TREATMENT EXAMPLE OF SUSTAINED GESTURES

Notes from mid noughties:




With Kayahan, the Autistic boy, the pull and shove of his legs and feet is gradually embedded into a rooting out for contact, where the space itself becomes the arena of articulation. Contact becomes a reaching out to those parts of emphasis that hold the body in various angles of alignment, allowing channels to open and a circulation to ensue.



This hanging in space is aided as each extended limb is shored up and met through an equivalent force, in me. It is not therefore that I work on Kayahan- do something to him by pressing into various points on his body-surface. Rather I prop up what he seeks out so that it neither turns into the rigidity of a kick- which is really a way to create enough energy for momentary suspension of an extreme angle unmet- or the flaccidity of falling down- which is the other alternative to a position off-centre that is unmet. There is instead contact at the point of suspension.



So through like meeting like I offer the sole of my foot to Kayahan`s kicking foot. I maintain it in stillness in mid-air. Then lightly push against the sole of his foot. Then I break the contact.Then push again and retreat - like bouncing a ball consistently against his sole. I find different angles to support the whole limb of his leg, shifting it out, folding it at the knee, letting it fall open, then stopping and holding it still.



Garadually a small gap opens between intent and contact that is a place of anticipation and an invitation to action. I suspend my foot mid-air just beyond the place of contact. Kayahan seeks out the contact and now he is pre-emptive, shifting my position. Then the movement and rest, the shoring up and letting go is played out as a fluid interchange.



We are seeking out places of alignment. Shiatsu points where the vault of circulation is open. Tai Chi postures hang in mid-air- only with me acting as the mirror-image- Both comprehensively guiding to a place where a correspondence- a certain tuning through the body is assured.



Kayahan now seeks out the contact and exchange through his feet, wherever I put my foot. In mid-air he necessitates a meeting, creating exact synchronicity, no longer needing a ground-base of unequal support to compensate for his over-extension.



He holds positions mid-air with his legs and feet by implicating lower back, chest, arms and head in an unbroken circuit of continuous re-emphasis and fine-tuning.



He begins to use his hands to support my foot, leg, arm or hand and the use is more a holding than a push.



There is an encirclement. A contact met and a resting in this.



It is now possible to establish and maintain points of contact on the body using the established principles of shiatsu. What has been articulated through physical movement is now internalised through the treatment process.



At first this articulation becomes similar to the initial stages of contact and retreat on the physical level. Kayahan alternately tenses and relaxes muscle groups in his abdomen and chest, first inhibiting and then over-extending breath into broken gasps.



Gradually the reflexes of muscle and breath become synchronised with the alternation of pulsation and release that then slows until it is a continuous contact yet nevertheless modulated according to the rhythm of this more stable breathing pattern. Contact and breath listen to one another in order to maintain through the natural changes of dynamic equilibrium, a light and living point of exchange.