Posts by Richard M. Polishuk, LMT, Aston-Patterning

In the last month or so, I’ve had the opportunity to teach two classes using an updated model of direct technique, and it’s been quite lovely. I’ve changed 2 distinct things: using a spiral/counter-spiral test to refine any given technique (as I mentioned in my earlier post, The magic of precision), and using a new scheme…

Of the qualities that are part of bodywork methods, the one most impressively mysterious to me is the magic of precision. Although there are many types of precision, I want to focus here on directionality. (Unsurprisingly, I’ve learned the most about precision from Judith Aston). My current version of direct technique (releasing tissue by moving…

As fall rolls around, I’m trying to freshen up my sense of method. And I’ve been feeling that this is the “year of the joint” for me. I recently posted about an improving method of joint decompression, and I’ll soon post more about this. But meanwhile… Myofascial balancing includes three distinct targets: Tracts of soft…

It’s been a big year, technically. I wonder what’s going to happen before it’s over? At any rate, the latest development is a deepening of something I first heard from Judith Aston 20 years ago: the notion that change has a “tempo” or appropriate speed. I don’t think that I completely accepted the idea. For…

Over the years, I’ve learned many different ways to improve joint alignment…or, as I’ve learned to think, to break joint fixations. (I do believe that joint fixations are categorically different from run-of-the-mill myofascial imbalances.) The most important way that my methods have evolved in this realm is that I orient, more and more, to the…

Postural or movement education should be about principles, first and foremost. What are some of the principles of neutral alignment? Neutral alignment effectively demands stabilization of itself (as does poor alignment). It is not an imposition or a struggle. Neutral alignment poises one segment on top of another, so that each segment is in its…

When we’re not deliberately doing anything about our posture, it’s a perfectly harmonious version of a pattern—even if the pattern is very crooked. If we change our posture, every part of the body has to change, if we’re to arrive at a different harmonious pattern. It’s effectively impossible for us to consciously understand and control where all…