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Welcome to Spinal Awareness
Explore the Spinal Awareness Method
At Spinal Awareness, we are dedicated to promoting health and wellbeing through the innovative Spinal Awareness Method. Our approach integrates movements from the martial arts schools of China, Tibet and Bali with a unique system of healing touch to provide personalized treatments that restore balance, alleviate pain, and enhance overall wellness.
About Spinal Awareness
The Spinal Awareness Method is a gentle technique of unwinding the tensions of the physical body in order to address discomfort, improve mobility, and support holistic wellbeing. It was developed by my teacher Patrick Douce from his work with the Martial-Arts-for-Health schools of Bali, his trainings with Moshe Feldenkrais, and his lifelong association with The Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. Each session is tailored to cater to individual needs, ensuring a personalized path to vibrant health.
Our Methodologies
Discover our range of methodologies designed to alleviate discomfort, enhance mobility, and give you back the feeling of joy in your body. All Spinal Awareness classes are taught in a spirit of playful interaction with many oportunities to have fun, both with your own body and in connection with others.
Bodywork
At the end of all Spinal Awareness classes we exchange touch work with a partner. This begins with soft present touch along the spine in order to facilitate deep spinal relaxation and re-alignment.
Skeletal Awareness
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It is our skeleton that holds us up, not our muscles.
In Spinal Awareness we learn to improve the way we use our skeleton to reduce tension, stress and pain.
Breathing Techniques
Awareness of your breathing is central to the Spinal Awareness Method. Special Breathing Movements are employed to enhance respiratory function, reduce stress, and support the body's natural healing processes.
Movement
We are meant to move. Our bodies need certain movements to adjust, balance and tune themselves. At Spinal Awareness we emphasise learning how to move in ways that stimulate awareness of your body, leading to easier, more graceful and efficient ways to move.
"What does it take to heal a human being?"
My Story
In my book The Spinal Awareness Method, I tell the tale of my own healing journey following a motorcycle accident that left me in chronic pain. I was fortunate at the time to read about a healing centre in California called The Esalen Institute and I travelled there seeking a way to work with my injuries. As well as receiving many different types of bodywork, I took a month long course in Spinal Awareness that changed my life forever.
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Here is an excerpt from my first class;
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"The class was like nothing I had ever experienced before. We started with sliding, first forwards, sideways, then in all directions, feeling our contact with the floor, our "ground". Patrick led us in a range of martial arts type movements: the crane flapping its' wings, sky and earth breathing, the sliding cat.
Then we played with a "partner movement" where we connected through the space between the palms of our hands held a few inches apart. After a while we began sliding around the room together keeping our connection. I felt a "tingling sensation" in my right palm and started to become aware how tense I was holding my hands.
Patrick emphasised the importance of re-awakening your "skeletal awareness". "You are meant to be aware of your bones" he said. "And of course, no-one is breathing." He noted that we all aquire the habit of unconsciously holding our breath, and instructed us to try and breathe continuosly throughout all the movements.
Next, we lay down. At first flat on our backs with our legs straight, then with our knees bent. This was the basic resting position in which we were to feel where we contacted the floor fully, and where we did not. Then, breathing from our belly, we moved our knees to the left and right, and then our head to the left and right with our knees. Reaching across our chest to our opposite shoulder, we began to roll from side to side. As we really got into it, something clicked in my spine, when I got up my shoulder felt easier. I was buzzing."
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When the group finished, Patrick invited me to come and work with him in Bali. He intoduced me to the White Crane Martial-Arts-for-Health School, and began to train me in the deeper aspects of The Spinal Awareness Method. Over the next seven years I completed my training, and healed the pain in my neck and shoulders.
If you are interested in learning more, I have shared the stories from my healing adventure, along with an in-depth account of The Spinal Awareness Method, in my book of the same name. It not only includes a desription of all the movements necessary to unwind tension and restore physical health, it also expands The Spinal Awareness Method to include all the levels of healing, from emotional and energetic, though to the spiritual.
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Benefits of The Spinal Awareness Method
In Spinal Awareness workshops and trainings you will learn to use your muscles and your skeleton in easier, lighter, and more energized ways, leading to deeper relaxation and a healthier more vital life.
Pain Relief
The root cause of much of the pain we experience in our bodies, lies in a mis-alignment of the skeleton. In Spinal Awareness a fun safe environment is created where you relax and experience the connection of your muscles to your living skeleton. This new awareness allows you to organise yourself in ways that take the pressure off your painful spots, and encourage your skeleton into proper alignment. Many long term problems and limitations can be improved in this way.
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Breathing Better
Moving Better
Chronic pain, tension and stiffness in the spine, the jaw, the shoulders, the chest, the hips, the hands, the feet, the arms and the legs all contribute to your holding of breath. In Spinal Awareness we learn to improve the way we use ourselves, in order to reduce the tension in our whole body. In response our breathing becomes easier and more as it should be. We also use specific breathing movements from the White Crane Silat tradition that open up our breathing, and allow us to explore deeper dimensions of movement and sensory experience.
Organising the multitude of muscles and bones of the body into a coordinated movement is no small task. The nervous system has this job, sending messages with nervous impulses to the various muscles, telling them to shorten or lengthen, and how much to do so. Any movement that is done repeatedly, in the same manner, such as standing, walking, sitting, eating, soon leaves the awareness of most people and takes on the qualities of an unconscious movement, or reflex. In Spinal Awareness we rediscover exactly what we are doing in ourselves when we do a movement, and reprogramme our nervous system to organise the movement in a more graceful and harmonious way. Our everyday movements become transformed into far more fluid, relaxed and effortless motions.
Experience Movement
If you would like to try a movement from The Spinal Awareness Method, here is The Rejuvenation Breath. This movement is designed to relax you and fill you with energy, whilst expanding your breathing and grounding you to the earth.
Stand in a relaxed position with your feet about shoulder width apart and your arms by your sides. Breathe in and bring your wrists together in front of your solar-plexus region as shown in the picture above.
With your arms and wrists as relaxed as possible, lift your hands up the central line of your body, coming to rest in a position above your head.
Still breathing in, separate your hands out to the sides, finishing with your palms up and your arms extended.
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After a brief pause, turn your palms down and begin to breathe out, slowly lowering your arms to your sides in time with your exhalation.
Get in Touch
If you would like to contact me, please write to me at:
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I am currently living in the gorgeous province of Asturias in northern Spain, and I am available for sessions or one-to-one movement classes.
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If you are a student of Spinal Awareness I would love to hear from you.
