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Student and Therapist Newsletter Archive
- Energy
+ Why do we need to learn anatomy and technique if
the work is fundamentally energetic? - Febuary 07
Dear John,
I am a year into my cranial studies and very excited and captivated by
the beauty of this work. I avidly consume everything I can about cranio
sacral and have read most of the major works.
In Hugh Milne's books he talks about this work being fundamentally energetic
yet goes into great detail about anatomy and technique.
John Upledger's earlier books are very technical and mechanical but his
later books are more spiritual.
Franklyn Sills books are mostly spiritual and philosophical with some
mechanical stuff and William Sutherland's writing is very spiritual.
You haven't written a book but the topics you cover in your newsletters
(Thanks by the way, they're great.) range form very specific and
technical to very 'out there.'
What I am trying to understand is if this work is fundamentally energetic
then why do we need to learn all this anatomy and technique? If
it is all so fluid why so much structure?
Looking forward to your answer and your book if you ever write one.
Joe
Sydney.
>>>MY COMMENTS:
Well Joe, I HAVE written a book (sniff, sniff, pout,
pout) it's just not about cranio sacral per se.
Anyway I'll pull in my bottom lip for a minute and answer
your question.
Yes, this work is fundamentally energetic but it doesn't
follow that we don't need to learn technique or to know about anatomy
and physiology.
That would be like saying that playing a musical instrument
is basically about passion and expression so why do we need to practice
the scales or learn how to read music.
Learning technique is like learning the scales on a musical
instrument or the mastering brush strokes in painting. Learning
physiology and anatomy is like learning to read music or the rules of
perspective in drawing.
Once these skills are mastered and the knowledge becomes
part of you then you are into the expression and passion side of things.
At that point your craniosacral work will be very energetic.
Got it?
Not really.
Okay, here are a couple of stories to illustrate the point.
I have been roller blading for about 7 years now. In
the beginning I just got it into my head that I wanted to learn so I bought
myself some
skates and went to the nearest bike track and just . . started.
I fell over a lot but with practice got the hang of it.
Within a couple of weeks I was able to go forward without falling over
and was very pleased with myself.
If you had asked me back then if I could roller blade I would
have said yes and I would have been right, to a point.
I skated like that for 4 years. Then I befriended someone
who was roller blading instructor. I thought the idea of having
lessons was a bit below me, I was self taught after all, but I gave it
a go.
The difference was remarkable. With a few simple lessons
and practicing some simple drills I was skating better, faster, for far
greater distances, with greater ease and confidence going up and down
hills I would never have dreamed of and all with a lot more safety.
4 years of skating hadn't actually improved my skating.
I discovered that practice doesn't make perfect it just makes permanent.
It wasn't until
I had those lessons and practiced the right things and yes, some of the
drills I had to practice were boring, that I really began to skate.
When I am out skating now, I sometimes pass someone
who reminds me of what I must have looked like before I had those lessons.
Sweating a lot, working very hard but inefficiently and with very little
grace or control.
Here's my second story.
One day a Zen master came upon a group of men. A large
boulder had become dislodged in a landslide and the men were trying to
shift it out of the road. They had obviously been at it for a while
because they were covered in sweat. It was also obvious that they
weren't having any success because the boulder hadn't moved an inch.
The men recognised the Zen master and asked him if he could
help. He told them to have a rest while he reviewed the situation.
The men sat on the grass and watched the master closely.
He walked around the boulder once and then came to a stop
at a point that seemed significant to him but didn't look any different
to the men.
He placed his two hands on the boulder and began to apply
gentle pressure to the boulder. The men looked at each other thinking
the master had gone a bit soft in the noggin.
Suddenly the boulder began to move and rolled off the road.
The men were astonished. They rushed forward cheering and congratulating
the master.
When they asked him how he did it, he replied that the difficult
part was seeing which way the boulder wanted to go. Once he saw
that he simply
helped it go the way it wanted to go.
I love that story. I read it about 18 years ago and
I've never forgotten it.
The thing about it is that if you took the master
aside and asked
him how he 'saw' which way the boulder wanted to go he would have told
you that it took him years to get to the point where he could see it.
He would tell you that when he started out years beforehand
he was just like the men struggling. He would then tell you how
he had gone through a series of learning steps to get to the point where
he could see.
But you never get that kind of 'behind the scenes'
with those Zen stories you just get the wisdom. Which is great but
it can make you feel
like you will never be as cool and have 'moving really big boulders' as
your party trick.
Cranio sacral teachers are faced with a dilemma. They
have had the dazzling insight that it is, as you say, all energetic but
they also know that they did a lot of ground work to get to the insight.
Good teachers manage to convey both aspects. The need
to learn good techniques so it can lead to the fluidity of expression.
My experience of teaching students who had been through trainings
that focused on the end result and left out the steps to get there was
that they were very broad spectrum in their approach.
Lots of very colourful descriptions about how they and the
patients body were feeling but very little specific information about
what the root cause was physically and mechanically. And when questioned
more closely, had a very shaky grasp on the anatomy of the region they
were describing.
Here's another reason to know the anatomy and physiology.
Once you start to become competent in cranio sacral work the word of mouth
builds
quickly. But the word of mouth won't be about how cranio sacral
therapy works, it will be just that you were able to help someone.
When people come to see you they will often be doing so against the consensus
of their friends and family.
The fact that you can understand the language their doctor
uses and can explain the physical aspect of their symptoms to them in
language that is familiar and similar to the language their doctor uses,
goes a long way to soothing their concerns.
Which explanation do you think sounds most reassuring?
'Your head feels very tight and heavy and I'm sensing a lot
of tension on the left side. It feels very red and angry.'
or
'Your head feels to me like it is overfull with cerebrospinal
fluid. The reason for this is that one of the bones that forms the
floor of your skull on the left hand side, the particular bone is called
your temporal bone, is being pulled inwards by the membrane that attaches
to it.
This has the effect of pinching your jugular vein because
the hole that your jugular vein goes through is actually formed in the
junction of your
temporal bone and another bone called your occipital bone.
Blood is pumped into your head by your heart but there is
nothing in your head pumping the blood back out again. So it's really
important that the channels of drainage out of your head are clear
and unrestricted.
One of those channels of drainage is your jugular vein.
So you can see that if it is pinched then the blood being pumped into
your head can't drain out as quickly as it needs to. So you get
the sort of pressure build up that can cause the sorts of headaches you
are getting.'
Learn the physiology and anatomy Joe and master all
the techniques. They will lead you to mastery of the energetic work
at the heart of cranio sacral.
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