There is no such thing as a tight muscle
Dr. Milton Trager
but a tight holding pattern
in the brain.
Not until we experience it is it more than words.
After we experience it, there is no need for words.
The value of words is to stimulate the desire to experience
-Dr. Milton Trager
This is my contribution to World Peace.
-Dr. Milton Trager
Dr. Milton Trager was a brilliant genius who successfully worked for decades before the neurosciences discovered neuroplasticity. Trager is a sensorimotor movement re-education approach to improve functional abilities and is supported by the current neuroscience research about the brain’s plasticity. It is unique from any other bodywork. The continuum of many movements during a session is vital to stimulate the brain to build new neural pathways. The process is called neurogenesis and is one reason why Trager is so effective especially with clients with neurological issues such as:
- Acquired Brain Injuries
- Stroke
- Parkinson’s disease
- neurodevelopmental challenges
A sensorimotor approach involves the process of receiving sensory messages (sensory input) and producing a response (motor output).
Dreaming of a better daily quality of life? Enjoy the Trager ® Approach; you’ll never forget it. “I feel like a raw egg hanging from a nail.
-Gordon Sweeney (38 Yrs. Principal Trombone, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, retired)
What is the Trager ® Approach?
Move Differently, Feel Differently – Feel Differently, Move Differently
Trager gives you that feeling & teaches you the moves. TRAGER, a mind/body approach is a way of learning and teaching through movement. Clients absorb a lesson. Trager like Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, and Rolfing is a form of movement education that utilizes gentle, natural movements and includes some table work and exercises that clients do at home. These patterns may have developed in response to accidents, illnesses, or any kind of physical or emotional trauma, including the stress of everyday life. These simple, effortless movements help people create for themselves a feeling of calm, peaceful connection. With the Trager principles, experience what the present moment feels like while working and playing. Trager is a meditative mindfulness in motion. The goal is to unite body, mind and spirit.
What are Mentastics®?
Movement as a Way to Agelessness. Dr. Trager developed this approach to movement education and body/mind integration over a lifetime of practice. As part of his work, he coined the word “Mentastics” a contraction of “mental” and “gymnastics”. Mentastics is the process of movement exploration and mind/body development characterized by an open curious state of mind. Clients are given specific Trager self-care movements designed to eliminate their postural and movement bad habits and to learn how to stand, walk, sit and move most efficiently. These Trager movements explore and integrate lighter, freer, more peaceful ways of being.
Trager® Approach, comfortable and effective
Trager is also based on Wellness principles of personal responsibility. During a session, clients are invited to deepen their experience by practising Trager self-care movements between sessions to maintain the benefits and continually progress forward to more ease in daily life. As well as addressing many types of physical issues and challenges, the Trager experience feels wonderful and is a fantastic stress management tool. The open-ended questions in any Trager session are “What could be lighter?” “What could be easier?” “What could be less effort?” Each and every session is customized to the client’s needs with an open dialogue between the client and practitioner of what is working and how to make the experience more comfortable and more effective. Instead of set movements Trager principles are similar to a jazz musician improvising. In many ways you could call Trager “the Jazz of Bodywork”. It makes sense when you consider the Trager logo translates as Dancing Cloud.
Trager® for Daily Leaving
Imagine yourself with a clear mind, a light spirit and a peaceful yet lively body.
Maintaining a good quality of health involves being aware of our tension habits and knowing how to deal with them. The TRAGER for Daily Life classes propose simple movement explorations and/or mindful touch experiences that enhance attention and foster feelings of relaxation, energy and ease.
Being tense often includes the action of holding our limbs weight or body mass. Playing with gravity sensing the ground under your feet, swinging a leg, wiggling an arm, dropping a shoulder helps release even long lasting tensions. Class participants discover how to listen to their body cues and adapt the TRAGER moves to their personal condition to feel the positive shift. This process brings the mind into focus, in a state comparable to meditation.
The TRAGER touch helps a partner feel the qualities of well-being while sitting, standing or lying. A safe space is created which makes it becomes easy to let go.
About Dr.Milton Trager, The founder of Trager Approach
Dr.Milton Trager taught Trager Approach in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan, but today there are not many certified practitioners to help people. Paul Hyman, the founder, and CEO of BFI, is one of the few Senior Trager® Practitioners. He has decades of experience with Trager and has helped many people to recover from stroke, Acquired Brain Injuries, Parkinson’s disease, and neurodevelopmental challenges with the Trager approach.
Dr. Milton Trager never accepted that he was a healer, and he would always say, “I have this thing, and it works…” or “We’re all healers.”
He was always actively searching for more harmonious and tensionless movements. He would’ve generously offered his approach to anyone open to get a taste of it and experience it. All of the people with emphysema, asthma, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, polio, and thousands of painful backs who experienced Trager got results from greater ease to the miraculous.
Trager® Institute Foundation
After Dr. Milton Trager used his method in the Esalen Institute in California, He and his colleague in Esalen Institute Betty Fuller co-founded the Trager® Institute together in 1980.
He believed that Trager Approach is helpful to whoever wants to gain autonomy and become more aware of their body.
