific reasons to explain their particular style of therapy. Eventually they resort to the same line: Bodywork is just something you have to experience for yourself. So in the name of investigative journalism, I put my body on the line. I figured, what did I have to lose? My body and mind hadn’t been speaking to each other for years.

ROLFING

Getting my front end aligned



I approached my first Rolfing session with some trepidation. I’d heard about the pain. But my Rolfer, Chuck Lustfield, appeared to be a pleasant man, not the type who would make you suffer needlessly. Then I got a look at his hands.

Dr. Ida Rolf, a biochemist, was the first to maintain that body structure is not the fixed bony unit of conventional medical science, but a pliable web of connective tissue (fascia) encasing the entire body. Because fascia is moldable, Rolf said, it can be lengthened, repositioned and restructured into proper alignment and balance. She believed that the body gets out of whack with the downward pull of gravity-and when emotional and physical trauma occurs. Rolfers believe that body structure determines function. Change the way a person looks and you change the way he feels. Restructure his body, give it belter balance, flexibility and alignment and you’ll restructure his mind.

Chuck takes off his shoes, preparing to Rolf me; I take off my shoes, preparing to get Rolfed. He tells me to strip down to my shorts. I ask Chuck how much it will hurt. He says that depends on how much stress I’ve experienced in the last 35 years. I brace myself for mucho pain.

But first he photographs me from the front, back and side, so he can study my structure for the eventual before-and-after comparison. He tells me about my body: He says I don’t trust my legs. He says I keep my knees locked, pelvis tucked and my belly sucked in most of the time. He seems sure that Rolfing will help me “stand on my own two feet.” Then he begins, digging between my ribs, spreading them with his fingers and hands. I picture myself on a barbecue spit. One minute it feels pleasant, like a deep massage; the next moment there’s a burning sensation, a searing pain. He says it’s a good pain, that I shouldn’t try to avoid it by holding my breath, that I should let out any sound or emotion that I become aware of. I begin to groan inwardly. Then aloud. A lot. He uses his powerful fingers, his knuckles, his elbows, anything to help push, press and spread the fascia.

At the end of my first session, I slowly get off the table. I feel lighter somehow, as if there’s more room for me to breathe. Chuck says I’m experiencing a new sense of balance. But he wants me to come back for two more sessions. Rolfing, he says, is a 10-session process. I agree to return.

My next Rolfing is directed at my uncooperative legs. I relate my history of knee problems, my vain attempts at football and jogging, my knee surgery. Chuck tells me that Rolfing doesn’t treat symptoms, but tries to put the whole body in balance so the body can heal itself. He works on my feet to help unlock my knees. That night at home, I look in the mirror and am pleased to see that my knees have unlocked. But it appears also that a cheeseburger has been surgically implanted into my midsection. Does being in balance mean a sagging abdomen? I eagerly await my next Rolfing session.

Chuck says not to worry about my new-found fat; with my knees unlocked I am relaxing my stomach muscles more. Today he will work on my tilted pelvis to try and flatten things out a bit. He starts by digging his fingers deep into my pelvis area. It hurts. I wonder if some forgotten childhood emotion will emerge. Chuck says that patients sometimes express sadness, anger or some repressed memory. He pushes deep into my waistline along my lower back. I ask him why it hurts so intensely. He tells me it’s an ethnic malady. No emotional catharsis, just too many cheese blintzes.

The perfect Rolfed body follows an invisible plumbline that runs through the ear, shoulders, pelvis and legs down through the anklebone, with small curves in the neck and back. It’s an efficient body designed to work with gravity, not against it. My own limited experience didn’t leave me with a perfect Rolfed body but I did feel lighter, more grounded, more comfortable in the way I move. My protruding belly, I’m glad to report, has also gotten into line.

Today there are between 500 and 600 Rolfers worldwide with six in the Dallas-Fort Wsrth area. Certification in Rolfing requires an intensive training program, a college degree and a background in physiology and anatomy. Sessions generally range in price from $50 to $135, depending on the experience of the Roifer and the financial state of the Rolfee.

SHIATSU

Not just another Japanese import

To understand Oriental massage, I had to take two leaps of faith. The first was an intuitive leap onto the table to feel the experience. The second was a cultural leap into a world that believes in “energy.” Not just energy in the “get-up-and-go” sense of the word, but energy the way the Orientals see it: as a life force that flows through our bodies.

Oriental medicine maintains that energy comes from the air we breathe, and that our health depends on it. When energy flows freely through the body, the body is healthy, in balance. When it’s blocked, stopped or stagnated, illness results. The acupuncturist uses needles to manipulate certain energy points, but in shiatsu, the massage therapist uses his thumbs, knuckles, elbows, whatever it takes to get the energy moving again.

On the day I visited shiatsu therapist Daniel Mayer, I was in the middle of an energy crisis. I had a cold. “Shiatsu won’t cure your cold,” Daniel said, “but il will put you in better balance to heal yourself.” Again, I am told to disrobe down to my shorts and get under some sheets arranged on a very low table. Daniel tells me to lie on my left side. He places a small cotton Japanese cloth on my neck and slowly works his thumbs against the cloth, moving them down my neck, my shoulders, over the entire right side of my body. He is working my “acupuncture points”- little centers of energy located beneath the skin along meridian lines, the roads that carry the energy through the body.

Daniel works slowly, in a meticulous rhythm, breathing in sync with me. I relax and enjoy. Shiatsu isn’t “feel good” massage. It’s more of a comfortable pain. But it’s comfortable enough that I foll asleep. As the massage ends, Daniel encourages me to take my time in getting up. When I do, I feel lighter, but wiped out. I still have a head cold.

Daniel is a study in contrasts: an Argentinian Jew and a former Buddhist monk, a doctor of Oriental medicine and the new massage director at the posh new Crescent health spa. His art- shiatsu-is known as Japanese acupressure, but it really began in ancient China. Interestingly, he tells me that Chinese doctors are paid only when a patient is healthy. Therefore, they are firm believers in preventive health care. The Chinese believe that massage improves the function of specific organs.

When the shiatsu therapist presses against your skin and you feel pain, that means that somewhere along the line there’s a block. Something is stuck. The skin is viewed as a switch: Press it and you’ll send energy to the far reaches of the body. Rub a foot and bring balance to a kidney. Press a toe and clear the mind.

Daniel tells me that my cold has peaked. He thanks me for allowing him to massage me and for honoring him with my visit to his house. And the bill? He says that in China and Japan, money is never exchanged during a massage because “it’s inappropriate as thank-you energy.” The policy at the Crescent, however, will be somewhat more flexible.

FELDEN-KRAIS

Designing better bodies through engineering

When 1 first learned of Feldenkrais, I was eager to experience it. Some people claim that it gives new meaning to “personal growth” by actually making you taller; I’ve always dreamed of being 6 feet tall, so I was up for this one.

The only authorized Feldenkrais dealer in Dallas is Jack Heggie. When I enter his office, 1 tell him about my fantasy of being taller. According to Heggie, everyone is shorter than they’re supposed to be because the body shrinks under the stress and strain of everyday living. I might really be 6 feet tall, even taller.

Although supporters claim that Feldenkrais often lengthens the body, its real purpose is to reeducate the body in a new and more efficient way to move. Moshe Feldenkrais, a Russian-born Israeli who spent the last 40 years of his life developing a system of bodywork called Functional Integration, saw the brain as a computer and the body as its terminal. By his manipulations, he “taught” the body to reprogram the mind. Celebrities from Julius Erving, violinist Yehudi Menuhin and anthropologist Margaret Mead to David Ben-Gurion and Helen Keller all counted themselves among Feldenkrais’ pupils. Numerous testimonies credit Feldenkrais for helping people with multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy and other brain-related diseases. Yet Feldenkrais never considered himself a healer, saying he knew nothing of cures, “only what a particular disease meant in terms of the body activity.”

In my first Feldenkrais lesson, I receive a big surprise. It doesn’t hurt a bit, I don’t even have to lake off my clothes. Heggie worked first the right side of my body, with manipulations that push, press, point and punch symmetrically and rhythmically. He rocked and moved my arms, legs and hinges so I could experience a new freedom of motion. When he had finished one side, he asked me to stand slowly, to sense any changes. I had the same sense of lightness again, but something was different. My right side felt longer than my left. Was I on the verge of my long-awaited growth spurt? Heggie says he wouldn’t be surprised, but a complete Feldenkrais job may take many lessons, perhaps one lesson for every year of a pupil’s life. At $50 a lesson, and at my age, that’s a high price to pay for a fourth of an inch.

Feldenkrais bodywork aims to build more ef-ficient bodies that expend less effort for more movement. Trained as an engineer and physicist, Moshe saw stress, strain and excess tension as wasted energy (the old-fashioned, Western, get-up-and-go kind). This energy remains in the muscles, he believed, causing the body to shorten and preventing it from organizing itself correctly for action. By “functionally integrating,” the body and mind were given more freedom of movement, more choices. Feldenkrais also devised more than a thousand exercises he called “Awareness Through Movement,” all aimed at maximizing efficiency.

I get a sense of functional integration at my second Feldenkrais lesson. Jack tells me to get down on my knees so I am bending across the massage table. He asks me to raise my head as far back as 1 can, looking up as if I’m trying to catch a football. I struggle, feeling restricted in my movement. Jack starts working my pelvis, lower back, spine and neck. Twenty minutes later he asks me to raise my head again. I can feel my pelvis and lower back getting into the act and my head moves back, only much more than before. Funny thing. I have a memory of trying to play high school football. I always had trouble catching the ball over my head. My coach enjoyed telling me that I had hands like feet; little did he know I just wasn’t functionally integrated.

THE TRAGER APPROACH

A tune-up for the mind

All bodyworkers seem to be after the same thing: an integrated body and mind. Rolfing does it by restructuring fascia, shiatsu by balancing energy, Feldenkrais by reeducating the brain. All use the body to get to the mind to get to the body to get to the mind. Such is the “do loop” of their profession. Trager takes still a different path, from body to unconscious mind.

Barbara Nehman, certified in Trager for three years, says that in Trager work you are telling the body how the mind should feel: light, open, free. Everything she does is directed toward creating that feeling in her client. But first she must tap into her own feelings of lightness. Trager people call it “hooking up.” Then, it’s her job to convey this feeling to her clients, using a light, fluffy, wiggling, jiggling massage. Once the client’s body gets the message, it can in turn convey it to the unconscious mind.

During our chat, Barbara often quotes from Milton Trager, her teacher, mentor and medical doctor. Trager believes that for every ache, pain, energy block or limiting condition there’s a psychic counterpart in the unconscious mind. Muscle tension in the body means patterns of tension in the mind. Free up one and you free up the other.

Milton Trager came to bodywork as an 18-year-old boxer in Miami. His manager gave him rub-downs after each workout and one day Trager returned the favor. The manager marveled at Trager’s great pair of hands. As the story goes, young Milton went home to work on his father, who had been suffering from sciatica for two years. After three sessions, his dad was cured. For the next four decades Milton Trager worked in virtual obscurity, treating the sick in his private practice. But stories of his success spread, and in 1975 Trager became the darling of California’s human potential movement. Only then did he begin to teach Trager to others.

Again I strip, again I take to the table. Barbara begins by gently moving my head and neck in tandem. She rocks and rolls me, wiggles and jiggles me. shakes me silly. It seems as if I’m in perpetual motion in every direction. She works my entire body this way, stopping only to grab a different limb. I open my eyes and see that her eyes are closed. I wonder if she is in “hook up,” tapping into her own feelings. At different times, she asks me questions in a monotone voice. “This is lighter, isn’t it?” “Can you feel this holding pattern?” It seems she only half expects me to answer. I figure she must be connecting with my unconscious. The more she Tragers me, the more unconscious I become. I don’t fight it. I drift off into sleep.

Later, I ask her if my body can send and receive messages when I’m asleep. Did I snooze through some awesome revelation? She says that feelings of lightness have been registered in my body memory. All I have to do is retrieve them from my unconscious through “mentastics,” a series of simple exercises using mental imagery.

Critics of Tragering point out that Trager certification is light on the training side: A week’s workshop and you’ve reached the first level. There are currently around 1,400 Trager people worldwide but only nine approved teachers. Barbara charges $40 to $50 per session depending on whether you go to her or she comes to you.



TO EXAMINE ALL the different kinds, modalities, permutations and combinations of bodywork would tax even the most integrated of body/minds. Here is a sampling of other body-working in the Dallas area.

Swedish massage. Still the most popular form of massage. Some say that a 45-minute ses sion gives the body the equivalent of a seven-mile jog. You’re completely naked, lubricated in min eral oils and sheets, then kneaded, pounded, stroked and vibrated into relaxed submission. Sounds illegal, but no. Regular treatments are said to improve muscle tone and circulation.

Aston-Patterning. Judith Aston, a disciple of the Rolfing school, complained that all Rolfed bodies look alike because Rolfing doesn’t take into account individual detail and design. And it hurts too much. So Aston broke away to start her own discipline. Aston-Patterning, which com bines deep tissue massage, movement education and something called environmental redesign.

Alexander Technique. Bodywork doesn’t get any subtler than this. Alexander is movement reeducation-only this time with a heavy focus on the head-neck alignment known as the “primary control.” SMU theater professor Jim Hancock is a qualified Alexander technician.

Eclectic Bodywork. Many bodyworkers mix and match, concocting their own personal methodology. Other forms they might employ: Reflexology, Reiki Sports Massage, Bioener- getics. Radix, Hydrotherapy, Aroma therapy, Myotherapy, Kinesiology, Esalen Massage, Hei- lerwork, Lymphatic therapy, Hoshimo, Lomi and anything else seen crossing the California border.

LET THE BODY BEWARE

The formal position of the American Medical Association is that all health care alternatives should be supervised by a physician. Yet many doctors don’t even know about bodywork. Of those who do, some make referrals, some go themselves, others just don’t believe in it. All agree that more research is needed showing the therapeutic effects of bodywork. Says Dr. Larry Dossey, former chief of staff at Humana Hospital Medical City, “No one is willing to accept any nebulous explanation that involves the metaphors of energy, toxins, good vibes or any other poetic verse.”

However, the AMA won’t support the research because they believe bodywork borders on quackery. And bodyworkers won’t research themselves. They point to clinical observation, testimonials, to their growing popularity. They content themselves with the intuitive sense that “it works because it works.”

“But that’s not enough,” says Dossey. “In order to make an informed referral, I need to know in what situation it works, how reliable it is and what its side effects are.”

Certainly bodywork is on safe ground when viewed as preventive health care. But body-workers go beyond legal bounds when they treat symptoms or make diagnoses.

If you get over the institutional hurdle of the AMA, it becomes a question of which body- worker is right for you: Certification and creden tials help, word of mouth is generally reliable, the advice of your physician is not a bad idea. But you might also want to contact the Texas Massage Therapist Association for an appropriate referral to one of its 1,100 members.