Review: Bodyway as in Waterway

  

This extract from Mirka Knaster's valuable book on body-oriented practices, Discovering the Body's Wisdom, uses water as its metaphor for the constant change and movement (circulatory and interrelating) that characterizes the life of a human body.  Mirka writes:

There's a lot of name-calling in the field of body practices.  It's not mud-slinging, but a habit of differentiating and labeling.  Some practitioners are engaged in bodywork.  Others consider their approaches therapy.  Still others say they're neither, but rather somatic education, movement awareness, structural integration, or even emotional integration. ...

To get around the divisions in the field, I created the term bodyways.  It broadly incorporates therapy and education as well as relaxation, while still allowing for each separate category of  practice and its distinguishing characteristics.  I chose way (from the Old English wegan, "to move") because it suggests a pathway or process, as in waterway.

Think of the many different waterways through which water moves: creeks, streams, rivulets, rivers, channels, brooks, rills, seas, oceans, bays, sounds, and lakes.  All of the bodyways involve movement, and often the least effortful way can bring about the most ease.  Life is, after all, movement.  We are living bodies, always in process. As 70 percent water, we are in constant flux, just like a stream.  And just like a stream receives water from various sources, so too do we take in new information from a variety of bodyways.

From Discovering the Body's Wisdom: A Comprehensive Guide to More than Fifty Mind-Body Practices that can Relieve Pain, Reduce Stress, and Foster Health, Spiritual Growth, and Inner Peace by Mirka Knaster,   p. xv-xvi (Bantam Books, 1996).

The various bodyways are described in Part III of this valuable book and grouped as:

Chapter 8: Western Structure and Function: Traditional Massage and Contemporary Therapies (with a section on comparing Medical Models; e.g. massage)
Chapter 9: Structural Approaches (e.g. Aston-Patterning)
Chapter 10: Functional Approaches  (e.g. Alexander Technique)
Chapter 11: Western Movement Arts (e.g. Continuum)
Chapter 12: Eastern Energy (e.g. Shiatsu)
Chapter 13: Other Energetic Systems (e.g. Reiki)
Chapter 14:  Eastern Movement Arts (e.g. T'ai Chi Chuan)
Chapter 15: Convergence Systems (e.g. Somatic Experiencing)

Chapters 8-11 cover Western bodyways based on a more reductionist understanding of human structure and function that has evolved in Western medicine.  Chapters 12-15 describe bodyways based on Eastern medical traditions that strive to establish the flow of a person's overall life energy.

'To a great extent, the concepts of interconnectedness, energy, and mind-body interaction now pervade Western practices.  Body therapists know that no part or system works in isolation.'  Mirka Knaster (p. 141).

Watsu is described in Chapter 13: Other Energetic Systems (p. 316-317) with a cross-link to a section on 'Chakras and Kundalini' (p. 237).   As aquatic bodyworkers will know, the examples I have highlighted in each chapter mentioned above have all been combined successfully with Watsu-related methods.

Watsu training requires a foundation in basic massage, Watsu itself came out of Harold Dull's background in Zen shiatsu, an aquatic form of T'ai Chi called Ai Chi began as preparation for Watsu practice, Emilie Conrad Da'oud references aquatic and oceanic origins in Continuum that bring the Watsu experience onto land.

Agua Alma practitioner Zia Parker draws on Aston-Patterning, Hilary Austin applies her knowledge of Alexander Technique in her Watsu practice, Tom Thacker employs Reiki in his aquatic sessions, Healing Dance practitioner/teacher Inika Sati applies Somatic Experiencing to the water in her aquatic trauma work.

Here is a simplified outline of Mirka Knaster's helpful description of the differences and similarities between Western and Eastern approaches (p. 140-141).

In very general terms:

For Western bodyways - based on the more reductionist understanding of human structure and function that has evolved in Western medicine - the starting point is the body's material structure and function. 

For Eastern bodyways - based on Eastern medical traditions that strive to establish the flow of a person's overall life energy - the starting point is that a person has an energetic structure and function.

Quoting Mirka:

'Neither the Western approach nor the Eastern approach is wholly right or wrong.  The body is neither entirely a conglomeration of discrete elements nor only a flow of energy.  Each represents a different side of the same coin.  In the language of physics, we are both particle (a piece of matter) and wave (moving energy).'

'[A] major principle of both approaches is circulation.  If any system - energy, respiratory, digestive, or muscular - gets blocked, stagnates, or stops working altogether, it will adversely affect movement in the others.'

'To a great extent, the concepts of interconnectedness, energy, and mind-body interaction now pervade Western practices.  Body therapists know that no part or system works in isolation.  Since everything in the body is interdependent, handling one aspect - muscles, for example - has to influence favorably other areas as well, such as increasing circulation of blood and lymph, soothing nerves, or realigning bones.  A shift in the energetic structure can translate into a shift in the physical structure and vice versa.' 

The approach of Western medicine is generally characterized by:

• scientific research confirming clinical experiences and observations
• reducing the whole to its parts, then determining the purpose of each, and how they interrelate
• explaining how the body works in impersonal, physiochemical terms
• regarding health difficulties as mechanical troubles requiring technical manipulation

The approach of Eastern medicine is generally characterized by:

• learning almost exclusively through observing living human beings
• seeing disorder as reflecting imbalance in the whole body
• striving to reestablish the flow of a person's overall life energy
• aiming to enhance the body's inherent ability to heal itself

In terms of the above, what approach do you tend to take to your own aquatic bodywork practice?

See also a discussion on this blog about what constitutes aquatic therapy.

For a blog post referencing kundalini energy and it's possible connection with aquatic bodywaves see 'An aquatic kriya'.