I first met Dr. Milton Trager in 1986, in Mill Valley California. He was almost an octogenarian then—a small powerfully built man with fluffy white hair and a face etched with the depth of experience. Not given to small talk, he seemed to live only for his work and the acknowledgment of its effectiveness by the medical profession.

In 1927, when he was nineteen years old, Milton Trager discovered a bodywork technique that changed not only his life, but also the lives of thousands of others since then. He was training to be a boxer at the time, with great ambitions to be a prizefighter, but life had other plans for him! Funny how that happens, isn't it? You may have heard Carloyn Myss say, "How do you make God laugh? Tell him your plans!" It all happened one evening when his trainer, who usually gave him a rubdown after his workout, was looking particularly tired. Young Milton offered to work on him, and the trainer was astonished at what he felt from the young man's hands. "Hey, kid, howdya learn to do that? You really got hands!" Milton, surprised and encouraged, went home and cured his father's sciatica, a chronic complaint that was due for surgery. It cleared up after two sessions.

Milton's curiosity drove him to learn about bodies from everyone he could lay his hands on! He would observe people's walking styles, try to mimic it in his own body, noticing where he needed to tense up in order to imitate that movement. He would approach people on the beach, in the park, "I see you seem to be having a problem. Would you like me to work on it for you?" The polio epidemic at that time provided him with many willing bodies, and amazingly he found he was getting results.

Playing with easy balancing movements, shimmering and rocking of limbs, Milton would begin to feel a response in paralysed muscle tissue. While he was still a teenager he helped his best friend, who had been in a wheelchair for three years, to walk again. Milton was dismayed when his friend's doctor said "Who's been messing with this kid?" on seeing his friend walk tentatively from his wheelchair. But that comment sowed seeds of determination in the young Trager to prove the value of his technique. He continued to work with those whom the medical profession had passed over as hopeless cases: severe neuro-muscular disorders, thousands of backs, and polio victims, and again and again he found positive results. By this time of course his dream of being a boxer had faded, to be replaced with a fascination with healing: What is it? How does it happen?

Milton had an advantage in this enquiry, although all through his childhood it had felt very much like a disadvantage: a condition called spondylolisthesis, a congenital spinal disorder, where two of his lumbar vertebrae did not anchor securely together. He missed all the rough and tumble games of childhood, and was a frail and somewhat puny little kid. "So how come he began training to be a boxer?" you might ask. Milton would say that the change came about with the taking of one deep breath. He had left school early to help support the family, and got a job as a postman, dragging a huge postbag around, hoping to get fit in the process. Everyday in the post office health suggestions were pinned on the board, and employees were required to read, take note and sign. The one notice that made a difference said simply, "Take a deep breath." Try it yourself, now. Milton followed that breath inside his body, and in his words, he said, "I met myself intimately for the first time."

He began to move and live from this increased awareness, developing gentle rhythmical movements to bring himself into contact with how his muscles worked, where and how tension built up, and how to release it. He found that by moving in a rhythmical way he came into a sense of harmony with the waves on the beach or the rustle of the wind in the trees. He found a new way of moving that became the basis for his instinctive way of helping people in pain.

Milton became a Physical Therapist, and had a full and thriving practice for years. However, in the back of his mind he was not satisfied. He wanted the medical profession to acknowledge the results he was getting. So on leaving the Navy after the Second World War, at the age of 42, he was given some GI bonds from the government, which he decided to use to train to be a doctor.

So began another chapter of his life, a life that has been so full that it is almost the equivalent of several lifetimes in one. He applied to seventy medical schools and was refused by all of them on the grounds that he was too old. I wonder whether I could have handled seventy rejections. However, when we can stand by what we know to be true, the spirit of our determination is invincible. Milton then applied to the University of Guadalajara in Mexico, was accepted and began six years of training. He laughed about the early days: he did everything he could to learn the language, rolling coins in the gutter with kids, playing cards with the men in cafes, immersing himself in Mexican life.

The university opened a clinic for him to continue his work when he demonstrated his technique on the four-year-old daughter of a teacher, who had been affected by polio. Surrounded by medical professionals and the nuns in the University, he played with the child's limb until spontaneous movement occurred. Within twenty minutes, the little girl could move her foot slightly in four directions. A priest approached him, afterwards and said, "Remember, Milton, first comes God, then comes you." Milton wasn't a religious man, but he recognised the truth that it wasn't he, Milton, who was doing it. He was a participant in something much bigger. By tuning in to himself, his client, all-that-is, some magical communication began to happen. He called this process 'hook up', and years of experience taught him that it wasn't magical at all: it's very natural, ordinary for us to be there and meet each other there. But we've let ourselves get so far away from what's natural, forgetting to take time to really feel connected to nature, in touch with our bodies, at one with our spirits.

Dr Trager would often say, "We are surrounded by a force, a life-giving, life-regulating force. We don't need to go even an inch away from ourselves to get it. Just allow this force to enter."

Let's take a little time right now. Just notice how you're sitting, your bottom on the chair, and the position of your shoulders. As you become aware, move a little if you need to adjust your body, stretch if that feels right, let your body find what's comfortable in a nice easy way. Be gentle, no forcing, ok? You might even notice how you take a deeper breath, and as you do so the weight of your shoulder girdle changes position just slightly, your neck extends maybe, and your arms just sink their weight down wherever they are. Now give just the tiniest shake of your shoulders, watch the ripple that moves through you and comes to an end in its own time, like ripples in a pond. Maybe even send the teensiest trace of a smile down through your body, a kind of 'hello, there you are'. Now ask yourself, "What could be softer in me right now?" Then wait, gently inviting this energy that surrounds us to come in, soaking it up, letting it move you with the natural rhythm of aliveness. You might find yourself rocking slightly, or feeling the many tiny rhythms that make up the pulsating of the heart, lungs, digestion, and nervous system.

We are movement, and change, with tremendous potential for well-being at every moment. It pays to practise this awareness, so that we can live more constantly in that comfort.

Dr. Trager worked as a doctor in Hawaii, and at the age of 65, when most people are thinking of retiring, he was 'discovered' and persuaded to teach. Thousands of people have been trained in the Trager Approach, many of them medical personnel, a lot of them from other walks of life: aeronautical engineers, massage therapists, airline pilots, truck drivers, and in Australia, where I was living until recently, we had a dairy farmer, who practised a lot on his cows.

Dr Trager always said the key to the success of Trager work is the relaxed, aware, meditative state, which he called, 'hook-up'. Using movement exercises, we increase our awareness of our bodies, then we get to lie down on a soft, padded massage table and be rocked, stretched, rippled and shimmered by the gentle hands of a Trager Practitioner. No oils are used, so there is no need to undress, but it is important to wear clothes that are loose and non-restricting.

Trager work has been found to be effective with a wide range of physical conditions, from the more serious neuro-muscular disorders to everyday aches and pains that most of us experience as one time or another. Dr Trager would say the reason for this success seems to be in finding new, more positive feeling experiences, no matter what our physical condition. We now recognise that how we feel has an affect on the body: anger, fear, happiness floods us with different chemical cocktails, leaving us buzzing with excitement or aching with tension, suffering colitis, back problems, headaches. Dr Trager's work provides us with an approach to change, a way of coming back to what's natural and easy, even if we may have not felt it since childhood. It's an educational process where we learn how to help ourselves.

Dr Trager's dream was not just to help those in pain. He saw the bigger picture: his work as a vehicle for peace, within our own lives and those of our children. In his words:

"If we can instil positive feeling experiences in our children, then their attitudes, their outlook on life will be positive. They will attract the positive vibrations of others. Hook-up can be a tool for them to cope with the stresses of our environment. It is a small yet significant step towards peace in this world."

Dr. Milton Trager taught for 24 years until he died at the age of 89, about five years ago. Some of those he trained have become teachers themselves, and taught hundreds more. You can find Trager practitioners all over the world, although it is more well-established in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Australia.

I was fortunate to have spent time training with and assisting Dr. Milton Trager, and the depth of this work has continued to reveal itself to me for over seventeen years. It seems to bring together everything I most love and pay tribute to: joy of movement, non-judgemental awareness, learning how to use my mind to affect my body, and softening to allow a meeting of inside and outside. My joy is also to teach others to use these transformative skills through sessions and workshops. Life changes can be made in the most practical and easy way. To quote my teacher, "What could be less effort than that, mmm?"

Layo M. Nathan is a TRAGER Practitioner and Tutor. She is now living in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, and can be reached through email layo@thenathans.com Tel: (028) 9335 9704. For more details, click here.