SERIES: FELDENKRAIS THEORY AND RESEARCH

The physics of Feldenkrais

Part 2: no strain, no gain

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

John C. Hannon
The topic of posture, and how the individual uses
their body is central to most bodywork and
movement therapies and approaches. This new
series of peer reviewed papers will explore the issues
around this core topic from a particular perspective.
The reader is invited to participate by
communicating with the author, or the editor, with
comments, ideas and constructive criticism.
Alternative viewpoints will be published in future
issue of the Journal of Bodywork and Movement
Therapies.
Editor

John Charles Hannon DC

Certied Feldenkrais Practitioner,
Private Practice, 1141 Pacic Street,
Suite B, San Luis Obispo,
CA 93401, USA
Correspondence to: J. C. Hannon
Tel: +1 805 542 9925; Fax: +1 805 541 2391;
E-mail: jhannon@x.net
Received February 2000
Accepted February 2000

...........................................
Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies (2000)
4(2),114^122
# 2000 Harcourt Publishers Ltd

Abstract In the last issue, which was the rst of this series, the Principle of Least
Eort was introduced. (Use the least eort necessary to achieve the maximum in
eciency). Two sitting self-awareness explorations were presented to help deepen this
understanding and to encourage a visceral comprehension of another principle:
Control follows awareness. This issue features additional clinical examples and an
explanation of several terms of art in bodywork: stress, strain, translation and
rotation. These words help to stake out the territory of bodywork. There are only ve
forms of strain and only two basic movements in any form of bodywork. We shall see
the practical advantages of understanding the concepts these words carry. Clinical
results may be enhanced with improved physical safety to both the therapist and client.
Secondly, a sure grasp of the technical meanings of these words is essential for delving
further into the treatment applications of the Principle of Least Eort. # 2000
Harcourt Publishers Ltd

The rst installment of this series

began with the lament: `We don't
know what we don't know'.
Overcoming this challenge may be
aided by the use of principles.
Principles are signposts pointing the
way towards self-discovery of the
inside workings of manual therapy.
To the extent that we understand the
mechanisms underlying manual
therapy we may improve our
accuracy and ecacy.
The Feldenkrais Method1 was
chosen to illustrate several physical
principles common to all forms of
bodywork. This is because
Feldenkrais received his doctorate in
physics and then spent many years
discovering how physics could be
used to aid people in improving their
function. His writings and lectures
demonstrate a scientist's devotion to
the precise denitions of physics.

A clear distinction needs to be

made about the Feldenkrais
Method1.1 It is a method of
1
The Feldenkrais Method1 is currently being taught
in more than 50 trainings in 15 countries. Since the
death of Dr Feldenkrais in 1984, the method has
expanded to include 37 trainers and about 1200
practitioners certied by the Feldenkrais Guild of
North America. The 34 year practitioner training
involves 8001000 h of training combining several
forms of learning. Lectures are used sparingly; more
emphasis is placed upon exploring precisely
structured movement through thinking, sensing,
moving and imagining exercises called Awareness
Through Movement lessons. Training is also
provided leading toward competence in Functional
Integration; which is the other form of expression of
the Method. This hands-on form of tactile and
kinesthetic communication aims at aiding the
student in becoming more self-aware and in reorganizing their movement strategies. More
information may be obtained by contacting the
Feldenkrais Guild of North America
(www.feldenkrais.com), or the International
Feldenkrais Federation (i@peak.org).

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The physics of Feldenkrais1

learning, rather than a form
of bodywork, yet it often uses
hands-on contact to communicate to
the client. Other forms of bodywork
such as transverse friction massage
limit their purpose to the purely
mechanical changes made in their
target body tissues. In any case, a
common feature of both categories
of therapy is movement. And, any
time movement occurs, passive or
active, forces come into play and
work is performed.
Before beginning to clarify these
meanings, it may be useful to ask
what kind of `work' occurs in
bodywork? The physical concept of
work is a force moving through a
distance (Fig. 1). Manual therapy
ts this description well although
both the force and the distance often
are quite small. Smaller still is the
amount of deformation or strain
occurring in the tissues being
treated.
Certain words in bodywork are
freighted with multiple meanings;
`stress' and `strain' are examples.
Consider the following: `Straining to
follow the logic, Dr Vernacular
continued reading the classic
osteopathic text, Strain
Counterstrain, to see if the
technique would be useful to her
next patient who had suered a
muscle strain. Instead of stress, she
felt relief recalling Hooke's Law2:
`As long as a body remains within its
elastic limit, the strain produced is
2
I promise that this Law will be the rst and the last
Law mentioned in this series. Instead of reviewing
the many Laws of physics, these articles will attempt
to cultivate a deeper, more visceral, awareness of the
applications of such laws to clinical situations. Such
applications are best learned through personal
experience and the process of self-discovery. An
important disclaimer follows: the best
comprehension of this material will follow
enthusiastic exploration of the exercises. Please do
only what can be accomplished with ease and safety.
In addition, please apply clinical techniques only if
you are certain that there are no contraindications
and that you possess the necessary skill and
experience to make the technique valuable to the
patient..

Fig. 1 Work is the product of force moving through distance. Notice that less force is needed
when there is little resistance.

directly proportional to the stress

causing it'.
There is an old word: hamartia.
Murphy (1972) described it as
originally meaning `...being o the
target in archery or some such, and
then it came to mean being o the
target in general in all your life. It
got to mean a aw in the character'.
It may be useful to consider
hamartia, in its original sense, in
both the application of bodywork
and its description. To help reach
the bull's eye, it makes sense to
use biomechanical terms with
distinction.
Work is the product of force and
distance. Imagine screwing o the
top of a bottle of shampoo. Your
ngers squeeze the top and twist.
Work is accomplished as the top
revolves away from the bottle. This
movement occurs only because the
ngers are able to get purchase upon
the top. The stress applied is the
force of the ngers squeezing. The
strain is the result of the plastic top
being deformed. We forget the long
hours spent early in our childhood
learning the basics of movement.
This is when we learned how to
move our arms and ngers

appropriately to accomplish tasks

such as opening tops, especially
child-proof ones. That this learning
remains an important skill becomes
apparent watching someone slowly
recover common skills in the process
of throwing o the eects of a
stroke.
Since the bottle top is now o, let
us consider the ve forms of strain
used in shampooing. Moving the
scalp back and forth across the skull
is an example of shearing strain.
Here the skin is moved as if it were a
kitchen drawer being drawn in and
out. If we drag the drawer against its
tracks to create enough friction the
drawer will not slide well. Accuracy
in applying forces to the tissues
makes a dierence. Torque is
another form of strain; an example
is the twisting motion used in
removing the bottle cap. Sadly, our
bottle is almost out of shampoo; but
bending it, another form of strain,
forces out more. The last two
categories of strain are long axis
compression and long axis
extension. If you have ever tugged
on your hair or pushed the scalp
downwards upon the skull you have
used these two forms of strain.

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Hannon
Reducing friction in the body
occurs in many ways; slippery
cartilage is oiled with synovial uid,
tendons slide in slippery sheaths,
muscles contract with bursae
reducing drag against the
neighboring tissues. All these
moving parts are organized around
skeletal joints. Joints permit easy
movement in certain directions but
not others.
Our discussion separated actions
as if each form of strain occurs
without the others; in most
instances, some combination of
these forms of strain is applied
simultaneously. It staggers the
imagination to consider the
permutations of these ve forms of
strain used in the morning, when
entire populations, still half awake,
manage to cleanse themselves for the
new day.
Let us consider two more terms
before exploring clinical
applications of strain: translation
and rotation. Translation describes
movement taking place in a single
plane; an example would be sliding
kitchen drawer in and out. Rotation
refers to movement about an axis. In
a marvelous structure such as the
human body, you often will see both
forms of movement occur at the
same time. For example, jut your
lower jaw outwards from the skull
while turning your head. Here the
mandible slides forward along the
plane of the upper palate while the
head turns about the pivot of the C2
vertebra's odontoid process. In knee
exion, the two movements of
rotation and translation occur
simultaneously during much of the
range. The axis of rotation moves
during this part of the range; each
position of the movement having its
own instantaneous axis of rotation.
The rst installment of this series
included two exercises. (See Volume
4:1, p29). In the rst exercise, the
feet were translated forward and
backward upon the oor. Ideally,
this translatory movement involved

Fig. 2 The ve forms of strain.

Box 1 Examples of the ve forms of strain
Shear
.
.
.

Slapping a hockey puck

Pulling, successfully, a tablecloth out from under a ower vase
Transverse Friction Massage (the transverse component)

Torque
.
.
.
.

Rolling a bowling ball

A CD player playing a disc
Myofascial Release (the twisting component)
Mobilizing the head in rotation upon the neck

Bending
.
.
.
.

Knot tying
Folding clothes
Skin rolling techniques
Bending and unbending nger joints

Long axis compression

.
.
.
.

Driving in tent stakes

Inserting a key into a lock
Maitland (1991) Joint compression techniques
Travell (1983) Ischemic compression techniques

Long axis distraction

.
.
.

Pulling out a cork from a wine bottle

Pulling a hose out straight
Maitland (1991) Joint distraction techniques

only a shearing strain of the foot

against the ground. Some people
slide their feet while simultaneously

turning their feet in as if pigeontoed; applying both shear and

torque forces. A person with mild

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The physics of Feldenkrais1

cerebral palsy might induce three
forms of strain. In addition both
torque and shear, they might also
long axis compress their feet into the
oor. This would greatly increase
the resistance; reducing the grace
and eciency of the movement.
It takes a great deal of
experimentation, and maturing of
the nervous system, before a person
nds the right formula for easy foot
sliding. One strategy is to raise the
foot slightly to allow for easy
translation of the foot along the
oor. It seems an easy task, simply
hoist up the leg a bit. Actually, since
the foot is being moved away from
the person's center, shifting of the
person's weight away from the side
of the sliding foot is necessary as
well. All of this has to be monitored
and adjusted during the entire
trajectory of the foot's travel.
Let us consider how these
concepts apply to various forms of
bodywork. Cyriax popularized a
treatment method he termed
Transverse Friction Massage many
years ago. An important innovation
which he brought to this form of
manual therapy was noting that

muscle broadens as it contracts. He

hypothesized that a scar would
disrupt this normal broadening and
that a therapeutic disruption of this
scar would allow a return to normal
functioning. He therefore was quite
specic in ordering that the friction
massage be applied perpendicular to
the bers of a muscle. He invented
ingenious postures of the treating
ngers and supporting arrangements
of the limbs and trunk to make this
form of therapy eective.
In Figure 4 the knee is seen with
the coronary ligaments. Cyriax saw
that a very specic form of
transverse friction massage would be
necessary. He saw that the
application of force must be precise
to reach the ligament rather than the
ledge of the tibial plateau. He
required that the frictions be applied
both perpendicular and cutting
transversely across the ligament. For
more information about the three
dimensional relationships in the
knee refer to the many inspired
illustrations by Kapandji (1987).
Before continuing our look at
specic examples of the use of strain
in therapy, let us consider the body

Fig. 3 Slide your foot forward and backward while sitting comfortably. Sit comfortably with
your feet at on the oor. Slide the right foot forward and back. Attempt to make the eort as
easy and simple as possible.

Fig. 4 Transverse friction massage of the

coronary ligament of the knee. Notice both
compressive and shearing strain as the
treating ngertip presses onto the ligament
and then shears across the bres in a
transverse plane.

posture of the therapist. Recalling

the Principle of Least Eort we
know that we must attend to the
details of posture in order to reduce
unnecessary eort. This is very true
when working with those who are
unable to relax. Often, these people
are susceptible to increasing their
muscle tension at a moment's notice.
Any excess tension on the part of the
therapist often is transmitted, as if
they were contagious, to the
susceptible client. From our
exploration described in Box 2, we
may suspect that movements out of
the ordinary may bring out excess
tensions on the part of the therapist.
These might appear in the form of
clenching of the jaw, holding of the
breath, gripping of the thighs and
ngers, stiening of the trunk,
adducting of the arms and so forth.
It is speculated that an eective
treatment, applied with the least
eort, will require the therapist's
body to be arranged subject to two
conditions. One, the bones carry as
much load as possible. Secondly,
gravity is the primary mover during
the treatment. Once in place, the
therapist's muscles would act
primarily to direct the force of

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Box 2 Movement Exploration

Write your name, in cursive script, three times in the following three dierent ways. First,
write it in your normal way. Next, write it again with the pen held in a loose st. Last of
all, maximally make a st. Note in what ways does the writing degrade? What about
writing from within a maximal st with the other hand?
Consider how you might choose to work with someone whose spinal extensions and hip
adductors stay as contracted as a st. You can experience something of what this might be
like by walking while squeezing a football between your thighs as hard as possible.
What happened to your jaw muscles and breathing during this writing and walking.
Often it is extremely dicult to unbundle these eorts. In other words, it is hard to do one
task without unnecessary actions elsewhere. Return to the earlier task of jutting the jaw
while turning the head and repeat the movement many times but in a slower manner. Do
you nd that there are times where either movement becomes jerky? Discovering how to
smooth our own movements often can be quite useful not only for ourselves but also in
improving our eorts with clients.

gravity through the bones. In the

next issue of JBMT the author will
describe a treatment for the
proximal thigh, (Stillness, salience
and the sensibilities of stroma),
which illustrates how this skeletal
arrangement might appear.
To realise the universal presence
of adverse muscle tensions, simply
observe a child attempt a task
beyond their development. Or, look
in a mirror as you write your name
backward with your non-dominant
hand. The facial grimaces,
interrupted breathing and excessive
eorts of unneeded muscles
immediately present themselves for
viewing.
So what might a healthy
treatment posture look like? If we
want to direct a therapeutic force
precisely, it makes sense to launch
such a force from a stable platform.
One such platform is a stable spine
capped at either end by a stable
composition of the shoulder and
pelvic girdles. An easy example is a
sitting posture with the feet at on
the oor and the elbows perched
solidly upon the thighs. Empirically,
it seems that this is best
accomplished with the treatment
stool and the therapy plinth being
the same height, as that of the
therapist's leg, (the distance from

the sole to the inferior pole of the

patella). The ischia are poised upon
the stool without either forward or
backward tilt of the pelvis. This
poise is easily inuenced to allow
tilting of the trunk and pelvis in any
direction. This unstable equilibrium
will be further discussed in
subsequent issues of this series.
Lewit (1991) describes the normal
attributes of proper sitting while
turning the trunk to reach the arm
out at eye level. He notes that sitting

trunk rotation should occur around

the spinal axis with moderate action
of the abdominal and back muscles.
The neck musculature remains
relaxed with the arms and shoulders
remaining as relaxed as is consistent
with the task. Trunk rotation begins
at the thoracolumbar junction and
proceeds upwards with the inferior
angles of the scapulae remaining in
place without divergence. The pelvis
and legs also remain still (Fig. 5).
Notice the unneeded eorts in the
incorrect example. The neck is both
turned and exed forward, the
shoulders are hunched and the lack
of abdominal and back muscle
action creates adverse strain, torque
and shear, at the lumbopelvic
junction. Not only does this
incorrect way of turning fail to
follow the Principle of Least Eort,
it may create harmful stresses in the
body.
You may wish to observe this
movement in yourself and others.
To do so, nd a stable stool allowing
a comfortable perch with the feet
fully at on the oor. Place the stool
within arms reach of a rack of
shelves. Start with a book resting in
the person's lap. Instruct them to

Fig. 5 Lewit's sitting coordination rotate and reach test. (A) correct; (B) faulty. Note the feeling
of elegant graceful strength seen in the rst gure and the hunching of the shoulder and neck; the
abby tone of the back and abdomen in the second gure. Not only does the second posture look
impoverished, it fails to follow the Principle of Least Eort and puts the person at risk of injury
due to the adverse strains placed across the dierent tissues of the body.
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The physics of Feldenkrais1

place the book on a shelf at eye
level. Observe carefully, you may
wish to instruct them to repeat the
movement several times slowly. In
addition to observing the
coordination of the dierent parts of
the body throughout the motion,
you may wish to look for evidence
of changed respiration patterns.
Our next strain to be considered is
torque; it is found in many dierent
forms of bodywork. In fact, it is
hard to nd movements which lack a
torque component. Let us consider a
therapeutic twisting of the topmost
scapula with the client lying on their
side (Fig. 6).
The scapula is designed to be
quite mobile upon the rib wall.
Normally the blade can be
translated approximately three
nger-widths in all directions in
those people able to relax. If the
person is tense bilaterally, often they
will be unable to recognize their lost
scapular ranges of motion. For this
reason, a passive mobilization of the
scapula may remind the client of the
neglected range. The therapist

Fig. 6 Therapeutic torque applied to the

side-lying scapula. The hands are molded to
the shoulder blade with the therapist's body
arranged to allow their skeleton to
comfortably fall, ever so slightly, upon the
client's scapula. How would you improve the
positioning to take advantage of the Principle
of Least Eort?

positions himself so that his sternum

faces the client's scapular spine. He
adjusts the table plinth height until
an easy folding of the trunk is
possible by forward bending at
the hips. His hands surround the
top-most scapula with the elbows
hanging downward to help relax the
scapulars elevators. By taking a
broad stable stance, it is possible for
him to arrange his pelvis and trunk
to counter-poise each other. In other
words, by suitable arrangements, he
creates an unstable equilibrium of
his trunk upon the pelvis and his legs
upon the ankles.
The value of an unstable
equilibrium lies in the ease of which
it is possible to move away from the
poise of the stable position. In our
example, the therapist, by rocking
his trunk forward upon his femoral
heads, and by rocking his lower
extremities backward upon his
ankles, is able to maintain his
balance (Fig. 7). The reason for

insisting upon a sense of balance is

to avoid tensing of the ngers,
stiening of the arms, and holding
of the breath yet allow the therapist
to induce a therapeutic strain by
merely tipping forward.
Once at peace and in a stable
position, the therapist's two hands
encircle the scapula and passively
move the blade in all directions
discovering which are restricted. By
consciously adducting the arms, the
canny therapist is able to lock out
certain skeletal joints. This arranges
his locomotor frame into a
conguration both stable and
harmoniously purposeful. In this
case it would be the slight exion of
the trunk which mobilises the
client's scapula rather than the
movements of the therapist's limbs.
Clients report that such a contact
feels comfortable, even restful. This
feeling of comfort allows the client
to further relax any ambient muscle
tension which, of course, is the
purpose of the technique.
The next form of a strain to
consider is bending. At times it is
useful to mobilize the head and
neck. Consider that there are
thirty-ve spinal joints between the
skull and rst ribs. This large
number of moving surfaces give rise
to many opportunities for
idiosyncratic movements that may
congeal into habitual patterns.
The head may be turned with a
variable amount of side-bending.
Many people carry their heads
forward of the gravity line.3 With
the head forward, the head tends
to turn while simultaneously

Fig. 7 Standing unstable equilibrium to

allow gravity to be the prime force in
mobilising the scapula. The pelvis translates
backwards with the leg rotating backwards at
the ankles while the arms move forwards
while the trunk rotates forwards at the hips.
Try this to see how dicult it is to maintain
stillness of the spinal curves while rotating the
trunk over the femoral heads. Generally,
people habitually ex at the lumbosacral
hinge joint.

The gravity line is a plumb line dropping straight to

the ground from the center of the head, (from the
side, this point is approximately centered at the ear
opening). In the standing position, the most ecient
placement of the head is directly over the feet. In
fact, as we recall from the denition of work as force
multiplied by distance, the more forward the head,
the more work is necessary to hold that position.
But, with increase in anterior head position, the
amount of work grows very fast since the additional
work is not added but multiplied.

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Hannon
side-bending such that the ear drops
towards the shoulder. If such a
movement occurs often enough, it
may become habitual. If such a
habit should become too persistent,
there may be clinical utility in
reintroducing the client to a dierent
movement pattern.
Here is one way. The client lies
comfortably supine with the head
and neck supported such that the
scapular elevators and
sternocleidomastoids relax. The
head is rolled by the therapist's hand
from side to side with the hand
resting on the middle of the
forehead. The hand remains in a
plane tangential to the globe of the
head (Fig. 8). We can see that the
hand translates through space but it
rotates and side-bends the head by

rolling it on the plinth. This pattern

often feels quite natural to the client;
it may even be soothing particularly
if the range of motion is carried out
very slowly.
Another way of moving the head
attempts to highlight rotation and
reduce side-bending. In this
situation, the therapist must recall
the simplest axis of rotation of the
head intersects the odontoid process
of C2, (the axis vertebra). Passive
rotation of the head around this axis
often produces quite a dierent
feeling of movement. The dierence
may be visualized by comparing two
dierent hand movements. The rst
example would be inserting a key to
unlock a door; here we see a rotation
of the forearm around its long axis.
The second example would be

Fig. 8 Rotation versus rolling of the head. There are many movements which may be introduced
to a client's head. Here are two. (A) When the head is rolled by a translatory movement of the
therapist's hand, there is much side-bending which accompanies the rotation. (B) When the head
is rotated about the odontoid of the axis vertebra, side-bending is held to a minimum with the
resulting feeling of the head moving but remaining in the same volume in space. Due to the great
number of extero-receptors in the head, the client often feels extraordinary sensations when this
maneuver is performed precisely with little eort to distract the client from their inner sensations.

running the palm of the hand over

the surface of a large world globe. In
the second example, the arm
circumducts at the same time as the
forearm rotates. Here the forearm
rotation is slower with the
sensations of circumduction being
added to the mix. There are other
sensations to consider as well. In
both cases of head turning, the back
of the head feels a changing
relationship to the treatment table
plinth. When the head both rotates
and side-bends, the scalp rolls as
would a bicycle tyre upon a patch of
road. In the second example,
spinning rather than rolling occurs
when the head is rotated about the
odontoid; this means a reduction of
the pressure of the head upon the
plinth and a resulting reduction in
the sensation of pressure.
Interestingly, although roughly
the same part of the scalp contacts
the plinth during the movement a
very dierent feeling occurs. It is as
if the tyre is spinning without
gaining traction. The head turns but
does not move sideways through
space. Often, this dierent sensation
gives the client a deeper perception
of the volume of their head.
Rywerant (1983) describes this
aspect of the learning process as a
desired outcome of the Feldenkrais
method, `... a learning process
in which the relevant terms are
dyadic: aware-unaware,
ecient-inecient, clear-unclear,
intentional-unintentional,
dierentiated-undierentiated,
habitual-nonhabitual. Each of these
pairs designates the two extremes of
a denite functional and dynamic
dimension in the `space' of human
action. Any human action nds its
place within this multi-dimensional
space, and Functional Integration
makes the point that this place is not
necessarily xed- that with a change
of place, the quality of the action
improves.' In this case, the feeling of
the head's volume may help the
client to revise an inner self-image of

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the orientation of the head to the
rest of its world. Since the head is
one pole of the body axis, the end
with all the extero-receptors, it must
be well oriented in space to allow
safe self-expression of movement.
Just ask anyone who has recently
bumped their head against a low
ceiling.
Our last forms of strain, long axis
compression and extension, are best
considered in the shoulder. A
wondrous anatomical arrangement

occurs in the glenohumeral joint of

the healthy adult. The joint is
unusually lax to allow great mobility
of the arm (Fig. 9). In order to
ensure strength and safety, the
design assumes that the scapula and
humerus align appropriately at the
glenoid surface. Often, this
arrangement is distorted by a
habitual elevation of the shoulder
girdle as a postural compensation
due to a combination of tightened
and weakened muscles (Janda 1983).
Should this be the case, a therapist
may wish to passively model the
possible range of motion of the
glenohumeral joint in shoulder
elevation and depression. This may
be done in the supine position.
The shoulder is brought to the
edge of the plinth. The therapist is
sitting comfortably as described
earlier. She takes a comfortable
two-handed grasp of the esh of the
proximal arm and this esh is
distracted proximally until the
humerus is moved toward the
client's ear. At this point, the
therapist makes certain of her poise
and re-adjusts her posture
accordingly. Her sternum should be

facing the glenohumeral joint with

the client's nearest ear and shoulder
in line with her hands and eyes. The
gentle grasp of the arm, which
emphasizes long axis compression,
is retained while her trunk bows
forward. This trunk exion allows
gravity to be the motive force, her
muscles acting only to direct the
maneuver.
The shoulder is approximated to
the ear as closely as is comfortable.
At this point, the client is instructed
to actively pull the shoulder to the
ear several times. After this eort,
the client is encouraged to breathe
easily and to deeply relax the
shoulders, head and neck. This next
movement is the crux of the
procedure. The client has shrugged
actively the shoulder and is now
resting. Without disturbing the
mood, the therapist long axis
distracts the glenohumeral joint
along the long axis of the humerus.
This often allows the client to
experience a greater range than was
felt to be possible. Long axis
compression then returns to the
beginning of the cycle which is
repeated several more times.
Conclusion

Fig. 9 The glenohumeral joint. In (A) which

is the only one drawn to scale, notice the vast
dierence in the small surface area of the
humeral head and the larger mating surface of
the glenoid. Also, note the glenoid's pear
shape with the narrow end oriented upwards.
(B) shows a stable arrangement due to the
larger skeletal connection of the humerus
and the wide part of the glenoid surface.
(C) demonstrates a poor connection; when the
humeral head loads onto the scapula in this
upper position, structural stability is
degraded. This occurs when the arm is
shrugged upwards. In this position, in order
to centrate the joint surfaces, additional
muscular eorts are required thus betraying
the Principle of Least Eort.

Fig. 10 Long axis compression and

distraction of the glenohumeral joint. The
shoulder is brought to the edge of the plinth.
Manual compression and distraction of the
supine shoulder often results in a greater
relaxation of the surrounding muscles and a
resulting increased range of motion. Often the
sensation of this increase is wildly dierent to
the client, who experiences the passive
movement, than that of the therapist who
actively creates the change.

We have dened strain and we have

identied the ve forms of tissue
deformation. These forms of strain,
alone or in combination, represent
the most basic reduction of any
therapeutic manual intervention. We
also have examined translation and
rotation, the only two forms of
movement possible.
We have considered these
movements within the context of
physics and with the expectation of
being able to delve into the Principle
of Least Eort. If we are successful
in exploring these concepts, it is this
author's opinion that increased
therapeutic success will occur due to
our increased skill at accomplishing
our intentions. Certainly, a better
use of our own bodies will cultivate

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Hannon
and maintain our health and
perhaps improve our sensitivity.
This illustrates our other Principle,
Control Follows Awareness.
Feldenkrais (1972) felt that `if you
know what you are doing, you can
do what you want'. Perhaps we can
use some of the ideas and
explorations presented here to oset
that other piece of wisdom, `you
don't know what you don't know.'
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Anat Baniel,
Feldenkrais1 Trainer, whose
remarkable skills and interest were
instrumental in encouraging the long

cultivation it took for these principles to

take root and become fruitful.

REFERENCES
Adler SS Beckers D Buck M 1993 PNF in
Practice: An Illustrated Guide.
Springer-Verlag, Berlin
Cyriax J 1982 Textbook of Orthopaedic
Medicine, volume one Diagnosis of Soft
Tissue Lesions. Bailliere Tindall, London
Feldenkrais M 1972 Awareness Through
Movement. Harper and Row, New York
Janda V 1983 Muscle Function Testing.
Butterworths, London
Kapandji IA 1987 The Physiology of the
Joints, volume 2: Lower Limb. Churchill
Livingstone, Edinburgh

Lewit K 1991 Manipulative Therapy in

Rehabilitation of the Locomotor System.
Butterworths, London
Rywerant Y 1983 The Feldenkrais Method:
Teaching by Handling. Keats, New
Canaan, p. 200 (Also see: Poincare H
1952 Science and Hypothesis, Dover,
New York, for a mathematician's
explanation of some relationships
between spatial orientation and
sensation)
Maitland GD 1991 Peripheral Manipulation.
Butterworth-Heinemann, London
Murphy M 1972, Golf in the Kingdom. Delta,
New York
Travell JG Simons DG 1983 Myofascial Pain
and Dysfunction The Trigger Point
Manual. Williams and Wilkins,
Baltimore

BOOK REVIEW

Book review
Cranial Sutures
Mark Pick
Eastland Press Seattle,1999,
ISBN 0-939616-29-7
In this superbly illustrated text
Mark Pick focuses on the
morphology of the cranial sutures
and oers a series of extremely
detailed palpation protocols for
evaluation of their status. Indeed the
development of the practitioner's
palpatory skills is a primary
objective of the book, along with the
imparting of a clear understanding

of how sutures articulate

morphologically. Hand positions,
degrees of pressure and an
extraordinary range of palpation
exercises (one involving use of a
watermelon!) form the rst 80 page
segment of the book. The bulk of
the remaining over 400 pages is
taken up by photographs and a
systematic description of almost
every conceivable sutural junction in
the skull (including the inaccessible
and the facial ones).
A short but useful section
completes the book, in which Tuina

techniques are described and

illustrated for treatment of `tissue
aberrations'. It is hard to conceive a
more practical text for those who
wish to know all there is to know
about how the bones of the head
meet and articulate with each other,
and how to palpate these.
Leon Chaitow
Senior Lecturer Centre for
Community
Care and Primary Health,
University of Westminister, UK

...........................................
Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies (2000)
4(2),122
# 2000 Harcourt Publishers Ltd

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