By Samantha Nadia Terriss
Re-patterning uses subtle touch to gently suggest new ways of being in one’s body that leads to greater ease and balance. By cultivating our own internal awareness, we develop an aptitude for recognizing inefficient movement patterns. This awareness begins by going inward and tracing through sensation, imagery and free movements in one’s own body. Patterning touch is a study rather than a technique. Exploring our movement engages our mind, increasing its acuity and facileness. Using our mind we bring our presence through awareness and intention into all the tissues and fluids of our bodies, allowing our mind/body to unite and from an integrated place of stillness – take action.
As practitioners, we commit ourselves to being life-long students and explorers. Finding center and being able to track ourselves and others involves a new conceptual frame of reference. Rather than a static unmoving center or posture being created, this work opens us to experience balance as a continually moving focus. This dynamic shifting brings us into a mind/body harmonious relationship which emphasizes creativity and brings us freedom of choice. We explore movement conceptually and experientially. Even in stillness, we find internal micro movements that allow for creative expression.
Using one’s attention and intention, and facilitated by a partner’s touch, one is able to explore his/her own bones, muscles, organs, nerves and fluid systems, as well as the neurological patterns of early childhood development. New movement impulses are listened for as we wake up out of habit and into embodied aliveness.
Each system has its own emotional quality, history and physical function/purpose. For instance, the bones are our support system and often help us ground down onto the earth. Organs carry our emotional center and help tone our body. All the systems are interwoven and interdependent. When one system overrides another, one’s body and psyche become out of balance, causing stress. For example, tone throughout the body is a dynamic process. Although typical gym workouts do strengthen muscles, it is vital to know that tone is regulated by all the systems, not just the muscles. Tightening one’s stomach muscles without bringing awareness and support to the organs and glands will cover the area with more tension, keeping awareness further from the body and leading to possible side effects, such as back pain and digestive problems. Awareness before strengthening and support before movement are of primary importance to re-patterning work.
Patterning touch comes from the belief that all the cells of the body hold consciousness and are able to act. Therefore, all habits can be re-patterned by awareness and allowing the body to sequence its energy through all the systems and all the endpoints. (Endpoints refer to the hands, feet, head, tail, and skin). If the muscles need more support, we can call on the organs or fluids for strengthening. We can bring more of a bone quality (which tends to be neutral in stance and attitude, with a grounded and linear quality in movement) to a person with a highly active nervous system, who might be stimulated easily and ‘heady’ with constant frazzled movements. All systems have their benefits when working with each other in balance.
Early developmental movements pattern the way we sequence energy through the various systems of our body, emotionally and physically. We learn how to push, creating boundaries and sense of self. We learn how to reach and get what we want. Doing this work requires the practitioner to hold emotional presence as neurological and emotional development are interwoven. The physical support for these actions allows us emotional stability and peace of mind and body. Re-patterning these movements, we gain a stronger sense of who we are and who we choose to be. Sequencing allows the energy to flow freely throughout the body, from head to toe, back to front, allowing the body greater efficiency in stillness and movement. Giving oneself a new posture is like trading in an unconscious habit for a conscious one.
Postures formed with rigidity and fear of being a ‘slouch’ limits the creative potential in patterning through exploratory movement and touch. Even in stillness there exist subtle rhythms, thus redefining posture as a constant state of change. The range of exploration is without limit. Learning to track oneself and others is exciting and effective when done compassionately with loving touch and presence.
