This method allows to change the body rigidity and heaviness for a feeling of comfort, without using force or sudden manipulations.
To gain serenity, health and quality of life, the Trager method invites you to experience sensations of lightness, freedom, softness and fluidity, and it does so through body movement and the warm and respectful contact of a professional.
The method, which is a registered trademark, has two fundamental characteristics.
- First, consider that the bodily patterns that lead to disease reproduce the mental patterns. In the words of its creator, Milton Trager: “The accumulation of tension can be caused by different circumstances but the pattern of our tension is in our mind.” So, if you can unlock the mental patterns, the body patterns will be unlocked.
- Secondly, the movements proposed by the method positively affect the tensions released during a session with a professional. By undoing the mental pattern that produced them, they do not reappear.
Milton Trager (California, 19081997) was during his youth a boxer, acrobat and dancer. Aware of the great effort required by his workouts, he tried to adopt a different attitude towards his own body. He wanted to improve his performance but also experience more pleasure. I was looking for a freer, smoother, lighter movement.
He discovered that his mind could convey a message of lightness and freedom to his muscles and his hands and that through his hands he could also convey that message to the mind and tissues of another person. Later, he studied medicine and in 1975 presented his work in public for the first time at the Esalen Institute in California. Today his method is taught in more than 22 countries.
BENEFITS OF THE TRAGER METHOD
The Trager method is composed of a stretcher treatment and exercises called Mentastics that seek to free the body and mind, as well as promote relaxation and well-being.
The method has been successfully used to solve everything from back problems to psychic difficulties. Its benefits are multiple:
- Increases mobility.
- It eliminates excessive tension because it improves coordination and posture and unblocks joints.
- It provides a deep relaxation full of energy and vitality.
- Develops physical sensitivity and body awareness.
- It favors inner peace, lucidity and intuition.
- Increases the elasticity of muscles and skin.
- Activates lymphatic fluid circulation.
The benefits and virtues of the method are possible thanks to the presence of the professional who imparts the method and his connection with the person who receives it. During a Trager session the expert remains in a state of physical, mental and spiritual attention to tune into the present, which encompasses the moment, the sensations of his own body, the place in which he is and the person with whom he deals.
7 EXERCISES OF THE TRAGER METHOD TO RELEASE TENSIONS
1. MORE COMFORTABLE MOVEMENTS
- Standing, with your feet parallel apart, you carry the weight of your body on one leg (in all exercises, the person decides which side is easiest for him to start).
- Keeping his balance, gradually lift the opposite leg as if someone were pulling from the sky upwards by means of a thread tied to that knee. It can help to keep your gaze fixed on a point in front or diagonally.
- Following a continuous movement, drop your leg to the ground. Pause to perceive the vibration produced by this movement.
- Then, repeat several times asking yourself: can I do it with less effort? How could this movement be smoother?
- Repeat the movement with the other leg.
2. RELEASE YOUR SHOULDERS
- Lift one shoulder slightly, without reaching the height of the face, and let it fall, all in one continuous motion. The Trager method uses the body’s own weight to open and mobilize each of its parts.
- The shoulder can surrender to the force of gravity and vibrate under the effect of its own weight and arm. Then, repeat with the other shoulder.
3. NOTICE CHANGES
- Stop the movement after each rise and fall to notice the changes.
- Compare with the opposite shoulder and repeat several times.
- Then, start the process by raising and dropping both shoulders at once.
4. SURRENDER TO THE FORCE OF GRAVITY
- Carry the weight of your body on your right leg and let your right arm, shoulder, and side hang on their own. Perform a subtle movement with your arm and hand that does not require effort. Feel your arm, shoulder, and shoulder blade.
- Go back to the center and see if anything has changed in the different parts of the body. Repeat it but now feeling the movement more comfortable. Then, repeat the process with the left side.
5. OPENNESS AND EXPANSION
Mentastics movements are not based on contraction, but on the opening and expansion of tissues. They have to be done with a curious attitude to discover and explore bodily sensations, as if it were a game.
- In this exercise, first bring one wrist over the other and interlace your fingers from this position. Raise your arms above your head.
- Next, bring the weight on your right foot and leg and tilt your torso to the opposite side, the left. You should notice the elongation of the entire right side, from the foot to the hand.
- Return to the central position, observe the sensations and repeat. Then, perform the exercise to the other side, paying attention to the responses that occur in the body. Mentastics can induce a state of great relaxation and peace.
6. FLY WITH YOUR ARMS
- Standing, feet apart, rotate the trunk to the left. The feet should not move from the ground and the gaze should guide the movement. Move your arms naturally to that side.
- With a gentle impulse, without interrupting the movement, rotate the trunk to the right. Notice how the arms almost fly. If you wish, with the right turn, shift the weight to the right foot and with the left turn, to the left.
- It is about going from lower to higher movement when rotating and from higher to lower when returning to the center.
7. LIKE A SWING
The trager movements create the wave curve of a wave. The resonance of this wave spreads throughout the body, unblocking and lightening the body and mind.
- In the movement of the swing begins by throwing the arms to the right and upwards with the help of a slight bending of the knees.
- Following a natural shift of the weight to the right, stretch the right leg and the arms are suspended in the air as if it were a swing.
- Bend your knees slightly by dropping your arms, letting them pass in front of your body and head to the left. Shift the weight to the left leg.
- Repeat several times, return to the center and perceive the body.
A MESSAGE TO THE UNCONSCIOUS
The professional invites the person to bring attention to their own body. A connection is established between them through the body of the receiver. Once in tune, the professional transmits a message of lightness and freedom to his hands, thanks to which he contacts the tissues of the receiver to ultimately reach his unconscious mind, where the sensations of his life experiences are recorded and at whose origin are the tensions and blockages.
That is why it is said that the Trager method is not a massage, but a message. With curiosity, the professional looks for a comfortable, effortless movement that adjusts to the body rhythms of the receiver. At the same time, he will find a way to reach movement in his own body with the same qualities that the professional uses.
Through attention, the brain and nervous system are activated, a new space is opened and the realization of a movement alien to the tensions that previously produced pain is recorded in the unconscious memory. The body and mind are thus freed from discomfort.
Dr. Trager argued that connection (openness to bodily sensations) is not learned with words, but with experience. And he claimed that connection is so important that someone unconnected who knows the technique will not get good results, while someone well connected who does not know the technique, yes.
HOW IT IS PRACTICED
Part of the session is done lying down: the person rests on a stretcher, dressed in comfortable clothes. The professional, through a warm, respectful and trust-inspiring contact, applies subtle wave movements, tractions, elongations, compressions and vibrations that, tuning in with the receiver, reverberate through your body transmitting to your central nervous system and the brain how free and light you can feel.
The muscular system relaxes and the joints respond with freer, more fluid and fuller movement. From time to time, the professional abandons physical contact: they are refreshing pauses that he needs to return to the presence, to feel the weight of the hands or the contact of the earth under his feet. In them, whoever is lying on the stretcher also recovers his bodily impressions and verbalizes them.
As the professional does not have to make an effort, this is not transmitted to the person either. Instead of being created by the practitioner, the work of the Trager method flows through it. The art of movement used in the Trager method differs from other techniques that force tissues, and even reach pain.
According to Trager these techniques block the body and mind more: when an area of tension is found, it must be approached gently and lightly to help the person evoke how they feel free of resistance.
The second part of the session is made up of the Mentastics exercises (a word created from the terms “mental” and “gymnastics”). It is gentle creative gymnastics directed by the mind to relieve the body of its tensions and find greater well-being. It serves to reinforce and prolong the effects of the new movement patterns that are released in the treatment on a stretcher and practiced between sessions. A session lasts between 60 and 90 minutes, and no oils or lotions are used.
Mentastics consists of vibratory movements or movements that take advantage of gravity to free the body and give it greater relaxation and ease of movement. The person does not imitate the professional but creates the movement that he suggests. This movement should be effortless and as comfortable and friendly as possible. The mind guides the movement by asking itself about the ideal qualities of body movement: softness, lightness, freedom, ease, fluidity…
They have to be questions asked with an open, curious, patient and relaxed attitude. With confidence in the wisdom of the body, the answer comes in the form of sensation. “Let the movement happen spontaneously, don’t try,” Milton Trager said. Attempt involves effort, and every effort generates tension. Instead of trying to do something, you have to let it appear.