Why Tissues Get Rigid

Tissue rigidity is what the body does when it no longer knows how to move. A whiplash shock or trauma to the structure will ‘knock out’ a stored motor memory . Those do not recover when the tissue heals. The body frequently stabilizes by rigidifying. So when you can’t feel definition and the structure resists passive movement you are likely working in an area that has lost its movement intelligence, it simply does not know HOW to move so it doesn’t. Restoring movement intelligence is the subject and object of NMR for sure…

Today a client had a rigidity in her left neck and right low back resulting (my guess) from an initial injury that rotated her L3 vertebra. After restoring rotational intelligence to L3 (I’m not a DC so I don’t adjust, I just help a client relearn how to connect with their individual muscle functions), I put the neck in a position that it didn’t know how to maintain. I was fascinated to see the twitching and self regulation that began in the nervous system as the body began to try to find the synapses to control the functions in the area. Body Intelligence at work is a miracle of life. Everything we do as bodyworkers is part of that conversation.

Our body doesn’t just restore itself after it’s been damaged. Sometimes movement intelligence is so ‘knocked out’ that it takes support and a careful conversation to help it find itself again. You have to learn again how to walk, or turn your neck, or extend and rotate at the same time. Yet, our ability to get motor messages through to those areas is blocked. Finding ways to open the pathways and restore movement is the objective of all bodywork.

I’d love to hear some stories from other practitioners about their experience of relieving muscle rigidity in their clients…Do you think it’s a tissue issue or a living intelligence trying to heal itself?