Neurodynamics: The Art of Mindfulness in Action

Neurodynamics

Other books by Theodore Dimon

The Elements of Skill: A Conscious Approach to Learning

The Undivided Self: Alexander Technique and the Control of Stress

Anatomy of the Moving Body: A Basic Course in Bones, Muscles, and Joints, Second Edition

The Body in Motion: Its Evolution and Design

Your Body, Your Voice: The Key to Natural Singing and Speaking

Neurodynamics

The Art of Mindfulness in Action

◆◆◆

Theodore Dimon

North Atlantic Books

Berkeley, California

Copyright © 2015 by Theodore Dimon. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by

North Atlantic Books

Berkeley, California

Cover image © dreamstime.com/tose

Cover design by Claudia Smelser

Illustrations by G. David Brown, Helen Leshinsky, and Jim Strauss

Neurodynamics: The Art of Mindfulness in Action is sponsored and published by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences (dba North Atlantic Books), an educational nonprofit based in Berkeley, California, that collaborates with partners to develop cross-cultural perspectives, nurture holistic views of art, science, the humanities, and healing, and seed personal and global transformation by publishing work on the relationship of body, spirit, and nature.

North Atlantic Books’ publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.

MEDICAL DISCLAIMER: The following information is intended for general information purposes only. Individuals should always see their health care provider before administering any suggestions made in this book. Any application of the material set forth in the following pages is at the reader’s discretion and is his or her sole responsibility.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dimon, Theodore.

Neurodynamics : the art of mindfulness in action / Theodore Dimon.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

Summary: Written for both beginning and advanced students, the book offers in-depth explanations of the theory of neurodynamics, outlining steps of development and practical exercises—Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-1-58394-979-5 (trade)—ISBN 978-1-58394-980-1 (ebook)

1. Neurophysiology. 2. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. I. Title.

QP355.D56 2015

612.8—dc23

2015001735

Contents

Illustrations

Preface

Introduction: A New Approach to the Study of Movement

Part One: The Science

Chapter 1. The Postural Neuromuscular Reflex (PNR) System and How It Works

The Architecture: How Muscles Work in the Context of the Skeletal Framework

Stretch Reflexes and the Musculoskeletal Framework: How Stretch Reflexes Convert the Musculoskeletal System into a Spring-like Framework

The Organizing Principle of Head and Trunk: How the Relation of the Head to the Trunk Organizes Movement in Space

Neck Reflexes: How the Neck Reflexes Play a Central Role in Organizing Muscle Tone Throughout the Body

Chapter 2. Muscles and the Role of Awareness

Chronic Tension: How Muscles Contract and Must Let Go into Length in Order to Function Properly

Awareness, Thinking, and Muscle Length: How to Lengthen Muscles by Being Kinesthetically Aware and Sending Messages via Motor Units in the Context of Length

Direction: Thinking and Intention

Coordinating the Whole: How the Different Body Parts Must Be Supported in Order for the System to Let Go into Length and to Coordinate as a Whole, Which Elicits the Reflex Response of the PNR System

The Gamma System: How Harmfully Performed Voluntary Actions Are Controlled by the Old Brain, and How to Restore This System Through Thinking and Stopping

Chapter 3. Awareness and Conscious Control

Ideomotor Action: How Action Is Part of a Pathway of Activity That Begins with an Idea and Ends in a Motor Act, and Why It Is Necessary to Address This Pathway in Order to Restore the Proper Working of the PNR System

The Autonomic Nervous System and the Field of Consciousness: Why Stress Is Associated with an Imbalanced Working of the Ideomotor System and How the PNR System Acts as an Integrative Control over the Autonomic Nervous System

The Means-Whereby Principle: How Our Subconscious Actions Are Oriented Towards Ends, and How to Perform Actions Consciously by Focusing on the Means

Conscious Control: How Our Actions Take Place Subconsciously, and How to Achieve a Conscious Level of Control of Action by Superseding Subconscious with Conscious Direction

Part Two: The Art

Chapter 4. Directing and the PNR system

The Organization of Awareness

The Principle of Non-Doing

The Semi-Supine Position

The Primary Directions

Kinesthetic Thinking: The Key to Directing

Wishing, Attending, and Non-Doing

The Concreteness of Thinking

Directing and Antagonistic Action

Integration of the Whole

Chapter 5. The PNR System and How It Works

Forward and Up

The PNR system and the Sacrospinalis Sheet

Flexors and Front Length

Antagonistic Action of Muscles

Lengthening in Stature

Lengthening in Stature Continued

Widening the Shoulders

Knees Forward and Away

The PNR System and the Suboccipital Muscles

Chapter 6. The Means-Whereby Principle: Attention to the Process

The Conceptual Factor

The Gamma System

What It Means to Stop

Thinking in Activity

The Purpose of the Means-Whereby Principle

Applying the Means-Whereby Principle to Real-Life Activities

Chapter 7. The Means-Whereby Principle in Practice

Positions of Mechanical Advantage

Stand-to-Sit, or Sitting from the Standing Position

Sit-to-Stand, or Getting Out of a Chair

The Use of the Arms

Chapter 8. The Art of Conscious Control

Examining Our Actions

The PNR System as the Basis of Looking at Yourself

Opening a Window

Inhibition and Directing

The Problem of Subconscious Action

Detachment in Action

Inhibition and How to Do It

A New Stage in Action

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Illustrations

Chapter 1. The Postural Neuromuscular Reflex (PNR) System and How It Works

1-1. Neck muscles and head balance

1-2. Tensegrity design

1-3. Skeleton and muscle supports (by permission of Oxford University Press)

1-4. a. The cat’s head is cantilevered and keeps the neck muscles on stretch; b. in humans, the head acts as a counterbalance that keeps the neck muscles on stretch

1-5. The vertebrae are spacers that keep the small postural muscles stretched

1-6. The spine as a whole acts as a lengthening device

1-7. Front length

1-8. Widening of the shoulder girdle and back

1-9. The five key elements of lengthening support

1-10. The knee-tendon reflex: Tapping the patellar tendon stretches the quadriceps muscles, which activates sensors in the muscle; this sends a signal to the motor nerve serving the same muscles, which tell them to contract.

1-11. The reflex arc

1-12. The spinal circuits in the stretch reflex: a. motor neuron to same (homonymous) muscle; b. motor neuron to related (synergistic) muscles; c. inhibition of motor neuron to opposing (antagonistic) muscle

1-13. The muscle spindle: a. muscle spindles and the main muscle; b. anulospiral receptor wrapping around the muscle spindle

1-14. Negative feedback loop of the stretch reflex arc: a. muscle is stretched, muscle spindle fires and activates afferent nerve; b. motor neuron fires and muscle contracts; c. spindle is no longer stretched and stops firing

1-15. Cat stalking prey: attitudinal reflex involving total body posture

1-16. Righting reflex in cat: When held upside down and dropped, the cat will first right its head and then rotate its body, landing on all fours.

1-17. Cat running, with the head leading the movement and the body lengthening

1-18. a. Dermatomes; b. segments

1-19. The 31 peripheral nerves exiting the spine

1-20. The 12 cranial nerves in humans

1-21. The tactile regions of the face served by the trigeminal nerve, which complete the dermatome coverage of the body’s skin surface

1-22. The suboccipital muscles served by the first cervical nerve

1-23. Neck reflexes and the whole

Chapter 2. Muscles and the Role of Awareness

2-1. Cross section of muscle showing muscle fibers

2-2. a. Contractile mechanism of muscles: molecular strands of actin-myosin; b. two types of molecular chains and striated pattern

2-3. Myosin heads, actin strands, cross-bridges, and bonding action

2-4. Chemical action of ATP, etc.

2-5. Motor unit showing motor nerve from spinal cord, muscle with separate fibers, and branches from motor nerve forming end plates to different fibers within the muscles

2-6. Asynchronous stimulation

2-7. Semi-supine position with head supported with books and knees raised

2-8. a. Child with natural poise; b. natural working of musculoskeletal system

2-9. Vertical stance

2-10. The monkey position

2-11. a. Motor cortex; b. motor map—homunculus on frontal lobe; c. corticospinal tract and connection with higher cortex

2-12. The muscle spindle, annulospiral receptor, and gamma motor neuron

2-13. The gamma system

2-14. Golgi tendon organ

2-15. Golgi reflex arc

2-16. Alpha-gamma coactivation

2-17. Dermatomes including the facial region covered by the trigeminal or fifth cranial nerve

Chapter 3. Awareness and Conscious Control

3-1. Overseeing will versus ideomotor action

3-2. Wiring of autonomic nervous system with paravertebral ganglia

3-3. Parasympathetic and sympathetic divisions of the autonomic nervous system and their target organs

3-4. a. Traditional reflex arc; b. total sensorimotor coordination

Chapter 4. Directing and the PNR System

4-1. The semi-supine position

Chapter 5. The PNR System and How It Works

5-1. The extensor muscles of the back

5-2. a. Forward balance of the skull, which has more weight in front than in back; b. head balance in relation to the extensors of the neck and back

5-3. Forward and up balance of head in relation to extensors

5-4. a. Head balance in cat; b. human head balance

5-5. Deep postural muscles of the spine

5-6. Sacrospinalis muscles

5-7. The flexor sheet

5-8. The flexors pull the head back

5-9. The flexors, extensors, and head balance

5-10. Widening the shoulders

5-11. Widening the shoulders

5-12. Widening of back and freeing of ribs

5-13. The sub-occipital muscles

Chapter 7. The Means-Whereby Principle in Practice

7-1. The vertical stance: a. standing with feet apart; b. vertical stance with directions for the head and pelvis; c. vertical stance with added directions for the legs

7-2. The monkey position: a. standing with feet apart; b. bend the knees and incline forward with head leading to go into monkey position; c. directing in monkey position

7-3. Stand-to-sit: a. standing; b. first movement—the monkey position; c. second movement—touching the chair; d. third movement—coming upright

7-4. Stand-to-sit using a table for four-footed support: a. standing with feet apart; b. go into monkey position; c. place hands on table; d. deepen monkey and bring elbows onto table; e. come to the upright

7-5. Sit-to-stand: a. sitting in chair; b. inclining forward in chair; c. inclining forward to bring weight over feet; d. straightening the legs to stand upright

7-6. Sit-to-stand using a table for four-footed support: a. sitting in front of table; b. incline forward and place elbows on table; c. incline forward to bring weight over feet; d. hands on table in monkey position; e. come to upright standing

7-7. The monkey position and placing hands on table like feet: a. standing with feet apart in front of table; b. bend the knees and incline forward with head leading to go into monkey position; c. place hands on the table with the fingers straightened; d. directing in monkey with added arm directions

7-8. Sitting and giving directions

7-9. Placing hands on table while sitting and giving directions

Preface

This book is a practical and theoretical manual on the use of the body in action, how to restore its proper working and prevent interference caused by harmful habits, and how to become more aware and mindful in action. It is written for both beginning and advanced students, and comes out of thirty-five years of personal and professional research in the field.

This book is not, like my other books, written as theory but is intended to offer practical information and steps of development. But this does not mean that I am willing to present a simple how-to book. This is a complex field with real depth; as such, it cannot be taught as a series of how-to steps but requires real thought and understanding on the part of the student. A true understanding of this subject requires self-study based on real knowledge; for this reason, this book is aimed at more than giving cursory exercises. The goal is to provide the student with knowledge of how the body works in action, how to restore this system, and how to gain awareness and control in action—a process that cannot be achieved in a few days or weeks but requires committed application and study over time.

In giving this system a name, I do not mean to promote a method in the ordinary sense, because methods for bringing about improvements have no value if they are not based on a working knowledge of the muscular system and how it operates. What good does it do to stretch this or that muscle, to strengthen this or that muscle group, if we do not know how these muscles are actually designed to function and how to restore that natural function? To be sound, a method must be based on a true working knowledge of how the musculoskeletal system is designed to function in action and how to restore this system, and this knowledge is far more important than the particular techniques used in any one case. This book is based on precisely that: knowledge of this system and how it functions, not simply on a set of exercises for bringing about improvements. Once we understand these principles of functioning, the particular way that we go about making changes becomes relatively unimportant in relation to our understanding of how muscles work, how the system works as a whole, and how to prevent the things that interfere with it.

Together these elements comprise a new branch of study I have defined as neurodynamics, or the study of the psychophysical machinery in action as a dynamic system. The study of this field opens up a new approach to education and health based on a comprehensive appreciation of the human body in action and how to gain a more conscious awareness of it in order to improve functioning. It also represents a new behavioral principle that has an important place in our understanding of education and child development.

One discipline that has made great strides in recent decades in contributing to our understanding of how the human system functions in activity is neuroscience. As we will see in these pages, various aspects of neuroscience, including the role of stretch reflexes in postural support, the nature of muscle function, the role of motor units in influencing muscle length, and the role of the gamma system in action, are essential to a proper understanding of this subject.

But neuroscience is a largely experimental science whose objective is to explain how systems work and how various operations of the brain can explain mental processes. As such, neuroscience is largely descriptive and explanatory and cannot address the practical question of why our system is imbalanced, and how to gain greater control through a process of self-education. This means that, while the study of neuroscience is pertinent to this discussion, neuroscience alone cannot address this subject, which requires a new and dynamic approach. Experimental science, and the clinical applications based on its findings, may produce impressive empirical data, but in the end, these results are superficial compared to what can be achieved by studying ourselves in action and understanding the possibility of raising the process of action to a higher level of conscious control—a problem that is fundamentally educational and experiential in nature.

Another area that has received a great deal of attention in recent years is mindfulness, the benefits of which have been well established and have become the object of serious scientific inquiry. But it is crucial to realize that mindfulness practice alone has little value if we do not first gain an understanding of and appreciation for the fundamentally unconscious nature of action and reaction. In my personal investigations into this subject, I realized early on that my apparently physical and muscular issues were actually part of a basic pattern of unconscious behavior and could not be fully addressed until I could come to terms with this aspect of the problem, which awareness and mindfulness practices cannot solve. The study of mindfulness, first and foremost, must be grounded in an understanding of psychophysical functioning and not just in meditative practice; yet we know very little in practical terms about how this system works and how the entire process of action can be raised to a more conscious level. Understanding this subject is one of the central tenets of neurodynamics, which provides the foundation for a more complete system of awareness based on a working knowledge of the human body as a physical and mental machinery, grounded in the scientific and experiential study of the organism as a psychophysical whole.

Introduction: A New Approach to the Study of Movement

Movement, in addition to being central to the conduct of life, is essential to our health. Many of us, even if we do not particularly enjoy it, deliberately move every day in order to keep our muscles toned and healthy and to maintain cardiovascular health. Some of us take a particular interest in movement, studying it in various forms for enjoyment, learning, or mastery. Others simply do rote exercise to work muscles and get the blood flowing.

But many of us who exercise find that, in spite of our efforts to stay fit, the efficiency and functioning of our musculoskeletal system tends to deteriorate over time. Now of course we would expect this to happen as a function of aging, but the deterioration I refer to, while influenced by age, is at the same time independent of age and often occurs in the prime of life. Sometimes we experience it in the form of muscular tension, sometimes as back or shoulder pain, and sometimes as a general loss of efficiency and ease of movement. But in one way or another, we find that with the passage of time our muscles, and our bodies in general, don’t function as well as they should.

The natural response in dealing with these problems is to perform movements in order to strengthen muscles that are weak or to stretch and release muscles that are tight. Yet anyone who tries these methods is ultimately disappointed for the simple reason that the body works as a natural or automatic system, and methods focused on correcting it cannot restore the natural working of this total system or help us to understand why it isn’t working naturally. Because we have not yet understood what the problem is, we blindly pursue methods that promise various benefits and provide temporary relief. But no amount of exercise, bodywork, or stretching is going to put the body right if we don’t first understand how it’s designed to work and how to move in ways that are consistent with our natural functioning. The key to natural movement, as I will show in this book, is not to strengthen or relax muscles, train the body, or correct movement patterns, but to understand how the body is designed to function naturally, how to restore it when it is interfered with and, ultimately, how to use it at a more conscious level in everyday living.

How We Move

Put simply, we move by contracting muscles that are attached to bones. The bones form joints with other bones and therefore act as levers; the muscles are motors that move the levers. The most obvious levers in the human body are the arms and legs, which we use for grasping and for locomotion on two feet, respectively. The central bony structure of the body is the spine, which has to be balanced upright on our two legs in order for us to perform most movements. This upright posture renders us capable of an extensive repertoire of movements, such as walking, running, twisting and rotating, and using our arms and hands in various ways.

In our ability to move we share many characteristics with other vertebrates, which, like us, have a head and spine and muscles arranged around this central axis. Animals that live on land have four movable limbs to help them get around; in birds, the forelimbs have evolved into wings for flying. Some mammals that live in the water once lived on land, and for this reason these animals still have the vestiges of limbs. But humans, whose two-footed posture on land has entirely freed the arms for manipulation, are capable of the most varied and complex forms of movement.

Humans are also capable of the greatest degree of voluntary control of all animals, including the use of the larynx and throat muscles for producing speech. This is made possible because direct voluntary control has been constructed on top of lower tiers of control. For instance, in order to lift an arm, we have to first organize movement at the spinal level; then we must also coordinate total-body movements at lower levels of the brain so that, when we perform the specific action, we’re able to maintain our balance and make the necessary adjustments throughout the entire body. All of this is organized automatically so that when we choose to move the arm—an action that is initiated at the highest levels of the brain—we are unaware of what is happening at the lower levels and experience the action as being entirely consciously directed when it is not.

Natural Design

Although some movement skills such as playing tennis or learning a martial art require years of training, the ability to move is acquired instinctively. We can see this in young children, who learn to crawl, walk, and perform a vast array of movements without intervention or help of any sort. The same can be said of most animals, who learn to walk and move about simply by trying these actions over and over until they become proficient. Many birds and mammals are helped along in their learning by their parents, but we sometimes forget that we acquire our most basic movement skills alone and unaided simply because we are instinctively driven to move and to engage with the world.

At this early stage of development, children move beautifully and effortlessly. Although their movement while learning to balance appears awkward, they are nevertheless very efficient in the way they use their bodies. There are few sights so beautiful as a two- or three-year-old child looking around in wonder or performing simple movements. At that age, children stand and walk with perfect ease and can sit comfortably for as long as they please without any strain, their bodies a model of poise and perfect muscle tone.

Adults, in contrast, present a much bleaker picture. Although with age we become quite skilled at particular activities, few of us move with the grace we enjoyed as children. By the time we are teenagers, most of us cannot sit comfortably without slumping; by adulthood, many of us cannot sit unsupported without experiencing strain in the back or walk without aching joints and muscular tension. By middle age we accept collapse, tension, and physical strain as facts of life.

But what causes this deterioration? Why do we lose the flexibility and vitality of youth? The most obvious answer seems to be that the deterioration is the result of aging processes. A child’s muscle tissue is healthy and elastic. Children do not have to spend hours performing unpleasant and strenuous tasks, and haven’t undergone the stress that comes with adult life. Perhaps most importantly, they are not sedentary, and their muscles have not become weakened or strained through malposture and constant overuse. The obvious solution to the problem, then, seems to be to strengthen muscles that are weak and to stretch and relax muscles that are tight, in the hope of restoring muscular balance and tone and improving bodily support and overall function.

But exercise won’t solve the problem, for two reasons. First, children possess healthy muscle tissue, not simply because they are young but because their muscular systems are working naturally, and muscles work properly as part of this system. When muscles begin to deteriorate, this is not because the muscle tissue is aging but because the muscular system has been compromised. This means that, as a starting point, we must understand how this overall system works and how to restore it, as the basis for restoring healthy and normal functioning of muscles.

Second, if we interfere with this system in the way we perform actions, exercises will not restore it but will in fact make it worse, since the exercises will only re-create the problem. The average four-year-old, for instance, possesses healthy muscles and overall poise but is unable to perform even the simplest actions without interfering with this system. The problem, then, is not that the body is malfunctioning but that the child’s actions are misdirected. The only way to ensure the proper functioning of the body is to learn to perform actions more consciously, based on an understanding of how the system works, not simply on performing exercises designed to contract or tone specific muscles.

Now I want to make it clear at the outset that, in advancing this view, I do not mean to imply that I am against exercise in the broadest sense. We all need to move, and few things are more devastating to health in general—and to musculoskeletal health in particular—than to lead a totally sedentary life. But the fact that exercise confers general aerobic benefits and is also good for your muscles doesn’t mean that it can solve the problem of improving how the musculoskeletal system functions when it is working inefficiently. Instead, this demands an understanding of how the muscular system works, how to use and direct it with more awareness, and how to raise bodily action in general to a more conscious level.

Why Exercise Methods Don’t Work

Anyone who has made even a cursory study of this subject knows that there are hundreds of methods for relaxing, stretching, treating, toning, and strengthening muscles, almost all based on the assumption that if muscles are tight or weak, they can be stretched or strengthened by direct means. In fact, the subject of muscle tension is highly complex and involves a number of seemingly unrelated disciplines such as anatomy, biomechanics, neuroscience, and psychology. Simply practicing methods such as Pilates and stretching may give temporary relief, but it cannot address the question of how the human body works and how to restore it based on an understanding of how it becomes interfered with and what to do about this.

Methods for correcting muscular imbalance are based on several largely unquestioned theories and assumptions. The first theory is that muscle groups antagonistically balance each other, so that if one muscle group is weak, the opposing group needs to be strengthened or stretched. This concept has been invoked by exercise physiologists, proponents of corrective and postural techniques, and physical therapists for decades. If, for instance, the flexors of the arm are tight and shortened, it is believed that strengthening the opposing muscles (the extensors of the arms and shoulders) will help to restore balance. This technique is a commonly employed strategy in physical therapy and is also used in exercise methods such as Pilates, which seek to strengthen the abdominal muscles as a way of supporting and stabilizing the back and trunk.

The problem with this concept is that if your back is vulnerable or weak, strengthening the muscles in front—while this might protect the back in a crude way—will not establish a truly healthful condition of the back. A weak back is almost always connected with shortened muscles, and this shortening, which is in turn related to the body as a whole, cannot be addressed by strengthening opposing groups. In order for the back to function well, the entire trunk must have its full length, and exercising the abdominal muscles, which causes the trunk to stiffen, will only further imbalance the working of the back.

Related to the balancing of opposing muscle groups is a method for getting muscles to relax based on the concept of reciprocal innervation. Reciprocal innervation refers to the phenomenon, discovered by neurophysiologists in the nineteenth century, that the contraction of one set of muscles will inhibit the contraction of the opposing group—something we can see when we flex the arm at the elbow. Flexion at the elbow is produced by the biceps muscle which, by shortening or contracting, moves the arm. Since this movement would be stopped if the extensors of the arm contracted at the same time, the action of the opposing muscles is inhibited at the same time as the flexor muscles are excited. Based on this concept, many exercise and somatic awareness methods suggest that if the back muscles are overworking, then contracting the opposing abdominal muscles will inhibit the activity in the back muscles, causing them to relax. Referring to the extensors and flexors of the neck, for instance, Moshe Feldenkrais, founder of the Feldenkrais method, asserts that the two sets of muscles are antagonistic, and the contraction of the front ones would reflectively reduce the contraction in the back muscles, and recommends using this mechanism as a technique for releasing muscles: . . . prolonged contraction of the flexor muscles of the abdomen increases the tonus of the extensors of the back.¹

The problem with this concept is that it applies to normal function and cannot be utilized correctively. If it could, all you would have to do to release shortened muscles would be to contract the opposing muscles. In fact, it doesn’t work that way because we’re always tightening muscles, and this has no effect whatsoever on opposing muscles that are chronically contracted. Even if you could somehow balance opposing groups of muscles in this manner, the effect would be to further imbalance the larger system, since the body always works as a whole and cannot be put in order by relaxing specific muscle groups. The fact is, reciprocal innervation is a normative function and simply does not work in a corrective context. In spite of its ineffectiveness, however, this concept, as we’ve seen, has been around for decades, and many doctors and physical therapists still advocate exercises largely based on this idea without realizing that it simply doesn’t work and without questioning its efficacy.

A third theory suggests that by imaging muscles and bones, we can bring about release of muscles and improved postural function. This idea originated with Mabel Todd and Lulu Sweigard, who argued that postural and automatic muscle functioning cannot be brought about through voluntary effort because muscles operate at an involuntary level: When a person imagines movement, putting forth no voluntary muscular effort to aid its execution, the coordinated action of muscles which produces the imagined movement will be patterned subcortically.² This practice, known as ideokinesis, is very popular among dancers and somatic practitioners, as is the related belief that if you can correctly visualize and conceptualize the body’s anatomical design, this will bring about a better working of the underlying muscles that support the body.

But no amount of visualization or anatomical imaging can bring about correct working of muscular system, for at least two reasons. First, mental conceptions cannot correct reflex systems, however much we may believe that conceptualizing the body correctly may help us. Second, the body works as a whole, and unless we address it as such we cannot correct specific problems and will be unable to bring about a coordinated working of the musculoskeletal system.

A fourth approach for correcting muscular imbalance that has become popular in recent years is somatic awareness, methods that use gentle movement, hands-on guidance, and awareness exercises to bring about release and improvements in coordination. These methods are based on a number of techniques, including the inhibition of harmful patterns of tension through kinesthetic awareness and body support; direction of body parts using self-monitored proprioceptive feedback; reciprocal innervation (mentioned earlier); gentle exercises and body positioning for releasing muscles and increasing flexibility; and retraining harmful patterns through gentle guidance and redirection of movement.

Although some of these techniques are useful, the problem with the overall approach is that it largely begs the question of how the body actually does work—that is, it fails to articulate in a specific and positive way how the body works normally. Why, for instance, should we be engaged in a constant process of rectifying tension if our bodies are designed to function without harmful tension? Exactly what is the goal when we are giving people hands-on guidance and instruction? Are we trying to establish improved conditions or heightened awareness or both? In this sense, awareness methods seem to be positive and educational; in actuality, they lack the knowledge necessary to fully restore the system and instead tacitly perpetuate the assumption that things ought to be wrong and that all one can do is to constantly work on the body. Even worse, awareness methods fail to address the fundamental question of why, when the system does work well, it