Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Relaxation and Processing: Day Four

We only had class today for about half an hour, and then she's doing individual sessions for half the class. Because my last name starts with a "T", I obviously won't be having my individual session until Thursday. So that just leaves me with processing and journaling for today!

Class consisted of two things today: a ten-minute improv, and relaxation. The improv was used to get our bodies warm, and also as a medium for us to notice more what was happening to our bodies. We were looking for areas of tension, especially in the head/neck/back relationships.

After the warmup, we pulled out our mats and lay out in semi-supine position. We spent the next five or ten minutes (I'm a horrible judge of time...) just relaxing, and processing.

PROCESSING

Because I've been in Somatics before, I already pretty well know my areas of tension. One of my biggest ones is my neck/shoulder region. As I was laying on my mat, trying to relax, I noticed how difficult it is for me to relax my shoulders even while laying down. They seem to feel most
natural when pulling up into a tense place. It felt awkward to pull them down. I also noticed that the tension in my neck really seems to happen at about the middle of my neck, and works its way do
wn. The very top of my neck is fine, but then I get really tight around the mid-neck area.

At first, while I was laying on my mat, I was sort of just waiting, thinking that our teacher was going to come around and help us out with th
e relaxation a bit like she did last time. Then I realized that she probably wasn't going to, and figured I better get on it myself. As I did, I decided that I tend to rely on others too much, and that I need to start making things work for me on my own. So from there, I tried to focus on melting into the mat, lengthening, and releasing my tension. It definitely helped, though not quite as much as I would have liked it to. It's kind of frustrating to me, that I've already taken a Somatics course, and I still can't get myself to let go of these poor habits I've acquired. I suppose I just keep myself moving forward from here.

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