TRAGER(R) WORK: Essentially A Feeling State
by Megan Eoyang

("TRAGER" is a registered service mark of The Trager Institute.)

What is TRAGER work? Think about softening, widening. Think about lengthening,
expanding. Think about light, lighter, and lighter still. Think about a dancing cloud.
Now take a moment and notice how your body feels just thinking of these things.
TRAGER movement education both creates and operates from a feeling state of
pleasurable, effortless, easy movement.

Pain, whether long-lasting or fresh and sharp, causes tension or contraction in the
body and in the mind. So can pressures at work or home, history, attitudes, and
serious health challenges like multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsey, Parkinsonism, polio
and genetic or accident-caused body differences. Fear of pain and concern about its
impact on daily life increase contraction.

Often this contraction is beyond the control of our conscious mind. If it were
conscious we would simply and fully relax whenever we wished to do so. Our
unconscious - the body's maintenance engineer and defender - very soon recognizes
that the pain is continuous. It then puts the contraction on automatic pilot, and goes
about its other business of pumping and balancing the organs, glands and fluids,
responding to invading viruses and bacteria, pulling us back from accidents, and
preparing us to defend ourselves or run away from perceived attacks and dangers.
The contraction is by then firmly in place and "forgotten."

Milton Trager, M.D. spent 60 years as a lay practitioner and later as a medical
professional, exploring with clients and patients the relationship among gentle
movement and expansion, pain, contract, and the autonomic nervous system
(which he associates with the unconscious mind). He is convinced that it is the mind
which maintains the contractions, and it is therefore the mind which will free them.

Dr. Trager has spent the past 15 years teaching others how to access and communicate
the feeling state of "open, effortless and free" to clients' bodies and minds. He says
this special feeling state "is like the measles" you have to catch it from someone who
has it." TRAGER practitioners develop and constantly expand the feeling state in
their own bodies and minds - the better to share it with their clients.

To communicate this feeling state, practitioners use the language of movement;
gently rocking, swinging, stretching and pressure. They work within the client's
pain-free range to provide a sense of how it feels to be able to move freely and
painlessly.

Gentleness and extensive body movement allow the client to give up muscular and
mental control, and to sink slowly into a very deep state of relaxation, continuing to
move in this state, the unconscious as well as the conscious learns that it no longer
needs to contact in order to escape pain or worry.

Some of the movement education work is done with the client experiencing the
movement while lying on a massage table. In addition the practitioner teaches the
client simple ways of moving that allow them to bring back the feeling state in their
daily activities.

The 90's are complex, exciting, and occasionally exasperating times. How would it
feel to live in them with less tension and contraction in our bodies, minds and
hearts? How might that influence the way we come in contact with others in our
lives? And how far might that ripple of pleasure and effortlessness travel?

For more information about The TRAGER Approach, The Trager Institute's
Certification Program, and/or referral to practitioners in your area, please write,
email, fax, or call: US Trager Association or Trager International
http://www.joeleegriffin.com/trlinks.htm