Movement Is Life
i.
By Meir Schneider and Carol Gallup
Massage therapists are T h i s is the first of six coluAns by Meir
really the ideal caregivers to Schneider, founder of the Center for Self-
Healing in San Francisco and the author
foster in their clients the of The Handbook of Self-Healing and Self-
kinesthetic/proprioceptive Healing: My Lifeand Vision. Throughout
awareness that awakens the column Schneider and co-writer Carol
their self-healing powers, Gallup will explore the importance of
movement in daily life, and the necessity
because a powerful synergy, of incorporating movement into healing
the combination of treatments.
massage and movement,
is available to them. theWhen Meir Schneider first discovered
importance of movement, he was a
blind teenager working very hard to learn
how to see. Every day, excited and hope-
ful, he would come home from school
and practice eye exercises and massage his
head and neck for hours at a time. He
even did the eye exercises during classes at
school, much to the annoyance of his
teachers.
His family scoffed at his efforts.
Doctors had told them years before that
Schneider was hopelessly, permanently
blind. Five unsuccesshl surgeries in early
childhood had replaced his congenital
cataracts with scar tissue so dense that
only five percent of one lens and one per-
cent of the other admitted any light.
There were other serious vision problems
as well. Schneider's only support came
from his ON^ mentors, Isaac, a teenager
who had learned the eye exercises of the
Bates Method from a library book to clear
up his own nearsightedness, and Miriam,
the librarian who introduced the two
boys.
Now, six months into his project,
Schneider could see shapes, light and dark
and a little movement without glasses;
with them, for the first time in his life, he
could see the ordinary objects of the
world -windows, air conditioners, girls,
his own face in the mirror. Within
another year, he would see equally well
without glasses, and later, he would read
and write normally and earn an unrestrict-
ed driver's license.
Miriam told Schneider his program was
incomplete without movement exercises.
"We need movement because that is what
life is about," she said. "There is no such
thing as a completely sick person, or a
completely healthy person either. There
are only those who move more and those
who move less. Movement in the human
body is continuous. Once it stops we stop
living. There is either restriction to move-
ment or freedom of movement, and a per-
son can choose either."
Movement exercises for his calf and shin
muscles, she said, would improve his eye-
sight. Schneider found the statement
mind-boggling. Miriam pointed out that
Schneider's eyes were becoming more
alive with the movements of his eye exer-
cises. She advised him to perform them
on the beach, rotating his head from side
to side and moving his toes up and down
while standing in shallow water, so that
the movement of the waves would stimu-
late his foot and shank muscles.
Schneider tried it, and found a whole new
world he could come back to again and
again. Winter or summer, he would
stand in the surfexercising, opening him-
selfwholeheartedly to the practice and
study of movement, breathing, coordina-
tion and the gentle rhythms of the body.
It was bliss.
It was also the beginning of a lifetime
exploration. Schneider soon began creat-
ing exercises for himself and others with
serious illnesses, and seeing remarkable
improvement. He discovered that every-
one has an innate power to create recovery
and health. The key to accessing this self-
healing power was a deep sense of move-
ment, sometimes called kinesthetic or
proprioceptive awareness. Over the years,
thousands of clients of his Self-Haling
Method have developed their own kines-
thetic awareness and reversed the progress
of such degenerative conditions as mu--
lar dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, &rick
polio and postpolio, carpal tunnel ?n-
drome, near- and farsightedness and m m r
diseases of the eye.
Miriam could not explain the connec-
tion she sensed between the lower legs 2nd
MASSAGE Issue Nurnbei60. W A p r l l S S

Photos # l a & Ib: Bringing movement up the body.
MASSAGE s Issue Number 60 MarcWApril 1996
eyesight. After trying her exercises,
Schneider found it out for himself. An
area that feels unsupported from below
will comp'ensare by stiffening. Schneider's
tense, undeveloped shanks and feet were
perceived by every part above, especially
his neck, as an inadequate base of support.
Strengthening Schneider's feet and shanks
allowed his neck to relax enough chat
massage and exercises there could have a
lasting effect. Schneider discovered that,
with his neck more relaxed, the increased
circulation available to his head made a
noticeable improvement in his eyesight.
Through movemenr, he had begun to
sense the interconnectedness of all parts of
the body.
The chain of movement
A massage therapist needs to have
hands that are alive - warm, penetrating,
aware. Movement can bring this kind of
life.to your hands. It has to start, as it did
for Schneider as he nurtured his eyes, with
your base of support - feet, ankles and
shanks.
Take a moment to investigate it for
yourself. Stand up, tighten up your
ankles and then try making circles with
your knees and hips. Now relax your
Hnkles and do thesame thing; notice how
much more movement you have above
them. Movement scientists point out that
in walking, excursion is greatest at the
ankle, less at the knee, still less at the hip,
and so on. If you introduce stiffness at
the ankle, it goes all the way up the kine-
tic chain.
According to David Winter, a leading
researcher in movement analysis, a major
challenge of the lower body during walk-
ing is that of controlling the anteriorlpos-
terior (forwardlbackward) sway of the
upper body. The head needs to be kept
steady to reduce sensory "noise" to the
eyes and the balance receptors of the
vestibular system. Because we are top-
heavy (rwo-thirds of the body's mass is
above the legs), the upper body acts as an
inverted pendulum rotating on the hip,
sometimes accelerating forward, sorne-
times backward, always inherently unsta-
ble.
Whatever accelerations of the inverted
pendulum are left undampened after the
lower body has done its work ark left to
the muscles of the back and neck (erector
spinae and splenius capitus). If you limit
movement below - through tense mus-
51
Movement is Life
cIes or from wearing unyielding shoes or
high heels - you're going to have to
tighten your back and neck. Not coinci-
dentally, many of us have stiffness in these
areas.

Base-building exercises
This is the beginning of a complete
movement exercise sequence continuing
into the next two sections, which will cre-
ate balanced, relaxed use throughout the
body and enliven your hands.
Check your neck for stiffness now.
Rotate your neck in each direction, move
your chin left and right, bend your neck
to each side (ear to shoulder). As you do
the following exercises, check your neck
from time to time to see whether it moves
more easily.

Awakening the toes: Rotate all your

toes together and then each one individu-
ally, passively and then actively. You may
need to hold onto all the other toes to
help one move by itself. Then give each Photos #2a & 2b: Shoulder rotations.
toe some resistance training to create
strength and awareness. Move it up,
down, to one side, then the other, resist-
ing with your fingers; now try to rotate it
again, then visualize the rotation, then
rotate it again.

Building strong calf and shin muscles:

Standing, alternate moving the forefoot
up and down 50 times. Then alternate
moving the heels up and down 50 times.

Ankle rotations: Sit down comfort-

ably. Rotate your neck in one direction,
then the other, noticing how freely it
moves. Now keep your heels together on
the floor and make circles with the
forefeet. Now rest one ankle on the other
knee and massage the calf and shin mus-
cles while making circles with the forefoot
of the supported leg in both directions.
Then see whether the neck rotations have
become easier.

Bringing movement up the body:

(Photos # l a & Ib): Still sitting, keep your
feet on the floor and mobilize your knees
by making 20 mirror-image big circles in
each direction. Now mobilize your back
in three parts, moving continuously and
going as far as you can in each direction
five times. Tilt your pelvis back and
forth; then put one hand on the lower
midri& one on the midback, and guide
the midthorax back and forth; then alter-
nate collapsing your shoulders forward
and pulling them back. Check your neck;
notice how much less tension is present.
52
W a k i n g barefoot on the beach:
Normally, with each step, your foot
moves from inversion (soles pointing
toward each other, presenting the stiffest
possible surface to the ground) to eversion
(soles pointing outward, arches lowering)
and back again, as it investigates the kind
of surface ic is walking on and accomrno-
dates itself. Walking with shoes on hard,
even surfaces, we can lose much of this
movement and sensory awareness. On
sand, as at the beach, we get lower impact,
a more various, balanced use of foot and
shank muscles, and a lively interaction
with the soft, uneven sand.
After walking along and noticing how
it feels for a while, try walking backward.
You can glance over your shoulder occa-
sionally to make sure there are no major
obstacles. If you like, bring along some-
one to spot you. This is a great way to
break up stiff patterns throughout the
MASSAGE Issue Number 60. MarcWApiil1996
body. Your center of gravity moves back- \

ward. You start to feel your shins and the

back of your thighs mobilize. Your neck
stops craning forward and your head feels
delightfully like an idle passenger. Now
walk forward again and see how different
it feels.
(One Olympic gold medalist skater
who was working with Schneider rehsed
to walk barefoot on the beach. He was
afraid to give up the stiffness in his ankles.
Would it have hurt his performance?
Maybe, in the short run. T h e "peak per-
formances" of athletes may be less than
wonderfbl in terms of health.)

Your hands can

endlessly increase their
ability to feel
the movement needs of ;
the area they are
working on, while they
transmit a sense of all
the movement that
is possible there.

Losing and regaining movement

Degenerative illnesses -such as
arthritis, age-associated diseases of the eye,
overuse syndromes and chronic back pain
- are on the rise. Medicine has no effec-
tive remedies. W e believe that lack of
movement causes most degenerative,ill-
nesses and creates major symptoms in
others.
Degenerative conditions are diseases of
stagnation, of chronic postural rigidities
and unbalanced use. Of the body's
approximately 600 muscles, we grossly
overuse about 50 and greatly underuse
many others. Muscular tension builds up
in some areas until they are numb and
immobile. Whichever system of your
body is most vulnerable will accumulate
problemS fastest. If it's your connective
;issue, it will slowly harden, causing joint
spaces to shrink, and eventually th; pain
and stiffness of arthritis begins. If it's
your circulatory system, a tight chest may
lead to heart problems or a tight neck to
migraine and then,stroke.
Freezing up like this doesn't happen
overnight. We all know the typical anxi-

MASSAGE* Issue Number 60 MarcNApril1996 i

i
Movement is Life

ety posture, the "coat hanger look" - \

head forward, shoulders hunched, upper

chest collapsed, ready to "shoulder" the
next task. Anxiety tends to dominate not
only emotionally, blocking out all milder
feelings, bur physically. We use what
Schneider calls the anxiety muscles - the
flexors - and avoid working others, for
example, the abductors.
The critical question is whether these
stressful postures are occasional or embed-
ded. When we get upset, we tend to take
it in the neck, briefly, but when emotional
tension is put into a neck that is habitual-
ly tense, it will stay on. It's like the differ-
ence between a swamp and a river -if
you throw dirt into a swamp, it just sits
there, but if you throw it into a river, it
will be swept away. In working with an
embedded movement loss, relaxation has
to be first a physical action and only later
an emotionallmental one.
Movement loss is part of a lifestyle for
many people. It's insidious. Over the
course of time, ideas of how we can move
become limited and stereoryped until
some areas of the body lose wen the Photos #3a & 3b: Awakening the back.
memory or concept of movement. For
example, most of our day-to-day move-
ments occur in the sagittal (fonvardlback-
ward) plane -walking, reaching, typing
-leading to wear and tear, and overuse
syndromes. We get too many of these
angular, jerky movements and not enough
of the fluidity of circular movements that
take us through many planes. As patterns
of stiff, limited, unbalanced use build up,
eventually they can follow us even into
new pastimes like swimming or yoga, rob-
bing us of the release and refreshment
such activities initially offered.
A big part of the problem is that too
much,movement is goal-oriented, so that
the body becomes merely a tool to be used
- and ignored. In this respect, the jogger
who runs his seven miles every day no
matter how it feels is no more aware of his
body's movement requirements than is
the ofice worker who dutifully sits immo-
bile at a computer screen all day until the
movement her body desperately needs
actually feels strange and unwelcome.
Chronic stress, endemic in our culture,
is a major cause of movement loss. It
causes us to tense up many more muscle muscles, inappropriately trying to control Massage therapists are not exempt
groups rhan we need to perform an the movement, stiffen enough to create from stress and over-recruitment. As you
action. In a startling example of over- nausea and dizziness. (Rolling is not only massage a ,-lien[, is it only the massaging
recruitment, when most of Schneider's useful for evaluation; it's a nice way to hand that is working, or is it the entire
clients try to roll from side to side on the break up movement blocks. Try it for arm, shoulder, chest, upper back, neck
floor, their diaphragm, chest and throat yourself and with your clients.) and maybe even the abdomen and face

54 MASSAGE. Issue Number 60 March/April1996

 \

(especially the jaw) as well?All of these

muscles may be acting together as a big
insensate block. This is poor mechanics
and - from the point of view of yoga and
other disciplines -poor energetics,
.-because enerm channels are blocked in
"
a

many places. Furthermore, the nervous

system becomes so.understimulated that it
is very hard to feel the tissue you are mas-
saging.
Unfortunarely, clients can sense the
difference. When you over-recruit, you
over-use the stabilizers- for example, the
shoulders, and deny the appropriate mus-
cles their Ill.movement. You may, for
instance, choke up on the wrists and fin-
gers so that the client feels a frozenness in
your fingertips.
Recruitment of unnecessarv muscles is
an occupational Kazaid of massage thera-
py. The results include fatigue, burnout,
tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome.
Even maisage therapists who don't usually
recruit unnecessarily may do it under
stress.

Movement and massage

Movement is the treatment that is
often missing in medicine, in massage
practices and in the massage therapist's
self-care as well. Massage therapists are
really the ideal caregivers to foster in their
clients the kinestheticlproprioceptive
awareness that awakens their self-healing
powers, because a powerful synergy, the
combination of massage and movement,
1 is available to them.
I Movement can change the therapist1
client relationship. .How many times have .
I
you seen a client come back with the same
I problem week after week?Adding a home
I program of movement and self-massage
I can get these clients unstuck, enlist them
I
as active, inventive partners and change
' '
the energy of the massage session.
Realistically, clients that like to be depen-
I dent may leave you, but you will probably
attract more self-reliant ones.
Schneider believes that it was no acci-
dent that his first successes with dcgenera-
I tive diseases came while he was working
I
I to gain functional vision. Enormous sen-
i sory and motor changes were occurring in
his brain as a result of his explorations;
this open, nonroutine state had a power-
ful effect on his early clients.
Our center is often full of clients from
all over the world with degenerative dis-
eases of muscle, nerve, joints, vision and

MASSAGE Issue Number W MarchlAprW 1998

Movement is Life
chronic pain, others. one bfour more side-to-side motion). Next, move - As you breathe, have everything separate
therapists told us she envies her clients You: 'PIJer back and down and expand still further - rib cage and
with serious diseases for the spiritual bringing your shoulder blades as close to sides moving outward. When your client
aspects of their recovery. ~h~~ become each other and then as far apart as possi- is face down, try rotating your head while
extraordinary people. We couldn't be any ble several times. massaging.
use to them if we didn't continually Keeping your entire torso steady and As you move through your day, visual-
explore movement - including the your weight on both hands, rotate your ize that every movement you make is per-
important movement of missage - and
stay . to what we find from moment
. open
to moment. You really can't ever stop.
W e transmit movement - our own - to
others every time we touch them. It tends
to keep us honest.

fiercises to thaw movement patterns

T h e following exercises can help you
and your clients break up frozen move-
ment patterns by isolating and peripheral-
izing movement. By using only the mus-
cles that are needed, massage therapists
can work 14 hours a day or more without
fatigue.

Shoulder rotations (Photos #2a &

2b): All of these rotations should be done
in both directions. Lying on your side
with your head well supported by pillows,
rotate your free shoulder 20 times in each
direction, while tapping on the tip of the
shoulder with your other hand. Visualize
that the tip of your your shoulder is lead-
ing the action; this releases the muscles of
the midback. Now visualize the shoulder
rotations. Next, rotate the shoulder pas-
sively with the other hand. Then repeat
the active shoulder rotations.
Rotate the whole arm 20 times in each
direction. Focus on the fingertips and
visualize that they are leading the motion.
Interrupt your arm rotations once or
twice to tap with your fingertips on the
floor about 10 times. This will help you
focus on the fingertips. Return to the
shoulder rotations; and ask yourself
whether the shoulder feels looser. Then
d o the same sequence with the other
shoulder.
Awakening the back (Photos #3a &
3b): Get down on hands and knees on the
floor. Hold your arms and legs steady
and rotate your buttocks. Allow your
thighs to rotate with the hips, and make
bigger circles, always in both directions.
Next, allow your arms and legs to join in
the rotation. Hold your pelvis as steady as
you can and rotate your chest and upper
back, first with your weight equally dis-
tributed on both hands (more of an up-
and-down motion), then shifting your
weight from one hand to the other (a
Photo #4: Opening up adhesions.
shoulders, first together and in the same
direction, and then alternately, so that one
shoulder is up while the other is down.
Arch your back and lower your head
until the top of your skull touches the
floor and takes some of your weight, and
rotate your torso on your head. This
peripheralizing exercise continues the
exploration of movement in the back
from the above-mentioned exercise to
bring movement up the body. For vari-
ety, you may choose t o mobilize the
lower, middle and upper back in
flexionlextension in the all-fours posture
you assume at the beginning of this
sequence. Use these suggestions as a start-
ing point and see how many ways you can
find to move your spine.
Expanding everywhere: The next
time you are giving a massage, breathe
deeply and visualize that every part of
your body is lengthening, expanding,
loosening. Tell your head to go up to the
ceiling and your shoulders to the walls.
formed by your body's periphery. As you
walk, picture your feet lifting your legs.
When you use your arms -writing or
giving a massage -picture your fingers
leading the motion.
An architect came to our center two
days before she was scheduled for surgery
for carpal tunnel syndrome. She learned
how to use only her fingertips for her
drafting work and let go of her shoulder,
jaw, neck, chest and abdomen. Her
symptoms disappeared completely, and
she canceled the surgery. Now she is a
full-time massage therapist.
These peripheralizing exercises and the
following wrist and hand exercises were
part of her regimen; you may want to
teach them to clients whose occupations
and pastimes rely on extensive use of their
hands. You can help them -and your-
self - prevent or recover from overuse
syndromes.
MASSAGE Issue Number 60 MarchIAprll J996
Movement to bring more
life t o your touch
Massage therapists need to have a
special kind of intelligence in their hands.
Isolation and peripheralization are impor-
tant kctors; so are strength and sensitivi-
ty. The following exercises will bring

In a branch of Judaism,
the soul is considered
to be in the forearms,
so a ritual cloth is
wrapped around them
for prayer.
Schneider sometimes
thinks of this during
sessions as he
experiences the life of
his hands,
the life of another person
through them,
and the compassion
inherent in the act
of massage.

relaxation to your hands, make them

strong enough to work independently,
and actually increase their intelligence as ~

you create new neuronal and neuromus-

cular connections.
Your hands can endlessly increase their
ability to feel the movement needs of the
area they are working on, while they
transmit a sense of all the movement that
is possible there.

Finger tapping: Sit in a chair that

supports your back well; cushion and sup-
port the elbow of the tapping hand with a
pillow or blanket. On a table or other
hard surfice, tap with all the fingers of
one hand a few hundred times. The wrist
should be very loose, and the movement
floppy; a ~ o i d - ~ o u n dwith
i n ~rigid fingers.
How are the fingertips reacting? They
will probably feel pleasantly stimulated at
first, then pained, then numb, then
pained again, then stimulated.
If they simply hurt continuously, you may
be tapping too hard, so ease off. When

< 7 - - -.
MASSAGE Issue Number 60 h4arcWAplil1996
Movement is Life
you have tapped 300 to 400 times,'your
fingers will be tingling - and more sensi-
tive - from better circulation and nerve
response. Feel your face, scalp, shoulder
and chest, first with the sensitized hand,
then with the other, and compare what
the two hands register. Repeat the exer-
cise with the other hand.
Opening u p adhesions (Photo.#4):
D o each of these movements about 100
times: Open and close the fingers of one
hand, focusing o n your fingertips and tap-
ping on the forearm with your other
hand. Next, rotate your forearm in both
directions, then rotate your shoulder in
both directions. Open your mouth as
wide as you can and close it. Rotate your
head in both directions. Now open and
close your fingers again and see if they are
looser. Repeat with the other hand and
arm.
Awakening wrist and hand joints:
Rest your right forearm on a table and
relax your right hand as completely as
possible while you grasp the fingertips and
passively rotate it in both directions with
your other hand. Continue until the right
hand stops helping or resisting the
motion. Now grasp your right hand just
under the wrist and let it rotate slowly in
as big a circle as you can make without
tensing the arm: Keep the right hand and
fingers completely relaxed and let the
wrist do the work alone. Repeat 10 to 20
times, then return to the passive rotations.
Is there a bigger range of motion and less
resistance?
Now rotate each finger of the right
hand, first passively, then actively, then
passively. Next do the same with each
joint on each finger. How much indepen-
dent movement do you get from each!
Compare both hands as to warmth, sensi-
tivity, looseness, aliveness. Compare the
way each hand responds to different sur-
faces, including your own leg. Now
rotate all the joints of the left hand.
Massaging each hand: (Although this
is not a movement exercise, we included
this self-massage because it's a perfect end
to this sequence.) With the fingertips of
one hand, start to explore the muscles of
the other. Make small circles with a gen-
tle downward pressure, keeping the fin-
gertips o n the skin. Anchor your hand
with the thumb, then massage with the
thumb, too. Proceed from the base of the
hand up to the knuckles, then along both
sides of each finger. Massage each finger
between the thumb and fingers of the
other hand. You may find tense or tender
places; when the tension is released, it
may produce an emotional release as well.
Repeat for the other hand.
In a mystical branch of Judaism, the
soul is considered to be in the forearms, so
leather strips are wrapped around them
for prayer. Schneider sometimes thinks of
this during sessions as he experiences the
life of his hands, the life of another person
through them, and the compassion inher-
ent in the act of massage. EI
Meir Schneider, Ph. D. L.M. 1,an
internationally known therapist and edu-
cator, is the creator of the Meir Schneider
Self-Healing Method, the author of two
books, Self-Healing: My Life and Vision
and The Handbook of Self-Healing,
and thefounder/director of the Center
and Schoolfor Self-Healing in San
Francisco. As a teenager, he overcame
blindness cawed by congenital cataracts
and other serious vision problems and
toddy has an unrestricted driver's license.
Forfirther information, call (415) 665-
7574.
Carol Gallup is an advanced student
of Self-Healing,registrar of the Schoolfor
Self-Healing,staff writer of the Self-
Healing Research Founddtion, and the
author of numerous magazine articles.
She studied physical therapy at the Mayo
Clinic and is now a master's degree candi-
date in research psychology at San
Francisco State University. For her thesis,
she is documentating thep r o p s of a Self-
Healing client with muscular dystrophy
using kinematic anabsis.