Moving into Agelessness
Many of you will have seen the video series Roger Tolle produced a decade ago, Moving into Agelessness. In case you haven’t, it is still available in 4 parts on YouTube and on his website, RogerTolle.com.
Over the last two months, Trager Talk has featured the script for each part of the series. We are hoping the simple, direct language can be an inspiration for you to speak and write succinctly about your work to clients and to the public. Part 1 was published in the February 2021 issue and Part 2 was published in the March 2021 issue of the USTA’s Trager Talk.
Part 3: Improving Movement Quality
Exploring new movement options and learning new feeling possibilities happens best in a field of pleasurable play.
Gently and innocently, we can give ourselves freedom to explore and play with each of our body parts.
Using internal questions…what could be lighter, what could be freer…and observing how our bodies respond in movement, we discover the potential to free our body structures.
Simple repeated oscillations stimulate the fluid articulations of the joints, and warm the body’s tissue for further freedom.
By allowing rather than trying to do movement, we can let the weight of the bones free themselves.
Decompressing and de-contracting one leg by simply shifting weight off of it, lets it move more freely in many subtle ways and brings delight in the momentary sense of freedom our playing reveals. And we can allow echoes of easy, free leg movement to ripple up into the hips and spread subtle sensations of release into the whole torso.
Focusing on the passive aspect of any movement, rather than the active effort involved, increases the sense of release from the grip of tight patterns of work.
Practicing freedom and joy in all my daily movement keeps me young in body, mind, and spirit.
Can my body become a delight to be in?
Can I become so fascinated with the pleasures to be found in my free movement play that I discover I am living inside my favorite toy?
How can I infuse my newly discovered childlike joy into all the ordinary moments of the day?
Can I begin to identify with the freer sensations, and integrate them into the way I relate to people and activities in my daily life?
Quicker movement quickens the sense of aliveness in us.
From inside and from outside, from small structures to large ones, vibrations of varying tempos address various layers of tissue.
Awakening at all levels--surface to depth--renews the all-important sensory experience of evenness through and through, in movement flow and in tissue quality
Fluffing up compressed tissue returns compacted and stuck tissues to their rightful state as support and motivation for vigorous action, while at the same time bringing new lightness and spaciousness into mind and body.
Enlivening body tissues stimulates inner support for a sagging structure, and awakens a sluggish body-mind. We learn that we can feel more alert and ready for whatever comes next in our lives.
Playing with what is just a little livelier--owning speed and tempo changes and discovering that they are easy and delightful--we break through any old mindset that would resign us to a life of gradual slowing down till we stop.
Softening after effort, quieting after excitement, lets our body tissues have a chance to renew themselves.
We discover that softening our hold on ourselves nourishes us with pleasurable sensation. And exploring softness in detail using sweet movement and innocent curiosity, we can flood the body with sensations of pleasure and ease, significantly altering the flavor of our inner neuro-chemical soup.
Touching myself with softness allows me to develop some tenderness--toward myself, toward others in my life, toward the world I inhabit.
Softening ourselves when in contact with others allows us to be received while we receive them. Softening opens the doorway of communication and increases trust at deep, unconscious body-mind levels
We learn we can explore painful, tight or restricted areas of our bodies without developing an adversarial relationship with ourselves.
Softening when we meet resistance is the beginning of discovering ways around the resistance. And the beginning of finding new options that let movement become a dance, and life a song. We can learn this way.
Part 4: “Playing in Gravity” will be published in the May 2021 issue of Trager Talk