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Ava Carmel in Jerusalem Post about Paula Garburg Method

first page of the article about Paula Method with Avi Bahat by Ava Carmel

Ava Carmel writes about the Paula Garburg Method, Interviewing Avi Bahat - A Paula teacher from Tel Aviv and others.

How do four different models emerge into one

 Or: The relation between the Rolf model of Movement, Biotensegrity, Paula Method, and the Trager Approach

It is hard to say which of the four is the most important one, but In a way the biotensegrity is the only model that is not also a therapeutic system and maybe it is one that all of them leads to – showing and giving ways and means to reach it – becoming in a way more like animals are relating gravity in the god way.

So when we deal with therapeutic processes, we usually deal with pain and difficulty and we look for good ways to elevate the pain and at the same time to make such a change that will avoid reappearing of the symptoms.
Thus when I receive a phone call from someone suffering a back pain possibly because of a slipped disk I might suggest him already on the phone to contract his pelvic floor (front and rear sphincters together) thereby to gain length and reduce immediately the pressure on the disk and therefore the pressure on the nerve.

In the clinic I might suggest the Structural Integration of Rolf especially when there is an obvious imbalance in his structure.
This marvelous process will lead him to a better function of the core and specifically of the Psoas Muscle.
Hopefully he will learn how to start any movement by elongating the lumbar vertebras in a backwards orientation and use his Psoas to bring his knee forward in a simple walking and not arch the lower back, condense the lumbar vertebras and use the Quadriceps for bringing the knee forward.
My client will learn that in order to reach this kind of noble walk, he need to use his foot with a full touch and movement – in a way that both gives him a better sense of his own existence and also moves him elegantly forward as he pushes the ground backwards.
This dear client through this process will know how to connect to his own central axis and how to use it as an efficient support while standing walking and siting.

And yet with some of my clients I'll find a tendency to collapse, a lack of tonus in their muscles and their way of relating to the ground is more like falling on her rather than pushing her.
I will find it helpful to give them a completely different attitude by learning to use the Paula Method exercises. They will build a better tonus by contracting the sphincter muscles and because it is something they can do during life and not just in prefixed moments – it has the potential to make a real change in their tonus and there whole structure will seem to be higher rather than falling down. This tonus created by the contraction of the pelvic floor, is gathering everything to the middle – towards the spine and lifts the structure up! – It also creates a connection of tension along the whole body – this is a positive tension that resembles a lot the tension that is talked about in the biotensegrity model.

The biotensegrity is the correct tensions in a living creature that exists along his entire system and relates to the supporting ground as a one unite. This is explained well when we know the principle of tensegrity in art and architecture. 
This principle shows how a very big structure can stand up on the ground and into the sky without using the hard parts of it as a support = it is the tension that keeps the structure up.

 

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