the poetics of orthobionomy

a 'book' of beginnings 

Save the Dates: 22-23 February 2025:

Bend, Oregon

An Ortho-Bionomy^® Phase Five Class

(The Phase of Subversion)

Care of Self Meets Care of Other

For Information and Registration contact

Elizabeth Mixon

+1 (352) 359-2910

elizabeth.mixon@gmail.com

Cost $375

SAVE $50, register by Jan 20, 2025

No Prerequisites (it's fine to begin at 5)

Not your typical Phase Five class, but most of the classics will be presented (often with a twist). Phases are about shifting perspective and seeing how the world changes when you do. Phase 5 was a major turnabout, a kind of deconstruction of the therapeutic relationship. We will closely examine the principle of reciprocity, the involvement of the Body Schema, and follow threads into various phases and domains of Ortho-Bionomy, centered on Phase Five.

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[These notes are in process of being written. You can track my progress.]

Outline (What is likely to be included)

I. Quick review of Phase Four

II. Introduction to the body schema and the neurobiology of how we can feel one another's intentions

III. Quick review of Phase Seven and the Principle of Reciprocity

Basic acts of an organism (non-vegetal)

• sensing/perceiving 
• computing
• evaluating
• moving
• holding
• letting go
• connecting
• nothing

IV. Move from self-regulation to co-regulation

V. Introducing the Body Schema and its role in Phase Five

Some classic P5 techniques

A Phase Five way of Isometrics

Here is the long version of what this class entails:

You might think of it as a marriage. Judo and "Spontaneous Release by Positioning" met in the person of Arthur Pauls. At the time of the meeting, Pauls was a black-belt judo teacher and English osteopathy student. Positional release therapy (PRT)  is a simple enough method of non-force structural realignment, easy to learn and safe to apply. An alternative to high-force thrust techniques. This is what is taught in Phase Four Ortho-Bionomy. Don't ask about Phases One, Two, and Three,they are mostly of historical importance.

Here is how it works: find a point in a person's flesh that is tender, hard, tight. Rearrange the person's position around the point so that it softens. It can be a simple bending of a toe or a twisting of the torso, depending on where the pain point is. (Phase Four classes take you through the whole body but once you have a sense of how it works it's easy to work it out for yourself. According to the standard protocol for PRT, once the position of comfort is found it is to be held for 90 seconds.

[The original discovery in osteopathy was made by Lawrence Jones,DO, and published in the Journal The DO, 1964.  "Spontaneous Release by Positioning." This hyperlink will take you to Jones's article if you care to go deeper. Jones taught the method as Srain-Counterstrain. SCS also insists on the 90-second rule.]

Here now is what Pauls brought to the game. It is not necessary to learn all the possible positions (which are infinite, really) but he realized that one could, as if by instinct, follow the tension patterns of the body into the position of comfort (preferred position it is sometimes called); and the clock does not determine the timing but emerges organically from the interaction. How long you hold is based on the response. Typically much less than 90 seconds.

You, who is so accustomed to being in control (it's what's expected of you, it is your role in this interaction), let go of being the expert and turn that over.

This "letting go" often goes unnoticed. It gets a lot of attention in Phase Seven, symbolically represented by a sigil resembling an inverted letter Y (don't ask why).

The Phases have several meanings. Originally Pauls used the word as a way to reflect on the stages of development of Ortho-Bionomy (he started calling it Phased Reflex Technique) and this  was an important turning point. It was at this stage that the nature of the therapeutic relationship radically changes. It is almost a role reversal.

Orhto-Bionomy, in my view, is consistent with the philosophy of Jacques Derrida. Not that that really matters and I can only pretend to understand Derrida.

[That bit that follows will likely be deleted when my editors (alter-me) go after this with their blue pencil because nobody is here for this. No such talk will be allowed when we are in the class, But here I can give myself free play.]

In Ortho-Bionomy we typically talk about "self-corrective reflexes." What we experience though is co-regulation. Autopoiesis becomes symbiogenesis. The idea of autopoiesis––self-creation––is very appealing to the orthobionomer who often speaks about "innate self-corrective reflexes." Related ideas: self-regulaion, homeostasis: are traced and lead to self-creation, life appearing auto-chthonically. The appeal can be traced back through Emersonian Self Reliance and the Enlightenment invention of Individualism (which has grown into a toxic ideology).

Free Play. That is what we hope to achieve. This is important. I will be inclined to bring in some philosophy. Derrida wrote about binary opposites and how we create hierarchies. One term of the binary opposite is centralized, the other is marginalized: This one is good, powerful; that one not so much. What Pauls stumbled on was a "phase of subversion." It is a reversal of the "doctor/patient hierarchy. "Doctor" here stands for therapist, healer, medicine man or woman, etc. The power dynamic in the classic healing relationship. Freeze the play of these binary opposites. But a reversal of the hierarchy is also unstable. Free play of the binary opposites is where we want to hang out and we will play with practices (techniques) that help us get there:

Yes. And...

This takes us into the land of sociobiology and looking at how the world seems actually to work (it works in many many different ways). Emerson understood that self-reliance happens in a social context, part of his thinking ignored by the ideologues of individualism, the same way that Adam Smith's moral philosophy, central to his Wealth of Nations, is ignored by neoliberal economists.

Social engagement is essential, in a deeply biological way, to human thriving. 

    The Blind Man And The Elephant

A Brief Pictorial Review of Where I've Been

(and why I've not been here)

Are we ready for What's Next?

I want to hold small, intimate Residential Experiences in vibrant urban setting. Eight people maximum, including Karen and me. Minimum of 5 days (to count for SOBI as a residential). We want only for our expenses to be covered. Any money beyond our expenses will pass on to SOBI.

If there is a coordinator (and there really shoud be) their expenses and fees need to be included.

Most of the food part will be local restaurants. Whatever lodging is procurred must have a kitchen so eating in will always be an option.

This is inspired by how the Atlanta class turned out, with an Airbnb apartment at Atlantic Station.

Chicago is where we want to go next and we are open to proposals for other places as well. It's hard to say what the cost will be but you can see that with no fee for the Instructor it's probably less than half the cost you'd expect to pay.

We also want to visit the British Isles. This could be great fun in Edinburgh or Belfast. More expense in getting there. Plan your own wander and we all meet up somewhere for 5 days of orthobionomy.

Contact me if you are interested in being a part of a small group Residential.

And Here's a Grander Idea

I want an Anatomy and Physiology grounded on the nature of Life. An A&P of the Body in Relationship, a poetics of A&P. Centered perhaps on the Body Schema, the many ways, and Phases of the Body extending across the globe. How is Care a necessary virtue (and why it gets short shrift in the Virtue lit)?

We will begin with the simplest duality: inside / outside. It becomes clear that Life is the inside of the world and it must have a membrane. So Value is inserted: difference, preferences, selection: all toward the overriding and archaic value: being is better than not being. Becoming is better than unbecoming?

A Five-Day (minimum) Residential (SOBI credit for either Residential or A&P). A follow-on of previous Unphased Wonder Valley Residential.

Aiming for New England territory.

Ideas embodied in orthobionomy practices, praxis.

Three to Four Ortho-Bionomy Advanced Instructors.

Need at least a two-year lead-up; Instructors and coordinators need to be able to commit to regular virtual meetings, and at least one two-day in-person gathering, that is, a class. It could be a hybrid event?

I will set up a separate page to toss in ideas I have for content.

Who would be on your Unphased Dream Team of three or four Instructors? 

However, it may show up I will begin a new chapter. For now, I'll call it: 

"Anatomy and Physiology of the Body that Isn't"

You can always come up with other ways of looking at things. That's what the Phases gives us, different ways to approach the Body, different portals, differnt perspectives.

GRATITUDES

(AKA Acknowledgments)

I have had to train myself to move gratitude up to the front. Perhaps I will explore in one of my three Introductions why I have struggled with gratitude. For now I will try some simple lists. The start of one list is simple: Karen Valasek, spouse, partner, co-parent, orthobionomer extraordinaire. I would for sure put Lynn Drummer on the list. Probably next after Karen though in Ortho-Bionomy she . . .

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Body Schema

Looking back at my list I wonder where this might go next. We won't know until we are there together doing it. But right now body schema is salient. I direct your here to see what's in the glassary on body schema. I hope to add more to this entry, or direct also to Motor Cognition (see References, Jennerod, Marc) but that's not yet written. 

Whatever names we use, whatever words, the curiosity at the core is this: How does a concept, a thought, move matter, achange the world. We want to hang our in that hinge. Playing in the "as-if." We will certainly play the childhood game of Simon Says but will be aiming for a different impact, a different take-away (not "You must pay close attention" as your teacher taught you).

As we play this game we will start to look at movement itself, a phenomenological examination of movement, the experience of movement. Heraclitus wrote that there is nothing but movement. Octavia Butler wrote that God is Movement. We will look at movement apophatically.

News flash! There is no Universe! It's been a multiverse all along.

The Extended Organism

If we were to define the body as the site of physiology then the appearance of the body radically changes. Many necessary physiological functions take place outside of what we normally define as the body. We can begin by looking at the microbiome. 

Orthobionomy clarifies the bond between self, other, and world

The Principle of Reciprocity: Care of the Other through Care of the Self

Contact Richard here