Transcript of Edited Interview with Judith Aston-Linderoth and Brian Linderoth

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Christine:

Could you give me a brief sense of your identity as an educator and mover? How would you describe what you do?

Judith:

It all started when I was seven and I finally got to study dance at a local studio. There I learned about ballet and tap with numerous opportunities to perform in concerts. Fast forward to college, I went to UCLA for my Bachelor's and Master's degrees. They did not quite know what to do with my master’s thesis so they required me to have three people chair for me: one each from the dance department, theatre department, and psychology department.

 

When I was 20, I was hired to teach at a junior college to create movement programs for the theater department, the athletic department, and create a dance program

 

One of the key moments in my progression came when learning how to facilitate an 18-year-old theatre student, trying to portray an older man. It became a process of starting where he was in the moment, asking him to become aware of his body pattern and the speed of his walk and speech. Then we played with his movement and expression to portray the older characterization.  I then wanted him to reverse out of that actor’s expression so he would not have to take the character home with them.  

 

In 1965, I was invited to teach at Kairos, a human potential learning center and a few times at Esalen.  I became a ‘movement lady’ for certain therapists.  Within a year in 1967, I had two serious car accidents.  One car hit me from behind and the other from the side.  The accumulation created constant shooting pain from my left leg to my spine which made it difficult to teach movement, dance, or even sit or stand.  

 

I had just heard about Dr. Ida Rolf and her work when I learned that she was scheduled to come to Esalen in April 1968.  I sat on her doorstep for 2 days in case she had a cancellation.  A decision that ended up changing the rest of my life.  She had evidently done some research on the stranger sitting on her doorstep.

Dr. Rolf did have a cancellation.  I became aware of how this technique could so quickly assist the body’s tension to change.  I appreciated the body’s magic to change in a moment.  The idea that different tissues could be touched in a certain way and an amazing transformation would occur.

At the end of that very first session, she said to me, "I understand you create movement programs for various systems.  Can you create a movement program for me?"  I said, “Sure!” I created three different classes for Dr. Rolf.  One was teaching practitioners how to see and identify body patterns for change.  The second one was teaching practitioners body mechanics to save their bodies from the compressive moves they did and the amount of work they did.  The third one was creating a movement program for teachers to help clients learn to sustain the work and improve from the various exercises they were taught. I have been creating numerous programs ever since.

 

Christine:

Brian, do you want to talk about your years before?

Brian:

We all have our stories that have shaped and influenced our bodies.  At three days old, I had a pyloric stenosis surgery.  The surgery saved my life but the scar determined how my body would grow and compensate around it.

 

I was drawn to physical activity, especially swimming.  I began to start working out and training at seven years old and swam competitively into my college years.  By college, my shoulders moved into a condition called third-degree tendinitis.  Many events happened because of this compromise. I realized I needed to change my stroke mechanics to be not in pain.  All of these concerns led me to the work of Aston Kinetics. 

The doctor and therapist treating me saw only the shoulder as the issue.  The change in my stroke mechanics was directed by pain, not by a bio-mechanical paradigm of understanding.  In problem-solving my pattern with Aston Kinetics I began to see, feel, and understand how the scar influenced my structure and function.  Simply put, the fascial network was compromised and holding a shape that the rest of my structure could not continually negotiate.  The limitation analyzed in “seeing” and “feeling” revealed the many variables that added to the challenge at my shoulder joint.  To heal my shoulder, many compensation patterns of holding unnecessary stress had to be neutralized.  Using conscious movement with a paradigm of understanding helped me direct and sequence how to unravel the negative history. 

 

Christine:

Could you describe Aston Kinetics and how it might assist people in moving consciously.

Judith:

Aston Kinetics is a system of movement education, bodywork  (4 forms), Fitness training (5 forms), ergonomics education and design.  

 

Aston Kinetics offers a paradigm that can be applied for each individual’s unique history, usage, compromises and goals. Each session/lesson is designed for that person’s specific interests.  

 

The main principles for learning and applying are:

1. the body is always three-dimensional

2. the body’s design and function are asymmetrical

3. the body is in a constant relationship to the field of gravity and ground reaction forces

4. the body holds history, consequences, and knowledge to be listened to for guidance

 

Aston Kinetics has an extensive curriculum for professionals and a full design of programs for clients, sessions, self-care & ergonomics.

 

Christine:

Both of you have talked about the concept of a pattern, and you both referred to patterns as being both physical and also energetic. So there's a pattern in the body. There's a pattern in the emotions. And there's a pattern in thinking. There's a pattern in behavior. Can you tell me what you think is the relationship between those? Are they a network, an integrated system? Is one driving the others? 

Judith:

There is a physical pattern, an emotional pattern, and a behavioral pattern that can hold a shape in the body.  Describing the shape by the position of the body’s segments and the corresponding tissue tension or lack of tension creates “a pattern”. Usually, people come to work with us through the physical challenges they feel in their bodies.  As the body unravels from these compromising patterns one has a new opportunity to explore the new expression and perhaps think about how the old patterns came to be.  Emotional and behavioral patterns may have influenced the physical and vice versa.  Through the change in structure and function, people may have more options to think, feel, and express themselves differently.

 

As we live more years there are many patterns on top of many patterns and sometimes it is the accumulation that causes the body to have increased pain and limitation. Although it is not always easy, I believe there is always a way to improve or lessen the strong patterns through change, movement, bodywork, and ergonomics, which can allow the body to negotiate the limitations in easier ways. The body is so magical. It can change in a second, with a thought, or even with a kind word. It's amazing what the body has available in terms of receptivity to change.

 

Christine:

So when we are carefully attending to our sensations, our inner experiences and also our large and small movements, what do you think might be going on there when we pay attention? So how is attention influencing experience?

Judith & Brian:

Exercise 1: Senses (touch, movement, smell, taste, sight, hearing, balance) in the body perception -What I sense

1. How does the weight land on your feet in standing? Are you more on your heels or on one heel on left and the ball of the right foot?

2. Does that change much when you walk?  

3. What happens- what do you feel when you pause while sitting on that chair and “feel your body”?  Sometimes it is the discomfort of the chair or the body areas but sometimes it quickly moves to "I feel my breath, I am feeling calmer”. And from that moment the person may remember this in the future for calming themself in a moment.

4. Are you feeling energized or fatigued?

5. How many seconds does it take for a full inhale, or an exhale?

6. What is the range for your head & neck to turn to right-is it the same to the left?

7. Does this room feel cool or too warm?

8. Is one arm easier to move toward the ceiling but not behind your back? 

9. When you pick up the bag of groceries, do you feel the effort in your back, neck, or legs?

10. How are you feeling, are there emotions to be felt once you slowed down?

11. Do your knees bend about the same amount?

12. See if you can feel your emotional self at this moment- once you check in to feel/sense where in your body holds that feeling the most

 

Often times it is in one of these simple awarenesses above that can assist someone to tune into their body to listen and increase their perceptions of their unique body, mind, emotions, and spirit.

 

Exercise 2: What I think about my body  (can often be about one’s limitations and comparisons)

1. My body is pretty good for my age, by the standard tests I take 

2. I do feel my limitations now when I get dressed:  lack of balance, or inability to reach overhead to get into the sleeves of my sweater 

3. I know I am overweight

4. I have trouble with my vision

5. I have lost much of my hearing

6. I am much better at tennis than I was last year //or I can no longer play golf- 

7. It’s always my right knee that is in pain…

8. What do I appreciate about my body?

 

Many people become aware of their limitations. They might judge themselves for being compromised.  However, once they have more tools to listen and explore and change, they will be grateful to see and feel the differences.  Often people need inspiration and information to learn how to feel what is going on in their body.

 

In the biomechanics area:  one can come to learn how their body pattern and the placement of the different parts in relationship to each other can determine why one area might have discomfort while another area even though it had an injury that does not hurt. Many people do not yet know the magic of the body to change and improve or heal itself and create new opportunities.  That reality is certainly why I am still in the field and a student of these miracles every day.

 

Exercise 3: A simple awareness exercise for you

 

1. A beginning sensing:  Stand and feel the weight of your body onto your feet.  If you were to draw the pattern of your weight on your feet, would it be shaded on the heels, front of the feet, or the outside of the foot on the left and inside of the foot on the right?   Pay attention to where you feel the weight

2. Now lean your whole body gently forward toward the toes and slightly back more onto the heels, moving across your ankle hinge. Continue the gentle smooth rocking 3-5 times.

3. Now sway/lean your whole body over to your right foot and then to your left foot going from right to left several times — allow your head to gently respond to this simple movement and again your head and upper body are moving across more space than your ankles. 

4. Next move your whole body through your feet and ankle in a clockwise direction several times and then in the counterclockwise direction for about the same amount.

5. Move from weight bearing on your left heel to your diagonally to the right ball of your foot and the opposite sway from right heel to the left ball of the foot 

6. To finish, sense where your weight is on your feet in standing now.  Is it the same as when you started?

 

This simple design does not even have to be done for much time—just to have the movement and inclusion of the whole body to settle can put us into the present moment.

 

Exercise 4: Learning the difference and how to use both forces on the planet:  gravity and its opposite force called ground reaction force

 

1. Start by raising your right hand and arm toward the ceiling (stop earlier if uncomfortable)

2. Now your left

3. This time first press down on your right foot - which adds tone to your body and supports the action of raising the hand/arm toward the ceiling

4. Do this on your left side.  

5. Do this with both feet to lift both hands/arms up.

6. Now do not press down and lift both arms up.  Can you feel how much heavier your arms are? Compare this with pushing down with both feet to lift.  

 

Why does this work? Because there is this opposite force to gravity and while gravity is experienced more as a downward force, the ground reaction is in the opposite direction pushing up to whatever weighs it down on the earth.  I remember several engineers loving the idea of applying this simple force to everyday actions instead of just for the buildings they designed.

 

Many artists, dancers, and actors discover power from the ground just because of the emotion they wish to portray.  To make themselves appear strong, angry, or powerful they might push down on their feet, which lifts the chest or increases their volume etc. 

 

This might also happen when the artist’s expression is to appear ethereal.  The movement is even more compelling when it starts at the feet to lift the chest, head, and arms to the sky.

 

Christine:

It sounds like what you're saying is that there's this synergy between attention and matching that creates the possibility for change.

 

Brian:

You may have heard “energy flows where attention goes.”   You may feel limitations in a particular area, or you have a concern about how a certain other area hurts.   Sometimes people meditate to bring their attention to something or nothing.  Through your sensory experiences, you can feel shape, density, or position. Is there movement or stillness in this area?  Is there a way for me to feel into this area?

 

Judith:

The body is so magical. It can change in a second, with a thought, or even with a kind word. It's amazing what the body has available in terms of receptivity to change. 

 

There is much learning that can assist people to be able to identify what is going on in their bodies.  People can learn to listen, feel and sense motion, stillness, and pain from their awareness and be able to create strategies for movement and support.  For obvious reasons, we want to just stop the pain.  However, tuning in allows us to learn more information that can we use to problem solve. You can learn to listen and interpret to impress tissue to let go of unnecessary tension.  Tissue can be unraveled from its holding to relax and rehydrate

 

One distinction that could be made is when we are immersed in an experience and when we're thinking about an experience. Could you comment on how your work holds that difference and possibly uses those two states in a different way?

 

There's an upside and a downside both to immersion and to observation or reflection. One can turn into a critical voice, so the other can get swept away in a sense.

We can move our attention in to feel ands sense or we can step back to be an observer or interpreter.  Sometimes people are less self-critical in the feeling state rather than mental state.  Yet eventually one can easily go between these two perspectives to address what is most predominant.

 

One could focus on one area of tension, a general area of emotion, or where there is stillness, etc.  Most people are only looking at their front and sometimes the side view of their body in the mirror.   Most often, people are not familiar with their body coordinates from top to bottom, front to back, and right to left perspectives of their bodies.  I call it getting acquainted with your 360 by 360-degree body.  You will then have the perspective of sensing and looking at the body from the outside.  

 

Christine:

But it also sounds like, and tell me if I've got this right, that you are in a sense modeling how to observe experience. In other words, they're saying, okay, I feel this pain here, and you are modeling with your questions and your attention what they could shift in terms of how they're observing so that the experience changes. Did I get that right?

 

Brian:

Evoking, particularly when people are in pain, and if you're trying to connect to the pattern of the pain, they get a better sense of possible contributors such as my foot placement, shoulder placement, or head placement might be contributing to my specific pain. For example, problem-solving to see if the loading on your low back, creates pain from your upper body by unweighting or if is it your lower body that's pulling your upper body down. 

 

Christine:

The body seems to hold patterns of sensing and moving as well as more spontaneous feelings and actions. What role does conscious moving play in how we relate to our habits as well as to our creative impulses? How does your work address that?

Judith:

Creative impulses may need a more dimensional body to express themselves.  We see that there are functional and structural holding patterns in the system.  Functional may need education, stretching, loosening, or toning to change.  Structural often needs hands-on bodywork to help the tissue to rehydrate and become more resilient again.  These patterns may be also held in beliefs, adopted rules, and unresolved emotional traumas that act like a structural holding pattern.  Releasing the unnecessary holding in all these areas may provide the creative impulses and expanded form to express itself.

 

Christine:

What are the essential ingredients of using conscious movement effectively in your work?

Judith:

The essential ingredients of using conscious movements in Aston Kinetics are an understanding of how one's history of experiences has shaped and formed us positively and negatively.  The quest to unravel through negative history is a commitment to change through movement education, bodywork, fitness, and ergonomic influences.  We can empower and redirect old harmful habitual patterns to movements that create greater stability and resilience in the forces of nature such as gravity and ground reaction force.

 

We are living in a force field of gravity and ground reaction force. So, these are informing us all the time. It is a constant reality.  This field is influencing your movement, augmenting, or minimizing your movement all the time.

Learning tools to assist you with the different types of stress and their effects such as hearing heartbreaking news or the exhaustion of overworking.  Having tools for tuning into your body and listening for the updates allows you sense to your body being on hold and where.  Having tools to make micro-movements to match the small available movement plus using your breathing pattern, can expand the availability for presence even more.    

 

Christine:

In different adaptations in different situations.

 

Brian:

Yes. There's a pattern, and how do you neutralize it? 

 

Judith:

I think this has to do with the presence within the experience, both the intrinsic and the extrinsic influences. The strength of commitment to the healing process is when we attend, feel, and explore for change. This deep focus and attentive participation provide alternatives that enable us to be present and listen for guidance and direction. Another ingredient is that every thought is spatial and we can use this gift to assist us in many creative ways.

 

Christine:

Can you tell me what you mean by ‘every thought is spatial’? That sounds intriguing.

 

Judith:

I believe that every thought is spatial and can create movement in the body, even when lying in a hospital bed.  We can use the visualization very specifically for improvement or to become more connected and present. For example: I broke my leg in a skiing accident because the binding didn’t release.  My tibia broke and was literally sticking out of my leg.  Once I was settled into the hospital, I started visualizing myself being reconnected at the bones and tissues in my leg.  As my thought pattern became realigned with the principles of our work, Aston Kinetics, and with bodywork and conscious movement, I was able to reconnect the bones and tissues of my leg. 

 

Christine:

Would you say that the thought is three-dimensional or thought occurs in three dimensions?

 

Brian:

Thoughts that are in the positive polarity, as people describe them, are usually more unweighting, more forgiving, and expansive. Thoughts that are more in the negative polarity usually have more minimizing aspects. This poses a useful question:  what does a nervous system do when those thoughts come through that are potentially more expansive or more reducing? 

 

Christine:

What a lovely way to end with this very large context. Thank you. 

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