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SMRT and Compensation Patterns
Last weekend I taught a course in Grand Junction. The course was SMRT: Shoulder, Axilla, Ribcage, & Upper Back. We began by working with the lateral shoulder (think deltoid and all that is deep to deltoid), the chest, and the axilla. As we worked several of the students had reactions to the shift in their shoulder position.
By Saturday, our second day, I was spending a little bit of time working on these students to alleviate the pain caused by taking one piece of their compensation pattern away. One of the students developed intense tension in her neck. The more open and balanced her shoulders became, the more tension she had in her neck. Still another student was simply not getting the relief in her shoulders her partner and she wanted. Her issue turned out to be in her forearm. I explained that several muscles in the upper arm originated from the scapula and inserted on either the radius or the ulna (both bicep and tricep). These muscles can have undue tension put on them by hypertonicity of the muscles in the forearm limiting either supination or pronation of the radius and ulna. This effects the position of the humeral head in the glenoid cavity and tension patterns in the shoulder. I did a few minutes of work on her forearm to help her partner get release in her shoulder. Another student began to have lower back spasms. I found that her sacrum and coccyx were crooked. It took about 5 minutes of SMRT to end the spasms and allow her to continue participating in class.
It is important to understand how to work with the entire body and what correcting one part of a compensation pattern may do. When we are working to correct shoulder alignment, the 2 areas we should also pay attention to are the neck and the forearm. Full Circle will be teaching our SMRT: Head & Neck course and our SMRT: Arm & Hand course in 3-day live seminars in Seattle, WA from July 24-26, 2015, and in Chapel Hill, NC from October 23-25, 2015. Register for one or both courses by going to https://efullcircle.com/workshop-schedule/
