6 simple exercises to release body tension

We have all felt muscle pain at some point. Most of us attribute it to stress, nerves or the hectic pace of life but… is this pain really the result of a specific moment or behind him hides something deeper?

He Shell Release Method (MLC) can help us find out.

What is the Shell Release Method?

For Marie Lise Labontethe psychotherapist who created this method, “muscles can retain the memory of experiences for years with which they are related. They record life, memories, emotions, images, the entire representation of an experience in their muscle cells. both physical and mental“. A statement that many body therapists would endorse.

If these memories or experiences that perhaps are installed in the unconscious are not managed properly can end up encouraging bodily blocks, that prevent vital energy from circulating freely through the affected muscles, causing stiffness, tension and pain and even disease.

“Armor can manifest itself in the form of rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, cancer… and cause a desire to live, depression… They are signs that show that the body and the psyche have been imprisoned by a shell”, he affirms Lourdes Queenbody psychotherapist and president of the Spanish association of MLC.

MLC sessions are usually structured in cycles (8 to 12 one-hour classes)and can be carried out both in group and individually. It is a psycho-corporal work in various phases.

Undoing the shells one by one

As Marie Lise Labonté explains in release the shellsare “have formed as we have said ‘yes’ to self-denial and also as out of fear, anger, rage or impotence, our jaws were clenched; hands clenched; breathing, blocked; the back, stooped; legs tense.”

The Shell Release Method helps to undo these layers through simple and smooth movements, in which tennis balls, foam balls, pads or rubber covered sticks are used. when the body enters in contact with these instruments the person can more easily perceive how their muscles are.

Lurdes Reina illustrates it with this example: “If we are moving the arm with a tennis ball under the trapezoid, the movement cannot be made widely if there is a shell in that area. The arm, shoulder and thorax will behave as a single block. On the other hand, when the armor is not present, the mobility of the arm can be dissociated from that of the shoulder.”

From the language of the body to that of emotions

But MLC also acts on an emotional or mental plane. “Many of the movements are set to a rhythm and tone of voice that allow the nervous system to relax and contact a more unconscious part. Thus, while a person performs the movement, emotions, images or thoughts that were limited in the world of the unconscious can arise”, comments Natàlia C. de Sobregrau, psychologist and therapist at MLC.

“Starting to do MLC is going to learn another language, a language that is very unknown to us –says the president of MLC Spain–. It is rediscovering the language of the body”. Through this psycho-corporal dialogue, the method helps to reunify, to rediscover oneself.

“The idea would be to gradually discourage or remove the rigidity to get to feel what one is, the being that is free from judgments, from physical armor, from physical and emotional pain”, adds Natàlia C. de Sobregrau.

Types of movement to release the tension of the shells

To achieve this objective, the MLC is based on different movementsstarting from the idea that the body is a kind of onion with different layers.

So, the most superficial layer is worked first, that of the muscles that are on the surface of the organism. He does it by massages with a walking stick or with different types of balls.
“The opening movements are usually lived with pleasure, although sometimes they can create strange sensations for someone who is not used to them: tremors, heat or cold, tiredness or heaviness… These sensations are sign that the body is waking up“, explains Marie Lise Labonté.Then move on to stretching movementswhich affect a somewhat deeper musculature, classified by the MLC as intermediate.
One of its main objectives is for the person to recover their natural alignment, respecting both the vertical and horizontal axis (for example, walking upright and not hunched over).The last series of exercises is intended for unification movements which, according to the words of Natàlia C. de Sobregrau, “serve to reassure, close the session and harmonize the person”. Normally, and unlike what happens in the other two types of movement, no supplementary material is used to carry them out.

Thanks to these routines different parts of the body are linked both the most superficial and the deepest layers, and a dialogue is established between them.

All the exercises are done respecting each person’s own rhythm.

These are calm movements, which are not intended to force the muscles or breathing, especially in the initial sessions.

In this way, you are invited to discover for yourself how your body is and how he breathes In short, how it is expressed and what it hides behind possible pain or discomfort.

work on the unconscious

For this body mind technique the world of the unconscious is very important. So much so that, in addition to movement, he uses other tools that facilitate contact with that hidden information.

One of them is drawing. “When we ask a person to draw their own body on paper we make it easier for the unconscious to express itself and give it an image of itself that it is not yet aware of. The drawing serves to pass the breastplates to consciousness who are more present at that moment”, explains Lurdes Reina.

Sometimes this contact with the unconscious is carried out through visualization.

Benefits of the shell release method

But… how long does it take to release a shell?

“It is something difficult to answer – affirms the president of the Spanish association of MLC – because the body guides the process. However, from the beginning you begin to notice that the body adopts a different position in space and when moving. There are people who comment that from the first session the feet, which we normally feel only when they hurt, begin to be present. This provides great security.”

This increased body awareness Natàlia C. de Sobregrau adds other benefits. “During the sessions, the person gives themselves a space to stop and calm down. The method also leads to the here and now, and this can help focus attention“.

In the medium and long term, the MLC also helps to provide greater mobility and muscle expansion, to breathe better and to strengthen the muscles.

Finally, as Natàlia points out, “once freed from our armor we inhabit our body, we live our life, our love, our transparency. And if necessary we can put on another shell for a second, a minute or an hour if necessary, but we will always be free to take it off.”

The self-healing of its creator

At just 25 years old, the body of Marie Lise Labonté had undergone a multitude of treatments, tests and operations due to a degenerative rheumatoid arthritis.

That’s when it fell into their hands The body has its reasonsthe book in which Therese Bertherat explains the basics of the call antigymnastics. labonté decided to move from his native Canada to France to put himself in the hands of Bertherat.

Anti-gymnastics helped her rediscover herself, to to free his body from the physical, emotional and psychological tensions that had ended up making him sick.

After his self-healing experience, he developed his own method, the MLC, based on anti-gymnastics, rolfing and the psychoanalytic theories of Wilhelm Reich.

5 simple exercises of the Shell Release Method

1. Hip opening

Lie on the floor, bend your legs and align your heels to the width of your hips. Place a tennis ball under your right buttock bone (ischium). Hold your right knee with your right hand. Take it towards the chest, without contracting the back, and draw a circular movement with the knee, in the direction that is easiest for you. Breathe.Remove the ball under the ischium, straighten the legs and compare the sensation of the right and the left. Repeat the movement with the ball under the left ischium.

Effects: It acts on the pelvic shell.

2. Shoulder opening

Lie on your back and bend your legs. Align the heels with the buttocks. Place a large foam ball under the head and a tennis ball under the right trapezius, in the upper part of the back. Bring your right arm up toward the ceiling. Let the hand hang down and relax the shoulder. Circle the arm over the shoulder. Breathe at your pace. Whenever you want, stop, take the ball out and put your arm on the ground. Observe how the shoulder blade, arm and shoulder rest on the floor and compare it with the left side of the body. Repeat the movement on the same side, but with the forearm flexed. The hand rests in the direction of the chest and the circles are made with the tip of the elbow. Move the elbow to the right and left. Do the same movements with the other side.

Effects: Release the shoulder, neck and arm.

3. Back and leg stretch

Lie down on your back. Place a foam-covered cane to the right of the spine, slightly past the shoulder and buttock bone. Bend both legs, align the heel of the right foot with the cane. Straighten your leg if you can. Place a large foam ball under your head. As you exhale, bring your right knee up to your chest with your right hand. The right side of the trunk comes into further contact with the cane. Relax with inspiration; repeat the movement. Whenever you want, leave your foot on the ground, remove the cane and stretch your right leg. Stand up and compare the left and right sides of your body as you walk. Explore the other side in the same way.

Effects: Releases the thoracic, abdominal and pelvic armor

4. Arm and Shoulder Stretch

Lie on the right side, with the right arm at a right angle to the trunk and the left arm above the right. The head rests on a thin cushion or a foam ball and the left leg is flexed on top of the right. Inhale, raising the left arm towards the ceiling and, on the exhalation, bring it over the right arm; repeat several times leaving the left arm heavy. Feel that as you open your left arm as you inhale, you draw your breath into your left lung. As you inhale, bring your left arm up toward the ceiling, and as you exhale, let it hang back, as if you were touching someone behind you. Inhale again and bring it over the right arm. Start again. Do not force the stretch, it is not about bringing your arm to the ground. When you feel that it is enough, roll until you are…