DISCOVERY
Heather Wallace is a “why not?” person; not a timid “why?”
With that and her natural propensity to give more than 100% to any activity or interest, when she made that first small step to join a yoga class, she propelled herself through years of teachers’ training, worked at the philosophy level, became a mantra initiator, and was involved in the politics of the Himalayan Institute. It was no longer just body work; it was the entire philosophy behind it.
But Heather hit a wall with the physical side of yoga…hatha, an important limb of the system. She didn’t fully understand what was happening, but she was encountering bones that wouldn’t move. They were blocked by other bones and unable to go further…something necessary for her to achieve the perfection others were experiencing in their yoga positions. Ahhha! It wasn’t muscles and ligaments that were not letting go! Those bones were not in the right place and somehow had to be moved. She needed to make structural changes and movement with support was the key.
DEVELOPMENT
Heather set out to explore everything available, seeking the key that would unlock the bone conflict she knew was the critical element in relief.
She studied everything she could find, reading and working on herself and her students. Her studies took her into many disciplines as she sought the element that would change relationships between bones.
Viniyoga: a methodology for developing practices for individual conditions and purposes developed by Sri. T. Krishnamacharya, teacher of B.K.S. Iyengar, K. Pattabhi Jois, and Indra Devi. The system stresses function over form. Heather met Devi in Chicago and was impressed with the person and her work.
Feldenkris offered the first potential answer. Heather found notes on all the movements in the system. Over the weekend she tried every move on herself. The following week she began trying them on patients. She could see that the method didn’t work the way it was supposed to, but there was something to it.
Next she explored Trager. It did not solve the problem at all.
Then she tried cranial sacral/myofacial and found that it had potential, but not enough support and organization. The fact that it caused an unwinding of the underlying twists in the body (that moved the bones out of place) opened new avenues to explore. Cranial sacral work was capable of moving the system to a higher level.
Heather continued to work on herself, observing every detail of her structural system and the changes that happened…or did not. She began to implement her discoveries with patients.
Development since then has been continuous…discoveries and experimentation with certainty that “the end is just around the corner.”
”Support precedes Movement”
(source unknown)
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