Feeling Lighter Through Movement... with the Trager® Approach
by Audrey Mairi

The Trager Approach enhances conscious awareness of the holistic integration of body, mind, and spirit.

Softness, freedom, spaciousness, lightness, ease…

These are some of the feelings you can expect from Trager, an approach that works with the body using touch and gentle movement to invite the body/mind to experience feelings of lightness, softness, and bliss.

The late Dr. Milton Trager, originator of the Trager Approach, often said that such feelings arise as a result of the manner in which he worked, not necessarily the moves he employed.

He called this manner Hook-Up. “Hook-Up is a state of being,” Dr. Trager said. “It is [the connection to] the life-giving, life-regulating power that has always been there and will always be there. And you can’t try to get it. You can’t try to Hook-Up, because to try is to fail. You don’t try. To try is effort and effort is tension. We don’t try. We just allow it to happen. It is not the moves I do or the technique. Drop the word technique, [Trager] is not a technique. It is something different.”

This quotation captures the core of the Trager Approach. While there are many moves and techniques that Trager practitioners learn during their intensive training—including anatomy and physiology—these are merely the craft of the trade. Just as a writer knows grammar and a guitarist knows chords, a Trager practitioner knows the body—its muscles, bones, and tissue. Such knowledge, however, is not enough—just as knowing grammar or chords is not enough to make great literature or toe-tapping music.

To turn craft into something different, something more, something that transcends our limited understanding, a Trager practitioner learns to Hook-Up to the life-giving, life-regulating power that is everywhere at all times. It is for this reason that Dr. Trager suggested we drop the word technique. He knew that at a certain point his students had to let their training “run in the background” and get into Hook-Up by arriving in the present moment. In a state of presence, feelings of lightness, softness, and spaciousness infuse the body/mind, turning technique into an effortless vehicle that transfers these feelings into the client’s body and mind.

This is why the Trager Approach (also known as Trager Psychophysical Integration) operates through pleasurable, effortless, easy movement, which softly and safely introduces the body/mind to what it would be like if it were free to function without restriction.

Trager can Bring about Transformative Changes

The Trager Approach enhances conscious awareness of the holistic integration of body, mind, and spirit. Clients learn to recognize and release unconscious physical and emotional holding patterns, reducing stress and chronic tension that give rise to conditions such as repetitive motion syndrome (RPS), migraine headaches, insomnia, and back pain. Dissolving these old limiting patterns of movement results in greater resiliency, flexibility, and mobility.

Trager is especially effective in bringing a measure of relief to various neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson’s disease, polio, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, spinal cord damage, and stroke.

A Trager Session

In a Trager session, no oils or lotions are used. You lie passively, clothed or partially clothed, on a well-padded table. The Trager practitioner—who is consciously Hooked-Up—gently rocks, compresses, elongates, jiggles, and shimmers the tissue in your body. These gentle movements invite your body to experience what it would feel like if it were free of its holding patterns, its restriction, and its pain.

Your joints seem lubricated, your breath deepens, your mind quiets. Your nervous system and your body tissue are invited into feelings of lightness, of softness, of bliss. The combination of the practitioner’s skill at the craft plus the ability to stand in the present moment (in Hook-Up) allows for these changes to happen.

Few people really know what light, soft, free, or ease feels like in their body. These are signature feelings of a Trager session.

Off the table, you learn self-care movements called Mentastics®. These mentally-directed movement explorations are simple and flexible tools to recall and anchor the feelings received during a Trager session. Coined from the two words “mental gymnastics,” they are the active portion of the Trager Approach and can be utilized by anyone, anywhere—whether typing at a computer, wielding a hammer, or pushing a child on a swing. Those who have neurological disorders and movement disabilities find that they are able to move and walk with greater ease by using Mentastics.

Trager is an approach to living, not just a way to fix pain in the body. Those who embrace the Trager Approach find that it works best when applied to all areas of life.

To find a practitioner and information on how to become a Trager practitioner, visit Trager Canada at www.trager.ca and Trager International at www.trager.com.

Audrey Mairi is a Senior Trager Practitioner/tutor/teacher and Reiki Master with a thriving practice in Victoria, BC. She is the author of Trager for Self-Healing: A Practical Guide for Living in the Present Moment and Pathway to Presence e-book and CD. Audrey regularly holds workshops for students and therapists dealing with the connection between the body and mind. She is delighted to return to her home province of Saskatchewan to lead a Trager Introductory Workshop in April. Visit her website at www.audreymairi.com. For more information see the black and white display ad on page 23 of the 16.5 January/February issue of the WHOLifE Journal. Also see ad on page 22 for a Regina Trager practitioner.