Ye Elemental Epilogue
In the penultimate post of this series, called Ye Five Elements, Vertical, I presented the metaphor of an elevator traveling on a vertical trajectory about the pentad of elements. I suggested that good maintenance of the elevator is essential to a pleasurable experience (lest one end up stuck between floors in this five-storied turret and find oneself forced to breathe through one nostril withal as a means to ration oxygen while one awaiteth a coordinated rescue operation to save one from one's own refusal to release a particular involvement—remember, this is a metaphor...). Joyriding demands fluid transitions—otherwise, it's not joyful, and it really couldn't be called "riding," either.
But what does this mean, actually? Where is the relevance to Rolfing® Structural Integration, practically? Since I've managed to neglect to answer this through the entire series hitherto, now at its very conclusion, I feel compelled to meet such inquiries. Let me be therefore concrete, which is to say, solid, manifest, focused, involved—let me descend the elevator to its ground floor.
Levator scapula, a muscle infamous among certain companies with tight shoulders, in concentric contraction, literally elevates the scapulæ or shoulder blades, drawing up the shoulder girdle so that the latter comes to swallow one's neck in its voracious clavicle-scapular maw. There is no harm in this advancement...unless the shoulders get stuck that way. Say we become so violently involved in a given enterprise that we forget to evolve back outwards into a neutral posture—literally to relax the elevators. We find ourselves fixed in solidity—represented by the Earth element—& sporting our scapulæ like a pair of ossiferous earrings. This is macabre jewelry & furthermore, in poor taste. Questions of fashion aside, we understand levator scapula to be soft-tissue. The rigidity of soft tissue indicates a deviation from its natural state. It serves as a signal that we have become over-lustily involved in some object or pursuit & by this fixation, forfeit our native suppleness withal.
As a Rolfer™, my task is to dissolve this axial ossification (sometimes by means of an elbow or two) to allow the necessary evolution for movement to resume. And to encourage a stretchier supplier perception of the environment—one that allows for continual response & adaptation to ever-changing circumstances. This shift in perception will preclude recidivism (see Ye Three Kingdoms of Integration for a conception of change on various planes)! Thus, the acutely solid shoulder muscles, gradually and in the body's own time, resolve from the rigidity of Earth to the fluidity of Water and spiral outwards into the zero-point of bodily ease & pure potential (i. e., they come to settle atop the rib cage).
Diagram of Wu Ji to Ti Ji to the eight Trigrams and Ultimately the 10,000 Things.
