COLORADO SERENITY – OCTOBER 2003 (Who Isn't Biased)

Tracy Saraduke, RN, M.Ac. L.Ac.

3082 Evergreen Parkway, Suite 2

Evergreen, CO 80439

(303) 670-9181

www.acuwebpage.com

There you are in your chair, reading this article. You may be resting your chin on your hands, sitting with your legs crossed, leaning on one elbow, or even leaning back in your chair with your legs stretched out on the desk in front of you. All of these postures are expressions that originate from distortions (biases) in the body. A bias is a small unconscious favoring toward comfort and away from balance.

Causes of biases: Repeated movement (plays tennis with same hand), mental leaning, scars on meridians, favoring an injury, exhaustion, attitude, diet, comfort, etc. A raised hip is a sign of bias, not the root cause of it.

Could biases that are perpetuated over a long period of time lead to disease?

A small un-rehabilitated injury from one’s distant past can result in a chronic bias that, in turn, affects the whole structure and sometimes, the function of internal organs as well. Or a problem with a meridian or organ can cause a structural bias.

When I was a child, I had a bad break in one leg. Back then, they did not work to rehabilitate these injuries the way they do today. Six months in casts resulted in my favoring that ankle. As I now work to rehab the ankle weakness, I find how this bias had also put pressure on my internal organs in adverse ways. I had liver/gall-bladder problems that corresponded to this bias.

Another example is a shoulder problem caused by a distortion in the pelvis. The Japanese often refer to this pain (no underlying injury or trauma) as a fifty year-old shoulder or frozen shoulder. It results from years of blocked and distorted chi flow through the body.

Frozen shoulder in advanced age never occurs all of a sudden. It always results from a gradual accumulation of abnormal sensations and tension in one’s legs, lower back and side. Although 99% of treatments for these shoulder problems are aimed at the locale for the pain and restriction in the shoulder, they rarely resolve the problem. Piecemeal treatments that ignore the chain reaction principle, where distortions in other parts of the body cause problems in a distal joint, is like indulging a spoiled child by giving him candy whenever he cries.

Observe yourself. Can you stand upright without distortion for two minutes while you brush your teeth? Do you always cross the same leg over the other one when you sit? Can you not throw a hip out to the side while you stand in the grocery line?

Pay attention to these little re-alignments and you can gradually bring more balance to your entire system. What else you can do: acupuncture to regulate meridians and circulation, yoga, Aston Patterning, Rosen Movement, Alexander Technique, Pilates, Meridian Stretches, to name a few.