Help With The Exercises

If you have room in the bedroom, place a chair by the side of the bed so the helper can observe the exercises. Usually the helper will just be observing and gently pointing out changes in the breathing during an exercise or pointing out problems with the way and exercise is being done.

Figure 49

The helper's main task for Part One of this book is to help with learning to breathe properly. Very few people at the start of their work are able to breathe properly. Thus this is the first thing with which the helper will help.

I have discussed that some people hold their chest in a chronic inhale position, some hold it in a chronic exhale position and some are able to breathe properly into the chest. If the worker can not initially use the chest, that should not be corrected. Getting the chest down (chronic inhale) or up (chronic exhale) will come in time as the work proceeds. The first issue is simply getting accustomed to the rhythm of belly then chest in the inhale and belly then chest in the exhale.

Also some people can not breathe into the belly. They can get a small amount of movement in the diaphragm but not enough to actually make much of a difference in the breath.

So the helper simply sits in the chair and observes the rhythm of the breath and comments on whether the sequence of movement is correct or not.

NOW DON'T NAG!

Making a comment about each and every breath is only to be a damn nuisance.

The other thing the helper can do initially is to correct the sound if it is anything other than an 'ah' sound or if the 'ah' sound is articulated or has a guttural (see pages 79-81 for the list of possible sounds and have the helper listen to the audio). It is extremely likely, that is it is common, that initially the working person will have a two-phase breath. He or she will first do the inhale and then do the exhale rather than having the two actions be a continuous process. That should be left until much later in the work. Don't forget the sensing-and-feeling report at the end of the session as discussed on page 21.

Also recall that the breathing can produce muscle spasms, most often in the hands and wrist. Usually this passes in a few sessions or it passes when a calcium and magnesium supplement is added. It may also be corrected by the swim kick exercise presented in Part Two of this book, Chapter 20 at page 292. Occasionally these muscle spasms occur in other parts of the body like the back of the neck or the legs. This is just a variant and has no special meaning. If the spasm becomes painful, simply stop the session for a few minutes until the spasm passes, then restart. If the spasm is mild and in the back of the neck, the helper can adjust the worker's neck as shown below in Figure 50.

Actually, the adjustment in Figure 50 doesn't apply only to spasms in the back of the neck. It is a common device or defense in this work for the worker to tense the back of the neck so that the chin points upward as in the top left photograph in Figure 50. When you see this, an easy adjustment as in the bottom left photograph can correct it. However, let me repeat my oft stated caution: it is better to leave a minor error than it is to be correcting all the time. If you keep correcting this or any other minor error, you are simply teaching the worker that this work is a performance that must be done correctly rather than a course in self-improvement.

Figure 50

Chest Expansion

The first contribution the helper can make is to check for chest expansion. This is easily accomplished. With the hands placed as shown in the top panel of Figure 51, the worker then does a full inhale. If the chest is expanding (rather than merely rising) the thumbs will separate as shown in the bottom panel of Figure 51. In the case of female workers, the approach is from the feet (rather than from the head, as shown) with the hands placed below the breasts.

Figure 51

As the work progresses, the chest expansion should increase. As I mentioned at the beginning of this book, the amount of expansion will vary with the basic chest shape (INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES on page 66) the helper should measure the chest expansion several times so that the helper knows the amount of movement for the particular worker and thus the helper can monitor the increase of movement over time. Note, however, that the amount of expansion will change from one session to another. There may be good expansion in one session and no expansion or much less expansion in another session. Similarly the worker may generally have no movement and then on one session the movement appears but does not hold over the session or to the next session. All of these changes are indications that the work is doing its job.

Breathe Belly Only

The helper here can inform the worker whether the belly is being fully filled. Even for people whose abdominal muscles are capable of relaxing, it is common for there to be tension in either the upper part of the belly (near the diaphragm) or the lower belly (just above the genitals). It does no good to harp on an area of tension, simply point it out and wait to see if the worker can let go of the tension. If not, there is always the next time. Repeatedly pointing out an area of tension simply makes the helper into a parent.

Here the belly should only be ballooning out on the inhale and relaxing on the exhale. The helper can often see that the belly is tensing during the inhale or during the exhale while the worker can not feel the tensing at all. Then the helper can place the workers hands on the top and bottom of the belly so that the worker can feel the tension.

Breathe Chest Only

This is, generally, harder to do than the breathe belly only. Here the helper wants to check that (1) the belly is not tensed at the beginning of the inhale, and (2) that the chest expands rather than just rises.

If the belly tenses then the helper first points out that fact and then, if it is not capable of being corrected, the helper uses moderate pressure on the diaphragm during the whole of the exercise. The pressure is discussed in a subsequent part of this chapter in the section entitled THE DIAPHRAGM on page 157.

This is a good point to repeat that this is not a race. These changes take time and effort, to change yourself too quickly can damage rather than help. In Part One of this book on Reichian work at home I am only concerned with breathing. If this takes months, even years, that is what the worker's psychology demands and it should not be rushed.

ALWAYS TOO SLOWLY.

First get the breathing to be belly then chest on the inhale and the exhale. Then start with the forehead and eye exercises in Part Two. Then learn to breathe belly only and only then learn to breathe chest only. Then proceed on to the other breath work and at this point you can also proceed on to the various body area exercises.

If the diaphragm is being used to push the chest up, then you will likely need to use pressure on the diaphragm as discussed later in this chapter. If the chest can not be used because it is held in chronic inhale then the helper can aid the worker by attempting to soften the accessory muscles with pressure. If the chest is held in chronic exhale, then that can be helped by the next exercise.

Extend The Belly, Breathe Chest Only

For people whose chest is held down this is a very tiring exercise and the worker will have a tendency to use the belly despite trying not to. The helper can watch for tension in the belly and place the worker's hands at the top and bottom of the belly if it is tensing. Also if the worker is able to do some breaths correctly, the worker may tire quickly and then start to tense the belly. The helper can watch for that so the worker can stop the exercise for that session.

For people whose chest is held high, this exercise should be held off until the next exercise, the push breathing, gets the chest down.