GAMMA SENSORIMOTOR SYSTEM

How We Acquire Habits, Patterns, Skills, and Block

The relationship between voluntary movements and the reflex operations of our acquired habits and patterns is one of the most intricate puzzles of our sensorimotor system. The range of choices of patterns we can establish is enormous, but the more times we choose a specific motion the more automatic and obligatory its particular operations and limitations become. Our behavior is not predetermined, but we easily and unconsciously become constrained by our prior experience and repetitions. In this way, we unwittingly become entrapped by the very skills we do best, and by the unconscious response we repeat most. The balancing act between developing these reliable skills and breaking through their inherent limitations is essential to continued growth and development of all kinds.

Voluntary trials, repetition and learning, reliable automatic skills, and the physical constraints of habits are all regulated by the gamma sensorimotor system, which then orchestrates the actions of our skeletal muscles. Because the neural centers that monitor these regulations are concentrated in the spinal cord and the brain stem, the details of their operations are generally unconscious. And yet this orchestration of our muscular tonus and movements occupies the vast majority of the central nervous system’s functions. Roger Sperry, Nobel neurologist, has estimated that ninety percent of the CNS’s metabolic energy is devoted to this primary job of stabilizing and coordinating our pieces and parts in gravity.

The particular repertoires of postures, gestures, and behaviors we have favored in order to simplify this job of managing gravity that we have developed in response to our habits and activities, or have had to adopt because of injuries, then become the scaffolding which all other learned actions must accommodate. Untangling these accumulating layers of ad hoc compensation patterns is one of the purposes of all somatic therapies, and is the prerequisite for all free and expressive movement.

In this workshop, we will:

• Present the neuromuscular anatomy and the functional operations of the gamma motor system, using slides, lecture, and discussion.
• Use self-exploratory movement and hands-on bodywork to identify areas of freedom and areas of restriction in our muscular patterning, and to facilitate positive change in restricted areas.

Participants in this workshop will gain:

• Detailed knowledge about the conscious and unconscious sensorimotor processes that establish our motor learning patterns--skills, habits, and disabling blocks.
• The language to describe these processes and their results to their clients, both for the purpose of helping clients to understand how their pain and impaired ability came about, and to help them to understand more fully what is involved in their treatment and recovery.
• Self-care movement explorations that will help them care for their own restrictions and discomforts; these are simple, very effective, and can easily be passed along to clients.

About Deane (by Jack Blackburn): www.jobsbody.com
Since the publication of Job's Body in 1987, Deane Juhan has been a strong influence in the bodywork world. I'm very happy to report that Deane will be teaching a three day class on Gamma Sensorimotor System.

I first brought Deane to the northwest in 1988 and 1989 for classes he taught on Orcas island. I was surprised at how many persons traveled from afar to be there with Deane. Job's Body had created quite a stir in the world of bodywork...offering a much deeper understanding and questioning of what we were working with. Deane had gone out to the edge of anatomy and physiology and invited us all to journey there with him. Many courageous schools started requiring his book as a primary textbook.

Since then Deane has continued to break new ground and to open up new possibilities for the manual therapies. He has also been at the forefront of legitimizing the bodywork modalities to medical practitioners and the hard sciences. I promise you that Deane will stretch your minds and will welcome the opportunity for you to do the same for him.

This is also a hands-on class, much of which is derived from Deane's many years as a Trager Instructor. Those classes I took from him in the late 80's opened me up to the possibilities of going much further in bodywork than I had ever expected... eventually leading to graduate school. He continues to challenge all of us to learn much more, understand much more, and create much more than we ever thought possible. This class promises to be a worthy experience for all hands-on practitioners and a stretch for all modalities.