Aquapoetics

Alternative aquatics research

The intent of my recent post on documenting alternative aquatics practices was to bring to attention aspects of aquatic therapeutic bodywork that are based on principles that don't easily fit the current medical model, including what is widely known as evidence-based research.

Western-style medical care predominates in our culture and many bodyworkers realize that finding a place within this system is most likely to be effective in gaining credibility and promoting their therapeutic work, including opportunities to participate in serious research programs.

Those who do not ally themselves with the prevailing medical model often find that, owing to legal implications aimed at protecting the public, they have to be very careful about how they report their success in healing work even if their clients have chosen that path. 

The growing willingness to adopt and adapt such alternative methods into clinical practice (rendering them complementary rather than alternative in current terminology) is an important step forward but this is not the same as truly acknowledging the different philosophies underlying alternative methods.

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).

Aquatic bodywork as a form of somatic psychotherapy

 

As water takes the shape of the pipe it flows through,
so our lives take the shape of our thoughts.
- Joseph Murphy, in The Power of Your Subconscious Mind


The field of body or somatic psychotherapy includes a wide variety of innovative practices.  Some of these come out of psychotherapy with an added but often cautious inclusion of touch and movement.  Others, like some ways of practicing aquatic bodywork, give the body center stage and include limited talk analysis. 

Aquatic bodywork can be practiced as a purely physical form of manipulation in the safe and supportive medium of water. It also offers opportunities to work more holistically with someone since immersion in warm water, of itself, seems to facilitate body-mind integration.  However, few  AB practitioners are trained to work intentionally this way unless they bring outside skills to their practice.

Aquatic Bodywork and Trauma Healing

Aquatic bodywork has the potential to integrate well with some of the new energetic and somatic modalities known to help heal trauma. Experienced aquatic bodyworkers, comfortable with the concept of free flow, are very likely to come across the phenomena of spontaneous movements in the water. 

Some of the forms this spontaneous movement takes may be an indication of past trauma.  These body memories buried under circumstances that were not safe and long-since suppressed by the mind, may rise to the surface as the body is supported and moved in the unique ways that water allows. 

Diane Tegtmeier and Inika Spence, based at Harbin Hot Springs in Northern California, have studied trauma and bodywork and are collaborating in relating this to aquatic bodywork practice.  They have already presented workshops introducing a 'Trauma Healing in Water' program for aquatic bodyworkers. 

Earlier this year, one of the participants on this initial course had a very challenging personal experience which led her to write the account below. To protect her privacy, it is presented anonymously but the writer will follow any discussions that develop here and share her further insights as appropriate.

Her experience is important for a number of reasons:

• it highlights skills that can be gained from aquatic bodywork (at least Watsu-based) with regards to supporting body movements associated with trauma release

• it hints at the potential of aquatic bodywork to facilitate stress release after a land-based traumatic episode (and where no contraindicated injury is involved)

• it suggests sharing this knowledge in some way in the training of medical or other personnel likely to witness various kinds of trauma

• it calls for recognition of our humanity and our natural instincts of healing and connection, which many who experience aquatic bodywork will know to be a significant part of this method's value.

Trauma and PTSD

In recent years, there has been increasing recognition of the physical and psychological effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)*, an anxiety disorder that can occur after someone has been through a traumatic event. 

A number of different treatment modalities have arisen out of this, and in some the importance of physical release (spontaneous or facilitated) is included.  Notable people working in this field are Peter Levine, author of Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, and David Berceli, creator of Trauma Releasing Exercises.

It is important to recognize that there are different kinds of trauma: some are based in psychological shock, while others arise primarily from physical injury (such as a blow to the head) or physiological damage (such as ingestion of harmful substances). 

All these may show similar symptoms in terms of how they affect a person's vital signs, and, where that effect is life threatening, emergency medical intervention is essential. However, non-life-threatening trauma is not necessarily helped by immediate intervention.

Emotional and physical support are helpful, but this doesn’t have to come from a medical team. The human organism has very healthy ways to initially cope with trauma; temporary denial, for example, is one of them. If helpers rush in to address a non-life-threatening trauma that the person hasn’t begun to deal with yet, it can inhibit the normal healing mechanism.

PTSD is a disorder that appears after a period of time following a precipitating event, which is different from the trauma itself.  The ability to forestall or moderate PTSD, or less debilitating manifestations of shock stress, would be valuable.  Diane and Inika distinguish big 'T' and little 't' but note that working with the latter is still beneficial to the individual.

There is a need for more awareness of the links between physiology and psychology in trauma; this is the mind-body connection that most alternative healers and some in conventional medicine acknowledge.  Further studies examining the differences between cognitive and somatic trauma approaches, the nervous system’s role in trauma, the role of memory in trauma, and the effects of trauma beyond 'mental health, will contribute much to this field.

Considering trauma from an aquatic healing perspective

Here is my colleague's courageous account of a traumatic event that she examines in the light of her own practice and appreciation of aquatic bodywork:

Oriental healing arts take to the Water

According to Chinese medicine, the chi energy (life force) of the body is ideally in continual motion meeting no resistance.

The nearest approach to this optimum may be when the body is afloat in water. Once we step out our fluid systems, soft tissues and bones must hold us up against gravity. Water, by contrast, offers buoyant and hydrostatic support. It dissolves boundaries and transmits vibrations that may enable us to settle into a steadier state. Just how this happens remains a mystery though.

In Taoist philosophy, the yielding quality of water is frequently used as a metaphor for human experience.   Our bodies are made in large part of water, and perhaps they hold within them memories of all aspects of water experienced in our personal development and even in the evolution of life. Perhaps also, we can draw on this to restore a profound sense of flowing balance to our lives, both physically and psychologically.

Immersion and movement in warm water have allowed me to explore these possibilities. Having spent over a decade practicing aquatic bodywork, I know that the experience has affected how I experience all aspects of my life. This does not necessarily mean that things are easier but rather that there is a greater willingness to surrender to what is, and to accept the same in others.

The effects of both massage and movement are, in my experience, somehow amplified and more profound when carried out in warm water. Two modern aquatic massage and movement forms - Watsu and Ai Chi - were inspired by ancient oriental practices, rooted in the understanding of energy flow - Shiatsu and Tai Chi respectively. I'll start this section of my blog (aquatic modalities) by referencing them.

Watsu (water shiatsu) was developed at Harbin Hot Springs around 1980 by Harold Dull who had studied the creative principles of Zen shiatsu with Shizuto Masunaga.  He found that they could be adapted to great effect in the water. The key concept of continuous support with the mother-hand takes on more serious meaning when the practitioner is responsible for keeping the receiver afloat, nose above water.

Though technique is important, equally so is to understand ‘being without doing’. The spontaneity of free-flow is the high-point for an experienced practitioner who has learned form and can let it go. Seeing the receiver as teacher, encourages the practitioner to work more intuitively and respectfully. “The true Zen of Watsu,” says Harold,  “comes when you feel that same freedom with whomever you float around the pool”.

Masunaga emphasized stretching of the body’s meridians along which chi energy is considered to flow. In Watsu, it is not necessary to stretch meridian after meridian methodically , since all will get stretched many times during a session. Being stretched spontaneously in this way, also makes it more difficult for the recipient to mobilize habitual resistance, and shows them how to let go.

Acupressure points are taught in Watsu but practitioners are encouraged to use intuition in applying them. Also crucial is awareness of the breath and how this both influences aquatic biomechanics and provides an indicator of the receiver’s state. The restful emptiness at the bottom of the breath, and the rising up again, represent ‘a return to the Tao', a sense of universal connectedness that is a deeply healing aspect of Watsu.

One way in which beginners learn the basic flow of Watsu is through ‘Airsu’, standing on land with an imaginary partner in their arms and flowing through the moves as in Tai Chi. The Tai Chi principles of circularity, harmony and effortless effort - slow and light, tranquil yet alert - all apply. Tai Chi, and its water counterpart Ai Chi, are good practices to support the practice of aquatic bodywork.

Ai Chi (love energy) was developed in 1993 by Jun Konno, former coach of the Japanese swimming team, as a prelude to Watsu.  It aimed to allow the receiver to relax, gain stability, coordinate breath and feel confidence in the giver.  Its Tai Chi-like combination of deep breathing and slow, broad movements of arms, legs and torso is performed in shoulder-level warm water.   

Although stability and confidence can be gained through repetition of a set form as in Tai Chi or Yoga, it is arguable that this could prevent us from being truly in our own bodies. Creative movement meditations both on land and in water encourage us to explore coordination of breath with the body’s spontaneous letting go.  Using the natural breath as a guide to this spontaneous movement is helpful.

I practice both Ai Chi and Watsu as movement meditations. Being in the water often I have learned to let body, mind and spirit settle into the flow.  After a while I let go of the formal movement patterns I have been taught and allow whatever my body asks for to be followed. Most exciting to me is being open to possibilities beyond anticipation both for myself and in working with others. 

Once the form is thoroughly learned, a practitioner knows in their own body  what to do at any given point, knows that wherever the flow takes them there will always be something to do that frees you from looking for what to do next and allows you to let go into the unknown. The receiver picks up on this and discovers a newfound freedom in their own movements and psyche.    

Harold writes that Watsu’s movement and dance frees the body,  its closeness and nurturing frees the heart and its play and spontaneity frees the mind. In this way, it is a truly holistic therapy. The best way to experience this is by experiencing it. If you have examples of how spontaneity came into a session you were receiving or giving, or of the free flow of chi energy, please comment and share below.