You indicate that we have a natural balance at birth (and I assume you mean a healthy and complete child). You indicate that we learn through practice a number of bad habits, which we can consequently unlearn and return to a natural "true" balance.

From your experience, can you give your thoughts on the following?

"The body is created to sustain balance under tension. If balanced tension is applied, then balanced structure will develop. If an imbalance occurs in the structure, it is due to an inbalance in tension. To return to a balanced tension, we apply corrective tension to deal with the imbalanced structure. This is the approach we take with massage therapy."

I have heard it said that taiji and bagua massage the internal organs and in turn restore internal health. Would you advocate massage as a valuable part of restoring "true balance"? If so, how (after holistic chiropractic and message therapy) can one be sure that they are acheiving the proper balance when training in Taiji or Bagua begins? And would injury prevent such progress?

Thank you.

Caithnar,

The theory sounds logical, but I've never studied massage therapy, so I can't comment.

I believe correct exercise can help correct structural imbalances. When practicing the martial arts, the teacher will help guide you in regards to balance and proper alignment.

Thank you.

As a Massage Therapist, and speaking in general for all Swedish MT, we primarily work on the muscles and through joint movement, we do Range of Motion. These will help restore balance in that regard. However, we do move 3x the blood and lymph than in regular exercise, which improves every system and their respective functions. I would recommend getting a massage every week, along with regular exercise. I think it would greatly improve your physical (and even your mental) capacity.

Troy,
How was it determined that a massage moves three times the blood of exercise?

Troy,
I agree. Though "regular exercise" has to be defined. For instance, Yoga and other Range of Motion exercises (Taiji, Bagua?) do the very thing that Massage Therapy accomplishes. The factor that should be considered is whether a person is capable (because of injury) to accomplish the same range of motion through such exercise alone.

Also, because of personal injury, I would concur that a massage 1/week would greatly improve the path to restoring my range of motion and circulatory system. Of course, it is also possible that I am refering to sports massage therapy more than Sweedish Massage (you may like to comment about this assumption).

I would also submit that Holistic Chiropractics are a helpful tool to restoring skeletal alignment (thus restoring muscle balance and subsequant circulatory freedom). Though again, this is also possible through massage as well as through certain forms of exercise.

Posit: Holistic Chiropractic Medicine as well as most forms of massage therapy are tools that assist the body when it is too difficult to restore health through exercise alone. Agree or disagree?

I imagine that we would have to qualify each instance. The aging human body that has sustained a number of injuries and muscle realignment will invariably have a harder time restoring a natural, healthy structure than a younger or less injured one.

Note: this is a positive discussion, I hope the response continues.

Tim,

That was actually something that I'd actually only heard when I was in school. I'd actually have to do some research to find out where studies were done, to prove such a thing. So "supposedly" we move 3x the blood and lymph than regular exercise.

Caithnar,

I would think regular exercise would mean some form of cardio (brisk walking, running, hiking, biking, forms etc.). Some type of strength training (body weight exercises, weightlifting) and stretching or Yoga.

With injury, you are going to be concentrating on a specific area. That is the point of Sports Rehabilitative massage. Sports Massage in itself is more theory and principle, and less technique. Most of the time, if you know Sports Massage, you know Swedish. Even though Swedish is more for relaxation and rejuvenation. While Sports has the intended purpose of either getting ready for an event, relaxing after an event, during regular training; or in your case, rehabilitative.

I don't know what you mean by Holistic Chiropractic. I've only heard of regular Chiropractic Medicine. Although I don't know much about it, but I do have Chiropractic work done on me, especially since I work for a Chiropractor.

Thanks.

Holistic Chiropractic is a term that was used to contrast those who treat the body as a machine (neck problems, neck solutions) and those who treat the body as an organism (neck problems, feet solutions, posture solutions, hip solutions -- possibilities).

Thats how I have heard it, but it is in the realm of advertising now, so who cares

Ah I see. Yeah, I've never met nor even heard of that, but I know some doctors with decent bed-side manner would be worthy of such a description.