Moving Around and Beyond Pain

Gabriel Posner 4-27-2014

When we are guiding a person through a movement, one of the inhibiting factors is their conscious or often unconscious memory of certain movements being once painful. A person may be fearful to move the pained limb or the body part may just seem stuck, held and forgotten in a pattern typical to sensory motor amnesia. So how do we help the person move that limb freely without retriggering pain? Somatic education provides a solution to this with the concept of Relative Conjugate Movement. At essence this explains something that is inherent to much of what we already do. When a distal region of the body is in pain, we can move around and beyond that pain by moving the proximal ends; thereby moving the stuck area without retriggering the former painful pattern. In this closing workshop, attendees will explore how this concept is already firmly embedded in our cat stretch and also experience novel approaches to unlocking areas of pain and tension.

Gabriel Posner is a graduate of the Novato Institute, wave 10. He lives and works in San Francisco where he has a somatic education practice and also teaches massage and Somatics at the National Holistic institute. Somatics has helped him move beyond pain and explore more deeply what it means to get better at being a Soma. For the past three years, Gabriel has also been on the AHSE Board of Directors, currently as Vice President, and has enjoyed organizing this and the past two conferences.