Quadratus lumborum strikes again! I was not being facetious when I suggested this was a common complaint. In a recent post, I suggested that a "problem" in the body is never truly a problem of the body. I asserted that such cases are the physical expression of tension or struggle that we are sustaining with some aspect of our experience. wn mistaken metaphysics.

In this post's antecedent, I presented an elemental pentad as another paradigm of integration. In this model I employed the five elements of Earth, Water, Fire, Air, & Ether as symbols for various qualities of the human being & human experience. One might imagine such model to represent a horizontal dimension to this vital interplay. In such a conception, our task was to ensure a balanced proportion & inter-relation between all the several elements.

This is not an altogether uncommon complaint from a client striding through the door at The Way of the Elbow headquarters. My response is typically to do everything I reasonably can to alleviate his or her discomfort. Often a substantial aspect of this Structural (re)Integration will be to placate bellicose connective tissue by means of a gentle elbow, or two. Rolfing® SI, even in caricature, often really works: to (judiciously) apply this sort of pressure is a capital form of communication,* in the right circumstances. But there are other subtler channels for the exchange of information besides.