Foster Resilience with Bodywork
Elasticity = Resilience
There has been growing awareness in many fields about the role resilience plays in well-being. Let’s explore how you as a bodyworker can assess and increase the quality of resilience in those you touch. Whether you're a beginner or experienced practitioner, by applying some of the simple concepts presented below, you'll immediately increase the effectiveness of almost every technique you use.
First of all, what is resilience? Resilience is a characteristic that combines strength and flexibility. It’s the capacity to recover or spring back into shape. The more elastic something is, the more resilient it is. This can be applied to a tendon, a muscle…. a relationship, a business…. a thought, an emotion or a belief.
In shin tai bodywork, elasticity is an essential element of both evaluation and treatment. We evaluate the presence of elasticity or ‘springiness’ in order to assess the quality, quantity and history of life force flowing through the body. When treating, we use techniques that encourage a quality of elasticity to return to areas that feel either too rigid or too flaccid. When elasticity is restored, it indicates the return of life force or energy, and a more resilient condition.
Working with Elasticity in Your Treatments
We might understand this concept of elasticity and how it relates to resilience in the body, but bringing it into our practice is another matter. First we need to recognize a lack of elasticity in an area, joint, meridian or chakra. Then we can bring attention to increasing elasticity to restore the flow of energy, resilience and power. Adding even a little of this awareness to your treatments will elevate the quality of your work and the results you see in your clients.
Explore how this might look in a treatment in the video below. Saul is demonstrating a simple traction technique of the arm; he discusses how to encourage more elasticity and how this effects life force in the body:
Different Types of Resilience
Often the word resilient is used to describe a person’s emotional and mental ability to deal with challenge. For example, someone who is fragile has less resilience to remain grounded in their power while in the midst of stress, conflict or differing beliefs. Someone who is resilient can hold themselves stable while also listening and adapting to the needs around them.
We can also use the word resilient in terms of physical health. A strong yet flexible body can withstand heavy exertion and sudden moves without injury. A resilient immune system with the capability to adjust to all kinds of conditions isn’t thrown off easily by pollutants, pollen or poor quality food/drink.
One could also describe a ‘spiritual’ resilience: the ability stay within range of one’s true nature and higher consciousness/soul despite external life factors. This gives someone the capacity to connect and interact with expanded frequencies without losing their grounding or integrity. They don’t get locked into dogmatic belief systems that can end up restricting growth.
Resilience in the Body
When someone experiences physical, emotional or mental stress, there’s always a tightening in the body. Sometimes this resolves after the stress passes, but sometimes it doesn’t. Layers of unresolved compression build up over time. Tissues and joints become rigid and lose their elastic quality. Fatigue, weakness, irritability and depression become more common because the body chi is locked up and unavailable. It’s as if there is a bank account full of money that can’t be accessed anymore. This leads to less physical, emotional and mental resilience.
Elasticity in the joints indicates resilience and a free, balanced flow of life force.
We can use bodywork to increase the quality of resilience in someone’s body by encouraging a quality of elasticity, especially in the joints. If you’ve studied shin tai, you will have learned the technique of ‘rocking’ the vertebrae of the spine. By feeling the quality of mobility in each vertebra you can diagnosis the quality of the joint articulations and and help to reestablish more spring (i.e. resilience) where needed.
This idea can be applied in many different ways. We can work with the resilience of the ribcage, the cranial bones or the ankle articulations. It can even be extended to the quality of a tsubo or a chakra. Whether something feels stiff and brittle or lacking life force, you can use intention and technique to bring back more elasticity. More elasticity means more energy flowing, more circulation, more strength and flexibility. More resilience.
Reestablishing Elasticity
By encouraging elasticity deep in the body, stress matrixes soften. Energy that has been trapped is released and moves back into circulation. Because of this, you can often generate more flexibility and strength with some very simple and non-force techniques than you can using more traditional methods of treatment. The body begins to feel more springy, more resilient and more alive. This then transfers out into someone’s life sphere.
More resilience means more flow of life force. Energy is moving in a smooth and balanced way, nourishing the physical, emotional and mental aspects of the body. If the body feels resilient, a person has a spring in their step, a dynamic yet functional emotional response, and a vibrant intelligence. When the body feels stiff, over contracted or slack, it’s the opposite. This person will have a weaker physique, extreme or flat emotions, and thinking that loops around in repetitive patterns.
Think of a dried out rubber band that has lost all elasticity, or one that is very stiff and hard to stretch out. If the body and the joints have these qualities, it indicates disturbance in the flow of energy. Tendons and ligaments have become less durable and flexible, organs are stagnating and circulation is compromised.
Bringing your consciousness to noticing and amplifying the quality of elasticity in your body and those you work with is a key to entering the always unfolding present moment. It’s so simple! Being more elastic, more flexible, more resilient…. this means we can stay stable and strong even amidst change, friction and challenge. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t want more of that. When we’re resilient, we can more easily experience the love that permeates the fabric of our world.
Expand Your Skills with Online Class ‘The Shoulder/Thoracic Complex’
The above video is from an online course called ‘The Shoulder/Thoracic Complex.’ For information & enrollment go to:
