The Neuromuscular Feedback Techniques of Clinical Somatic Education
By Eric Cooper, CCSE
Many clients have difficulty understanding themselves spatially, in their somatic experience of internal space. Because of the effects of sensory-motor amnesia, they have a distorted somatic perception, a distorted self-perception, that has gaps, voids and distortions. The Clinical Somatic Education, CSE, technique of Means-Whereby is used to create an educational sensory feedback experience with the intent to educate the client to the possibilities of movement in space. In my opinion, and experience, Means-Whereby is primarily to help the clients understand themselves spatially.
Means-Whereby was developed by F.M. Alexander and furthered by Elsa Gindler, who was making her students focus on the “means-whereby” rather than the “end” of external movement. The result was that “miraculous” changes began to occur in the bodies of those who trained with Gindler. As Somatic Educators, we cue our clients to focus and sense the internal experience of getting from here to there, the Means-Whereby.
Alexander, who termed “Means-Whereby”, described it as: “an analytical process of breaking down the total movement of the body into its several component parts, sensing those parts without any concern for the goal,” by taking habitually unconscious movement patterns and making them conscious by means of this new sensory experience.
The parietal lobe is the area of the brain that allows us to recognize body positions. The Parietal Lobe is also where we regulate our timing ability. Setting the pace that we use in CSE, the slow intentional movement, primes the parietal lobe to accept this suggestion of new spatial possibilities. Any time we move, our muscular anatomy gives feedback that activates the sensory cortex. This is where we perceive the sensations of movement, and it is activated in the technique of Means-Whereby.
Means-Whereby is largely a passive experience for the client, in my opinion, the motor cortex more in the act of surrendering efforts. The Sensory Cortex receives sensory feedback from the nerves of the center and periphery during this technique.
By definition, all skeletal muscle is voluntary, or at least has the potential to be voluntarily controlled. The value of Means-Whereby should not be underestimated in Clinical Somatic Education. Aside from clients learning that a specific positional change is possible, it presents an opportunity for clients to realize that something is possible that has out of their control. Clients often tell me: “I just can’t get that to place to relax”. They are confronted by an ‘On-ness’ of the musculature that is outside their voluntary control. As Clinical Somatic Educators, we want clients to have a first person sensory experience of the evidence that there’s been a loss of control. It can be a profound experience for a client to have the hidden problem revealed in a sensory experience. Since Means-Whereby is passive, little durable learning takes place in Means-Whereby. It doesn’t solve SMA, but it lets people sense and realize what is there.
Kinetic Mirroring is a technique that simulates the action of certain muscle groups that may be habitually outside of voluntary control. Developed by Moshe Feldenkrais, who applied his extensive knowledge of Judo, using the principle of going-with another person’s resistance and never going against it. He explains that: “If you do the work of a muscle, it ceases to do its own work”, it relaxes.
Kinetic Mirroring is a technique of de-activating persistently activated muscles. As practitioners, we take over the job as mover. Although there is little durable learning from Kinetic Mirroring, there might be some perceptual insight to be gained. Kinetic Mirroring is a profound sensory experience to that allows people to realize that their bodies have been working in an automatic, habituated manner.
Kinetic Mirroring was Feldenkrais’ prime method of starting the process of muscular relaxation, after which he could use various “Means-Whereby” techniques to show the person the new movements that become possible with the now-relaxed muscles and joints. This is a brilliant discovery of how habitual muscular contractions can be caused to disappear.
If the neuromuscular system has a set program of muscle contraction (causing painfully high tonus/resting tension), and if the sensory feedback from the muscle sensors informs the neurons that the programmed ratio muscle tension has been exceeded, then the motor neurons shut down their firings, causing the muscle to begin relaxing.
A good example is a thermostat. If the furnace is programmed to maintain the temperature at 72 degrees, and the feedback from the ambient air reaches 73 degrees, the furnace shuts off.
Pandiculation, developed by Dr. Thomas Hanna, is the most powerful sensory feedback technique that we use in Clinical Somatic Education.
It is an activity that mammals practice. As infants and children, humans tend to Pandiculate a lot. We even pandiculate in utero. Humans are odd in the animal kingdom in that, later in life, pandiculation becomes an optional activity. Could this correlate to how we become stiff and achy as we age?
Pandiculation and practitioner assisted pandiculation are eccentric contractions done with attentional focus on the continuous internal sensation and experience of that slow, controlled, voluntary, elongation under load.
Pandiculation is the technique that clears out, and resets our ability to control the tension of our skeletal muscular system. Pandiculation is a sensory feedback technique that allows us to make involuntary contraction voluntary, allowing clients to bring habituated tensions under control to varying degrees. The part of the brain that is involved in pandiculation is primarily the sensory motor cortex, but the Parietal lobe’s timing functions, and the Cerebellum’s activity in the regulation of the gamma motorneuron, which helps adjust the feedback intensity from the spindle cells.
From the perspective of the client, Pandiculation is an active technique, and requires attentional participation. The frontal lobe of the cortex helps make a movement action plan, the motor cortex commands the descending neural track to activate the musculature, the cerebellum activates the gamma motor-neuron and the gamma motor unit, the cerebellum activates the corresponding gamma motor unit. As the alpha motor neuron unit is activated by the sensorimotor cortex, the cerebellum modulates the intensity of the tensional feedback. The sensory cortex perceives the impulses that are sent from the spindle cells. Pandiculation is a recalibration technique. It is a feedback experience that allows the cerebellum to adjust and calibrate the gain of the alpha-gamma motor-neuron feedback loop. It allows us to sense tensions more accurately, and to control them more volunarily.
Another valuable feedback technique used in Clinical Somatics is called Quick Release. Quick Release is an activity where the musculature is contracted and then quickly turned off, like a light switch, allowing a quick lengthening. We want to teach the nervous system that a quick movement is safe. We do not just move slowly. We’re also meant to move fast. The cerebellum is involved in quick release in that the cerebellum regulates the balance and interaction of movement through the parts of the body. In walking gait, we move elbow back, as the center delivers the contralateral hip forward. These quick balance aspects of movement are controlled by the cerebellum.
The Lock-In is a firm contraction of the antagonistic muscle group after a quick release. It involves the spinal cord and the spindle cells, the sensory cortex, the motor cortex, and the cerebellum. In 1908, Charles Sherrington won a Nobel Prize for figuring out something called reciprocal inhibition. Sherrington proved the reciprocal innervation of muscles. It had to do with how the touch of the heel, in walking gait, turned on the rest of the gait cycle in a reflexive activation. The neuromuscular system is programmed to avoid having our musculature working against itself. As an agonist is activated, the antagonist is inhibited. As reciprocal inhibition is regulated by the spinal chord, we know there is very little cortical learning as a result of this technique.
In my opinion, there is a subtle learning from the technique of quick release/lock-in sequence. It makes the experience of agonist de-activation deeper and more sensible.
Through Differentiation, we break down these complex patterns to have clients regain the ability to control small aspects and parts of movement that have been habituated and are caught in the dysfunction of sensory-motor amnesia.
With Integration, we bring this new learning of these small steps that client has learned and give the client the ability to control what is has been involuntary movement patterns as large patterns in the body.
Integration is a process of somatic re-assessment, that usually is focussed upon during a period of rest. When the sensory experience compiled in the sensory cortex is re-evaluated and compared to memories of previous sensory experience, the new spatial and tensional sensations can be accepted by the nervous system as valid and accurate. Time for integration has significant value in creating a more lasting learning. It is important to have time free of external distractions for the system to recompose the somatic self-perception.
-Eric Cooper, InspireSomatics.com