"Hello leg! How are you today?" murmurs the TRAGER® Practitioner in a soft voice, gently weighing and stretching the limb. "So what could be lighter here," she says, as she picks up the unspoken message of unnecessary tension. "Well, how should it be... mmm?"

TRAGER® bodywork is a two-way conversation. Whether you know it or not, attitudes lie hidden in the tissue. It's a bit like reading Braille. When a TRAGER® Practitioner feels some restriction, he or she offers an invitation to let go, verbally and kinaesthetically with a touch that communicates even more gentleness.

Letting go can happen in many ways. For many it involves sinking in to a deep, peaceful state. Others have laughed uproariously at times during the session, as they lie there and feel their limbs gliding easily through the air, or a wriggle wiggle up their spine.

Dr Milton TRAGER® who developed this way of enlivening the body, teaches that we all have the innate ability to heal ourselves, and enjoyment plays a big part in that! By questioning, "What could be freer, easier?" we tap into a cellular memory of what lightness and freedom feel like. And when that feeling has been experienced consciously, it is easy to remember it again.

TRAGER® sessions include movement awareness, deeply relaxing rocking on a massage table, and simple exercises that help release tension in an instant. Clients are loosely clothed and comfortable.

Science has finally caught up with the fact that how we think affects how we feel. We all know that fear produces adrenaline, and if we ever get through the pain barrier, the pay-off is a flood of endorphins, but a TRAGER® session achieves that just as easily without all the trauma. Every thought we have produces one chemical cocktail or another that pours through every part of us. Doesn't it seem wise then to monitor our thoughts to create well being?

TRAGER®work helps us to do this by focusing on pleasurable experience, anchoring it firmly in our conscious awareness, so that we can recall it whenever we need to. It is a skill to be learned, but it can be learned easily because relaxation is our true nature. Dr Trager has always said, "It is the mind I'm after. The flesh is dumb!" After over seventy years of practising this technique he knew what he was talking about: within each one of us is someone who knows what free, easy and comfortable is.

TRAGER®work has helped thousands of people: back problems, polio, stroke victims, stress-related complaints, and athletes looking to improve their performance.

"How should it be?" the Practitioner asks gently as she finds tension, and the client's mind remembers how to let go. The muscles soften and relax. "Thank you. That's wonderful."

This is the way we empower people to help themselves, and what could be more important than that?

Layo M. Nathan is a TRAGER® Practitioner, Tutor and Introductory Workshop Leader. She studied with Dr. Trager in the USA. She is now living in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, Northern Ireland and can be reached through email layo@thenathans.com Tel: (028) 9335 9704. For more details, click here.