“This is your perfect posture.”
Written by: Gail Stewart, Trager Practitioner, Instructor, and Tutor
It’s the closure of a period of tablework, and Milton Trager has just assisted his patient to sit up and then slide from the table, onto their feet. Standing at their side, Milton reaches out his arm and traces a long line behind their back from the sacrum to the space above their head. It’s a soft upward sweep of his hand, barely touching. At the same time, he says “This is your perfect posture.” The emphasis is on the word “this.” There’s a natural pause as the person stands, feeling the residual sensations from the last hour of touch and movement.
The tone of Milton’s voice is a matter of fact, confident, soft. He appears to be resting in his own experience while whatever is “sinking in” in his patient’s unconscious mind comes to rest.
If you’ve had this experience, nothing needs to be added to this description. You can stop reading here and just recall it.
Below, in case it’s useful to someone else, I’ve noted the personal impact of these words and gestures.
In this quiet space at the end of the tablework, as a result of the movement of his arm and hand, I’ve become aware of my own vertical organization. The words “This is your perfect posture” are a surprising affirmation! They get my attention. I get that the experience of space, lightness, and elongation that I am feeling is real. Milton’s flat delivery says this is a fact, now.
He has implied that my present experience of elongation is superior to any idea I might have had of “perfect posture.” The feeling of elongation says I am as vertical, balanced, and spatially organized as I can be in this moment, no matter the alignment of my bones, muscles, and organs. (The implication for me, to use a simile, is that it doesn’t matter whether I’m like a straight pine or an ancient twisted tree. It’s the reaching toward the sun that matters.)
Any effort of mine to be taller or straighter - or more anything - would reduce the actual elongation in this moment. No, I couldn’t think myself into a posture that would be more congruent, or longer, lighter, easier, or more spacious. This is “perfect.” And while I stand here, with the echo of words and sensations, just feeling, not trying, the session continues to happen.
Milton then speaks again: “You can recall this moment.”
*Milton Trager often used the phrase “it’s a happening”. Does anyone who has heard this and then had an “aha” want to write about it?