Letter to a mother who's tired of people trying to "fix" her son

Take a baby who cannot, for some reason, roll over.

Put it on its back and offer it:
Chiropractic adjustments
Acupuncture meridian cures
Physical therapy or occupational therapy prodding where the baby is forced over and over to do what it can’t do yet

And little to no results will occur.

Put this child on her or his side, and gently lift the vertebrae, one by one, in the back, sometimes linking this movement up with the shoulders, sometimes with the pelvis, constantly giving different "information" by touching and moving difference vertebrae and different combinations of vertebra and some other place in the baby, sometimes helping the head to roll the same way as shoulders or pelvis, sometimes opposite, sometimes “teaching” the arm/ brain/ body to move backward as the spine rotates that way, and the baby will learn, of its own, how to roll over.

It may take a while, but when it happens, it will be part of a whole evolutionary stage for the child, since the learning will be all within, within the child.

Take this same lesson and give it to

Penina
A professional baseball pitcher,
Andre Agassi,
Michael Jordan
Tiger Woods
Yo Yo Ma
Seiji Ozawa
A person with a stroke, (starting always with the “first best side”)
Someone feeling in pain in back, neck, shoulders
Someone tired of feeling old
Someone wanting to improve their studying
Someone "bored" with their life
Someone depressed

For every single person this will "feel good." And every single person will stand up at the end feeling taller and more connected to some clearer "sense" of themselves. And the lesson will teach each and every person something about how wonderful shoulders (and ribs, and a pelvis and an arm) are, about being present, about pitching or hitting the golf ball or tackling the opponent with more ease and power, about dancing and thinking and breathing and making decisions easier.

For your son it might lead to better soccer, easier sleep, more feeling of confidence in walking, more pleasure in being himself, ways of experimenting that might otherwise be years down the road, if there at all, , ease in art, ........

At no time would the lesson, for anyone from baby to Tiger Woods be predicated on “fixing” anything wrong. Even the person with the stroke starts off improving the "first best" side 30-50 %, and then the other side is given the chance to learn whatever it wants to learn.

Human beings are separated from animals in their ability to learn. A dog can get up a run around and speak dog very soon and easily. A human learns to roll over, crawl, sit, walk and talk in a long period of learning. Most humans stop when they are functioning and unless in pain, don’t bother to transcend a fairly limited functionality, of which they have little or no awareness.


I have spend hundreds of hours and written at least a dozen essays on how our work is not “fixing,” is not “getting it right,” is not “treating” any “ailment.” I am in Austin and not still in Sonoma, CA, since my relationship with a wonderful, beautiful and amazing yoga teacher keep floundering on the fix it (by doing the pose right) vs. learning (by discovering ten other ways to move) models of life


That’s why I insist of calling the sesions lessons (not “treatments”) and refrain from calling it “body work.”

This is whole person work.

Any one who wants to participate more fully in the glory of being human can benefit.