What Is DSL EdgeWork?

DSL EdgeWork™ is a comprehensive, integrated system of principles, practices and preventive therapeutics with a strong scientific and philosophical basis. As a therapeutic system, it has often found and resolved the sources of a wide variety of musculoskeletal issues that other practitioners and physicians, using a wide range of orthodox or alternative modalities, had given up on.

Dissolving C.E.M.&.N.T. with
Yoga & Yoga-based Bodywork

The Purpose & Focus of DSL EdgeWork™ is to find and relieve chronic, excess muscle & nerve tension (or C.E.M.&.N.T. for short, because for some people, that's what their muscles feel like).

Many aches and pains, afflictions and dysfunctions of the body have their roots in this excess tension, yet it goes to a great degree unacknowledged, sometimes unnoticed. Even many massage therapists, bodyworkers and yoga teachers — those you would expect to know — are unaware of just how significant C.E.M.&.N.T. is in the many specific as well as overall issues of life, nor really what to do about it. With DSL EdgeWork™, overall neuromuscular tension, physical and mental stress, and negative habit patterns are directly addressed, reduced, and if possible, eliminated by the soft tissue techniques — the Primary Tools — employed.

The Primary Tools of DSL EdgeWork™ are the EdgeTouch™ Technique: hands-on, manual pressure (similar to massage, with significant differences) and the unique system of Let-Go Yoga™:

Learning How to Get Control of muscles, nerves, fascia and joints by Letting Go of tension, stress and habit patterns.

www.dslyoga.com (Opens in New Window)

Getting Mind & Body Working Together

Both tools operate under the principles of Psycho-Muscular Release, which deals with releasing tensions, physical, mental & emotional stresses, negative habit patterns and other restrictions (such as in the fascia) in the psycho-neuro-musculo-fascial system.

Psycho-Muscular Release is achieved with Let-Go Yoga™ and Yoga-Based Bodywork and follows the basic rules of paying very close attention to sensation and movement of the body while Playing the Edge, meaning No Pain, MORE Gain, as well as other elements of Physical, Mental & Relational Yoga as derived from the pioneering teachings of Joel Kramer. (DSL began applying Joel's principles to massage and bodywork in the late 1970s.)

Rather than being a more-or-less passive recipient of the work, a DSL EdgeWork™ practitioner, whether using hands-on work or stretching, strives to more fully engage or involve the Client directly in the tension release process. The first level of this is to establish a communication system where the Client keeps their therapist informed, in as close to Real Time as possible, what they are experiencing. This is especially important relative to their sensation or pain levels.

NO Pain Means MORE Gain

Whether receiving bodywork or stretching, the Client should always LIKE or be completely NEUTRAL about what they are feeling. They should not be tolerating any sensations. (A so-called Good Hurt is not really a hurt in the strict sense of the word. It may be a moderate to very intense yet pleasurable sensation.) Put another way, the Client should, ideally, be inviting the sensations, not resisting. The No Pain, No Gain philosophy might work well enough in professional football, but does not work very well in therapeutic endeavors or tension release practices.

Minimum to Maximum Edges of Sensation

In fact, the more acute or chronic trauma, stress or injury a Client presents with, the less pressure or stretch is applied to to the involved myofascial units to prevent negative reactions, many of which are non-conscious and can go unnoticed by an insufficiently trained therapist or even the Client. This approach is about working toward the Minimum Edges — lower levels of intensity of sensation. This is an application of the Low- or Micro-Dose principles of Homeopathic Medicine. (See Special Note below on the word Medicine.)

A very healthy Client can work with their Maximum Edges — higher levels of intensity, as long as they invest some time in working with or near their Minimum Edges, to most efficiently and effectively Let-Go of their inevitably accumulated tensions and stresses, at a fundamental level, on a regular basis.

SPECIAL NOTE:
The term Client, as used in the DSL Method, is defined as:

One who is under the protection of another. (From Merriam-Webster's Dictionary.)

This way of defining a Client implies a higher level of relationship and responsibility on the part of the Physician, Therapist, Trainer or Coach than is ordinarily observed. Compare with the term Patient:

The implied attitudinal difference toward the Client and the Patient should be obvious. The term Client is not found in the Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary. The otherwise very progressive Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary defines a Client as merely: The patient of a health care professional.

Aligning the Human Structure

Decisions on which myofascial units to work on and when, and in what sequence, are made with DSL's system of Bio-Structural Balancing™. This system includes:

• Structural Analysis: Study of the physical structures & forces of the human body
• Postural Assessment: Determining tension patterns interfering with proper function
• Structural Balancing Strategies: Sequence in which to release tensions patterns

The Structural Sciences employed are:

• Advanced Structural Anatomy: The location of the parts
• Postural & Functional Kinesiology: How the parts interact
• Physics & Geometry of Structures: Forces acting on the parts
• Neuromuscular/Myofascial Physiology: Control mechanisms

The term Structural Bodywork™ is a more general term implying a system that can be used in a wide range of situations. It is a more preventive system, a generalized approach to working with and normalizing the whole human structure toward a more integrated function. Rather than being about tracking down specific symptoms or illnesses, aches or pains, the whole structure is assessed for its long-term accumulations that have pulled it out of proper balance.

Gravity is NOT the Enemy

The primary focus of the work is Structural De-Compression and Balancing the Body in the field of gravity. By releasing the tensions that compress and interfere with the proper function of the body, the hands-on work brings the body back to balance. Natural Forces that were built into the body by nature, at birth, are restored to function, providing the body with effortless good posture; energetic, fluid movement; and a pain free existence.

The term Clinical Massage Therapy is a more specific system designed to track down and resolve specific pain patterns, and can work in a more targeted, specific way. It is directly targeted toward immediate resolution of specific pains and dysfunction. Yet it is quite often the case that if the more global approach — Structural Bodywork — is applied, many, and sometimes all, of the specific issues will clear up on their own without "chasing the pain." The choice of which two approaches to use, although there is much overlap, depends upon the goals and objectives of the Individual Client.

SPECIAL NOTE:
Historically, especially in modern, orthodox medicine, the term structure has tended to imply (although not by strict dictionary definition) the bones and joints of the body, leading to significant blind spots toward the importance of muscles in many conditions, especially postural issues such as functional scoliosis. (Orthodox medicine, especially Orthopedics, would not even consider scoliosis to be a "postural" problem.) Since the advent of Rolfing®* (Structural Integration), the term structural has been more widely used to imply the entire musculoskeletal and facial system. From Merriam-Websters:

The aggregate of elements of an entity in their relationships to each other.

(*Rolfing® is one of the grand parents, and probably best known, of the forerunners of modern structurally oriented approaches to musculoskeletal issues. The focus was put on soft tissue as the primary force affecting the structure. However, Rolfing® put most of the focus on the fascial tissues, and less on the muscles. The DSL Method considers this near exclusive focus on fascia to be a substantial error, especially when considering the well-established sciences behind the question.)

The primary focus of Bio-Structural Balancing™ is on learning to observe the various physical structures and forces within the human body and how they relate to gravity and other external pressures and forces, as well as internal, psycho-emotional forces. Then, Psycho-Muscular Release is employed — via the EdgeTouch™ Technique or Let-Go Yoga™ — to relax the muscular tensions that distort posture and function and interfere with movement and action.

(For those interested in a precise, integrated education in Clinical Massage Therapy & Structural Bodywork, you can do no better than to attend the highly specialized school in Fairview near Asheville, North Carolina: The North Carolina School of Advanced Bodywork. The school is scheduled to open in late August of 2008 (this year, late this month) and is owned by Kyle C. Wright, who owned five massage schools in the Southeastern United States, training over 6,000 therapists over the last 17 years, with an extremely high student satisfaction and success rate. Significant portions of DSL EdgeWork™ and DSL Let-Go Yoga™ will be available there.)

www.ncsab.com

DSL Bodywork: based on Physical/Mental Yoga

The DSL EdgeWork™, Hands-On Bodywork System is based solidly on basic principles and insights of physical, mental and relational yoga as well as perspectives, principles and sciences from myofascial, neuromuscular and structural bodywork. (Although there are many VERY significant differences — and some controversies — in philosophy, principles, and techniques between the DSL Method and the more commonly known bodywork and yoga systems.) The DSL Let-Go Yoga™ principles are derived primarily from Joel Kramer, whom Yoga Journal calls the Father of American Yoga, and the First American Yoga Master.

The Let-Go Yoga™ System has, in turn, been extensively modified by more than 26 years of professional experience in private sessions of hands-on bodywork and therapeutic yoga, and extensive cross-training working with physicians and practitioners of a wide-range of orthodox and wholistic medicine/natural health care modalities.

SPECIAL NOTE:
On the Word Medicine and the Big Picture of Yoga in Eastern & Western Thought

The DSL Method takes a yogic attitude toward the practice of medicine. As described by David Bohm in Wholeness and the Implicate Order*, the word medicine is derived from the Latin root mederi, which translates into: to measure, to moderate, and also medicine. All of these are also the root of the term to cure. As Bohm states:

" … 'to cure' is based on a root meaning 'to measure'. This reflects the view that physical health is to be regarded as the outcome of a state of right inward measure in all parts and processes of the body. … the word 'moderation', which describes one of the prime ancient notions of virtue, is based on the same root, and this shows that such virtue was regarded as the outcome of a right inner measure underlying man's social actions and behavior. Again, the word 'meditation', which is based on the same root, implies a kind of weighing, pondering, or measuring of the whole process of thought, which could bring the inner activities of the mind to a state of harmonious measure."

The larger point Bohm was making is that medicine, in ancient times, was more about an Inner Measure, a meditative function, whereas in modern times, medicine is more about external measuring devices and our inner, meditative sense of ourselves is often completely missing from the modern medical measure. This is not to say the modern, outer measure approach is of no value or use. It is only to say that it has lost much in the transition … and the translation!

Physical/Mental Yoga is an Inner Measuring of a subjective sense of self with an objective of Internal and External Health:

Therefore, IF one ascribes to the term Yoga the meaning Awareness in the Inner Measure or meditative sense, then we see this ancient derivative of the root word mederi as the foundation of real medicine in a fuller, deeper, more human and less mechanical way. We also see an ancient root meaning that opens doors to yoga — and medicine — as a physical, mental and relational system.

(*David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Ark Paperbacks, 1983. Bohm studied and worked extensively with the late Jiddu Krishnamurti, including giving talks and dialog's on the nature of consciousness and physics. Krishnamurti could be considered a major influence on the development of modern Jnana (mental) Yoga in the West, in great part via the ground breaking work of Joel Kramer.)

The Basic EdgeTouch™ Technique is derived primarily from Eugene Donaldson, co-founder of Educating Hands School of Massage in Miami. The basic Postural Assessment system is derived from Daniel Blake, who was a direct student of, and certified by, Ida Rolf of Structural Integration fame.

On the Term DSL . . .

The acronym DSL is on one hand the initials of David Scott Lynn.

On the other hand, David wrote a small book titled DSL: The Dynamics of Structural Learning©.

Dynamics: The Physical, Intellectual, and Moral (!!) forces that produce motion, activity, and change in a given sphere. (See Century Dictionary & Cyclopedia, 1911 edition. The definition could be considered out-of-date, however it figures perfectly in a more wholistic view of the sciences of being human.)

DSL EdgeWork™ studies a wide range of the Dynamics of Being Human. You can learn to study your internal physical and mental dynamics via your own human structure. Physical, Mental & Relational Yoga, as well as Yoga-Based Bodywork, is an excellent system by which to study those dynamics. We also recognize that while more often than not the function of a mechanism or entity follows or is determined by its structure or form, there are also times when the function significantly influences or modifies the structure.

Bio-Structural: The interrelation of parts or the principle of organization in a complex, living unity.

Having to do with the psychological, emotional, metabolic (organs) and neurological elements, as well as the muscular, skeletal and fascial components, which drive and/or participate in, and are reflected in, one’s overall structure, posture, function, digestion & elimination, mobility and the creation of Purposeful Action.

Learning: To cause to understand, to lead someone on his or her way.

In its more profound sense, real learning is NOT just data accumulation, rote memorization, or behavior modification, although it includes those to varying degrees. Real learning is about developing a capacity to See Anew, to integrate reality into One’s Self.

On Discipline: As Joel Kramer has said, one of the many things that yoga is is a way of learning. To that effect, real discipline is not about a militaristic conformity to a system or norm. A disciple is one who learns, who is committed to going to the depths of what a subject or object has to teach us or that we can master.

Please see the e-Book What Is DSL? on the e-Books Page and Please see the Free Article on Old versus New Paradigm Learning.

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You have arrived at and been reading the new, revised version of the DSL EdgeWork web pages. This revision is just getting underway. Much of the information you are looking for is still on the old site at:

www.DSLEdgeWork.com

I, DSL, will be teaching my Live Trainings in Yoga/Bodywork Therapeutics and Let-Go Yoga at The North Carolina School of Advanced Bodywork and the Carolina Bodywork Institute located in Greenville, South Carolina.

www.NCSAB.com

Please stay tuned for more information by signing up for my newsletter.

Thank You Very Much and Take Care,
David Scott Lynn (DSL)
DSL: Your Hi-Touch Up-Link to the Inner-Net.