Therapist Yaron Margolin began his career as a dancer and choreographer. Along with Naftali Ironi,author of “Flexible”, Margolin shaped a theory called “the independent dance “, which served as an inspiration for his method of treatment, which is successfully being practiced in psychotherapy andcomplementary medicine.

There is good news for those that suffer from body pain : Sometimes muscular pain can be healed through very simple treatments. Body pain is on the life of lots of people, but in dancers lives it is sometimes a constant component. As dance teacher, I observed that dancers have a tendency to suffer lesions on the same part of the body in a way that responds to a pattern. Specially at the groin, ankle , knee, right shoulder and the middle of the back. I found myself facing two possible hypothesis: if people specially trained as dancers are have a special tendency to suffer from members pain or if the emotional problems that concern the same dancers are the ones that provoke repetitive injuries. I decided to keep a record of those events.

Hagit strained her back at the level of vertebra T-12 on a tourism trip to Greece. Hagit is a dancer and she could not find a reason to the stress that she felt on her back muscles, when she was sitting at the seashore. During the treatment she remembered her experience: "I was siting on the beach and I felt no pertinence to the group that I was traveling with and I began to feel lonely". Also Arik suffered from a lesion on his T-12 vertebra. But on his case circumstances were different.

On my notes figures an event that happened to Arik 12 years before Hagit incident. Arik's incident occurred during his examinations when applying to the dance company of his dreams.

Arik went to do his examination. And suddenly asked himself : What am I doing here? He felt the need to leave the place, since he had the feeling that "he was not a part of this place , this group".

In 1977, when I was checking for the first time my notes on the subject, I found five similar cases. Some dancers complained of groin muscles pain. All of them have something in common: they have left recently something that they cherished.

Some of them had finished they couple relationship, others had abandoned for different reasons they studies at University.

I decided to do some research on the opposite direction. Luckily, Ilana told me at some moment that her and her boyfriend had split. Two days after she told me that she had an intense pain on the right leg .

" I won't be able to take my class", she said on the phone.

I asked her if by any chance the pain was on the groin area.

Ilana answered affirmatively, very surprised. Like this, i an accidental way I decided to investigate in a deeper way dancers lesions.

I looked for the common characteristic o"  the Tension Points (Dmimot - Hebrew - stoppages)" that created the corporal .pain and the events that precede the lesions

.This work was compiled on " Myths and Muscle Pain"

Muscles are the bigger organ of the human bo and represent 40% of the body mass. Pain causes are not always known, in consequence sometimes are not treated. The expression "I have a caught muscle". is well known by all of us. So it is the pain that occurs simultaneously.

On the other side, muscle pain affect specially to back and extremities. It seems like if in any part of the body where there is a muscle, can be developed a muscular pain that is associated to it. Different muscles reflect pain in a different way and different pains in the back, legs, arms, or even headaches or hands pain.

Muscular pains have characteristics that allow to distinguish between them and in consequence to chose the treatment that aims to the tension points and the points from where pain irradiates.

Tension situations provoke inadequate, morbid stimuli, that cause the pain feeling. A well trained therapist can identify the tension points through a mild massage on the body muscle, finding on this way the points that trigger the pain . The idiom "Trigger Point" indicates perfectly what about we are trying to describe.

Tension points are the problem origin and from them it irradiates. Tension points (Dmimoth-stoppages) have hard consistency and the shape of small spheres, cones or the letter S shape.

Pain can be alleviated by pressing on the muscle and applying afterwards a mild pressure on the tension point. Obviously, it is necessary to know the specific tension points and the zones where the pain can possible arrive by irradiation.

Any physiotherapist has an anatomic atlas of those points. Tension points are consequence of muscular tensions due to physical effort. Some call to tension points "stoppages" (Dmimoth Hebrew), obstructions, silences. Stopegies - Dmimoth (Hebrew) are caused in fact by punctual emotional tensions. They are stress and emotional crisis.

In consequence, tension felt on the muscle it is simply the parallel of the emotional tension. The expressions: "State of tension", "Emotional tension", are well known by all of us, as they are throbbing, sweating, and pressure feeling in the area close to the heart. Rohi, a youngster that lives in Tel Aviv, vomited every time that alarms sounded indicating the need to enter on shelters during the Gulf war.

Guila, an independent middle age woman felt that she suffocated when it was announced that the accessto her neighborhood were closed, due a snow tempest in Jerusalem.

Yuval, a high rank officer on the police, suffered from severe headaches every time that he had to execute a non routine mission.

Rina had headaches when she should present her academic assignments.

Nathaly«s case is similar. Nathaly owns a successful restaurant chain. At the opening of every new branch or immediately after she has a disk problem on the lumbar area. All these phenomenon are well known in the psychology field as it is the paralysis case that Freud treat through hypnosis.

Emotional tension and emotional crisis feeling can target to the body and manifest themselves on the muscle.

Tension points - Dmimoth are created on the muscle that are stoppages, "silences" (Dmimoth). These stoppages are characterized because when pressing on them there is an intense pain feeling.

Pressure on other parts of the body of the muscle does not produce any pain.

The second characteristic is the pain irradiation towards an organ situated far away from the muscle. It happens, for instance, in tensional headaches, where there is usually two pain points; one on the temple area and the other close to the ear.

This pain comes from the trapezium, muscle situated on the shoulder, close to the neck. A similar example is the knee pain.

This pain is consequence of the pain irradiation from a tension point situated on the vertebral column, in the lumbar zone, at the are of vertebrae 4L, 5L.

The reason of the pain on the knee is the pressure by the vertebra on the nerve that goes from it to the knee.

One of the most important factors to heal the pain in an effective way is to refresh on the memory of the patient the emotional tension cause and to determine what caused the emotional "silence -  The stoppages".

 

My theory on tension points (stoppages) has been developed through 22 years ot therapeuticexperienceand research.

It began on 1977, when I realized the relationship between personal experiences and muscular pain in the groin area.

The treatment is called "opening of personal stoppages" and relates the situation that has created the tension, the images that appear on the soul, their projection on images related to them in the exterior world and the tension points created on the body.

In 1978, after a discussion with the director of the cultural center where I was working, my back got strained. Pain was unbearable.

Avi, a dancer that practiced on my studio, stand at my back, enlaced my body with his arms and began to shake it. I was very surprised when the pain disappeared almost immediately. Afterwards I discovered that pain appeared as consequence of the sudden contraction of the back muscles.

Tension points had simply appeared during the argument with the cultural center manager. A strained muscle hurts for a prolonged period of time, but, it simply "wants" to relax itself. Avis's massage offered to my back the opportunity to distend.

On my research, I perceived that at the moment that Avi relaxed the strain, appeared on my mind the image of the argument.

On a further research stage I realized that exist common characteristics between the tension points and events that can be described as power games. Experience taught me that at the precise healing moment of strains and other muscular pains, the patient always remembered the image of the event that triggered the muscular pain. Like this, the relationship between tension states and the images of lived experiences with tension points was getting clearer.

The same happened with the event repetition and the reappearance of the tension point. my research, I arrived to the conclusion that different images by different persons. I specialized in the cases that related stoppages and "silences". They were compiled as "Myths and Silences".

I discovered that every person feels the images in a different way. Some of the images are human, other come from the mythology.

There are also landscapes, animals, vegetables, colors, odors and abstract ideas. The treatment "Rupture of Silences" was developed gradually. At the beginning I used massive pressure on the tension points. I used feet or body weight to alleviate the pressure on the muscle, as well as massages on the lying body, following Avi«s technique. In another period I used attachments between the body member affected and pressure on the body attached during the treatment. Techniques evolved and enlarged. Nowadays treatment of Silences is extremely delicate, the patient lies or sits for one hour or so.

A typical patient needs a treatment that consists in one to three meetings. Research continues and nowadays I research tension points that develop in the body of people as consequence of positive events

. It seems that the threaten of abandon on the life of a person that begins a new couplehood after a long period of loneliness can apparently cause the same groin problems described before. Also the person that accomplishes his or her dreams can experience the same tension points that experiences the one that sees his destroyed.

The exact reason that creates the "silence" in the body is evident when it appears after a sudden event. Paradoxically, it is important to do the treatment gradually and delicately. But only when the patient gets .conscious about the affective processes that have caused the pain situation treatment is really effective

CASE STUDY:

ARNON«S LEG. Arnon owns an investment business. At the time it was a very busy period. Telephones ringed constantly and every client reclaimed to treat its affairs directly with Arnon.

This exigency was impossible to satisfy.

Arnon's lower body half began to disturb him and gradually began to feel more and more intense pain. Suddenly he touched his leg and had the feeling that it was paralyzed.

He phoned me and said: I am at work and simply I can't continue working.

Arnon asked for an intensive therapeutic meeting.

His left leg hurt and pain irradiated by the exterior side of the leg until the hip.

I would like to remark that from my personal experience, pain the left leg indicates emotional tensions related with friends, relatives, siblings, couple, work or career. Besides the left leg pain, there were other pain points in Arnon's body. All of them in the external side of the leg and hip.

It must be said that monolateral pain is caused usually by power games.

Hip zone indicates emotional tension due to criticism and humiliation.

I examined the body trough a mild massage on the muscle's body, identified the tension point and " -  .דמימות realized that it was an stoppage, a "silence Dmimoth  

I thought that Arnon had suffered some humiliating experience , power game or criticism . And that it came from his spouse, siblings or coworkers.

I divided Arnon's meeting in four part of identical length. Each one of approximately 15 min. At the beginning, as I said, I checked his physical state. Afterwards I began to explore his experiences.

This part was not at all simple: humiliation, power games, criticism.

Arnon found himself confronted to questions that he used to avoid.

Are you married?

There is no woman on my life.

- Do you have a good relationship with your siblings?

- No. -Have you had any intimate friendship with somebody lately?

No.

It seems that Arnon siblings did not live in the country. Arnon didn't use to speak with them in the phone. Lately he hadn't had any mail or other contact with them.

- Have you had problems at your working place, power games style?

Yes, with my assistants.

It seems that the fact that his assistants passed him phone calls frequently disturbed very much Arnon. - Phone calls make me lose my thoughts path and afterwards it takes me a long time to concentrate again on the case that I am working on.

- How have you tried to fix his problem?

- I ordered to my assistants to don't pass me any calls when I am working, nevertheless, they don't do so. - What happen when they don't obey you?

- I get angry and scream at them. There was a violence ambiance at the office. Disputes multiplied.

Arnon uses his power and silences them. The assistants feel that  Arnon ha won the small power battle and at the next opportunity bother him on his office with different questions. Sometimes Arnon is with a client, loses concentration again and when the client leaves screams again to his assistants.

- Could it be that the assistants are only a shadow, a projection of some intimate part of your personality that you can confront?

The question hurts Arnon. I don't understand what is your intention, says in a laconic way. I specify that soul is a dynamic territory, similar to the nature forces or climate. On the soul occur tempests and earthquakes. One part of the soul is supportive, h elpful and empathic. The other fights ,destroys or is assertive. Some believe that soul has a feminine and a masculine side. Others see on it positive and negative energies, passives or actives. Ying and Yang. Also the ten sphere of the cabbala. Others describe it as emotional flowing or a passionate mythological theater, that develops its drama on the same way that in the old Greek and Jewish mythology. It could be that in your case, Arnon, appears the image of an imaginary secretary and that is her that blocks the path of your thoughts, instead of the real secretary from you office. Arnon thinks about and remembers: Sometimes, during the conversation with a client, I lose my concentration. -Could you describe it?

- Sometimes seems to me that an object it is not in its place and I rise and fix it. - What else?

Arnon: Sometimes, even a whisper on the secretaries office can distract me.

Arnon begins to recognize the image of the imaginary secretary that lives on his soul. Is her who distracts him on his thinking. Following the sad situation of arnon during power games appears clear. It is him who disperses his thoughts, but refuses any responsibility about it.

I asked from him something almost impossible: Could you face the power games that appear on your personality?

A question that it is not easy for the authentic artists, the one that want to observe Hunan nature, including their own, appears as indispensable to the treatment of the tension points.

A power game began between us. Arnon, used to irradiate towards the exterior his internal fight, follows his habit. When I refuse to participate on his game, he retracted the battle towards his inside.

Another habitual fact on therapy happened: The dominant thought does not surrender on the fight that appears in face of itself. This thought stays and shows itself.

- What do you see?

Arnon: An internal fight that wants to paralyze me.

-With which aim?

- That I won't be able to do the things that I like and that give me pleasure. Arnon confesses something that he knows already.

- There is a long time that I am fed up of being on this situation, says suddenly. Arnon whispers and says that it is one thought is enough to surrender him and prevent him of doing the activities that he enjoys.

- " My life passes in fear. I am afraid to lose that ability of concentration. My intellectual ability is weak". On one side he knows that he's an intelligent and successful person on the other side discover that the way that he controls his thinking is very limited.

Arnon is astonished in face of the contradiction that inhabits him.

I ask him if it causes fear on him Arnon: Yes. lots of fear. It seems that internal chaos appears in the soul of the person that suffer from power games. These persons feel weak. Spiritual earthquakes that have their origin in the lake of control or de intellectual stability. Their thinking fails and flies after every distraction , even the less important.

These people find difficult to enjoy the things they like to do. Their lack of ability ton control their own minds produce on them loneliness and a deep spiritual pain.

This pain inhibits the pleasure that should have derived from pleasant activities. Another phenomenon is the feeling of lose, of lack of means, of inexorable approximation of a fatal event and guiltiness. This phenomenon worsens when we are in face of somebody with a big denial ability.

Power games that happen in his personality are projected to the other people with total lack of disposition to be conscious or feel responsible about it. Anger, violence, verbal cruelty or other anger expressions are also projected to the surroundings of the dominant person. - And now, what can I do?, asked Arnon, laconically. - that you must begin to change some of your habits. Arnon get interested and wanted to get deeper into my thought. -There is something that you enjoy to do?, I asked. - Yes - What is it?

- Swimming. - Do you practice it?

- Non so much.

- Why?

- There is always some impediment that does not allow me to go to the swimming pool.

- What could happen if you changed your habits?

- I would be doing something that I really love and perhaps I even would learn to enjoy it.- When you swim, do you dive yourself completely to swimming?

- I like to swim on the swimming pool. but the truth is that before going into the water I leave my cellular phone besides the swimming pool.

The phone rings and Arnon gets out of the swimming pool to answer it. Swimming stops and with it the pleasure that it produces to him.

The day that Arnon got hurt on his left leg he was on the swimming pool.

" At the very moment that I began to enjoy the swimming, the phone rang".

Arnon answered, even if it was the last thing that he wanted to do, got irritated and the person that called him reciprocated. The caller. one of Arnon's clients was extremely hard on hi,.

" I have lost a lot of money because you canceled our appointment", attacked the client.

Arnon lost his temper and with it the concentration. That was how he didn't realize that the clients affirmations were no correct.

The caller won the power game and it produced the guiltiness that was converted into pain.

Swimming pleasure disappeared and its emptiness was filled by the pain and the guiltiness.

The power game with the client only took him to he usual mechanism. What to do?

Continue swimming or stop?

Enjoy or feel guilty?

All of this produced on Arnon tension points.

Arnon was very shocked by the picture that was appearing in front of his eyes. I asked him if it was him that had really canceled the meeting his client. he answered negatively.

- Who canceled the meting?

- The client.

- So, who is responsible of the economical lose?

- The client, but the sudden phone call made me nervous. During the phone conversation on the swimming pool, the thinking path of Arnon got broken and he forgot that it was the client that had canceled the meeting.

" Because you, I have lost money, you never dedicate me the time that I need".

Said the client. And Arnon allowed guiltiness invade him. If Arnon had been able to dominate his thoughts, what would have happened?

- I would have scheduled another appointment with him, finished my swimming and we had looked for a way to repair he lose and perhaps even to win some money.

At this point we enter on the therapy room. Arnon was lost in his thoughts. He lied on the couch, I began to relax the tension point. At this stage little and mild pressures produce unbearable pain. pain is now on the spiritual side. The body and also the muscles need to be liberated.

Through a mild massage on the body of the muscle, on the small sphere, conical or S points, relaxation can be achieved. Y added pressure by moving his leg and pressured in a continuous way the tension points. I asked from Arnon to breath deeply. Arnon screamed, because the pain that he was feeling, but his body was relaxing very quickly. After ten more minutes of treatment, it finished. Arnon was able to stand on his feet without feeling any pain. At the door threshold, he stopped for a while and said with a big smile: " You are great".

Two weeks after, he called me again and told me that he was feeling great. " You did a fantastic work", he said and added some other interesting details: " From the day of the treatment, even my driving way has changed.

Now I flow with the transit, feel part of it . Nobody advances me, but it is me who advances to the other cars and I travel at speeds that I would have never dared before".

About Yaron Margolin as a dancer & Coreographer - Wikipedia  

Copyright Yaron Margolin.

All the names have been changed to protect the patients identity. Even places, profession or gender hasbeen changed if necessary.