Joyce Grace Nuttall
Certified Trager® Practitioner
www.balancedbreath.com
The Trager Approach is a method of teaching and learning movement.
The Trager practitioner teaches the client with words, by example, by imparting sensation through touch and movement of the body, and through follow-up movements that extend and continue the learning begun during the session.
Working with your Trager practitioner you'll learn to change stressful patterns.
Live what you learn
You'll experience and learn practical, easier movement.
During your Trager sessions you'll learn simple strategies that create ease you can enjoy throughout your day in standing up, sitting down, chewing, reaching, walking, and in other daily movements.
Each session is unique
Each session will be different to meet the needs of that day, your current level of stress or pain or healing, and the progress you're making in moving toward your long-term goal.
In a typical 60 minutes on the table, your body will experience and your brain process thousands of movements, many of which are novel.
Create Ease of Motion
Joints that don't work so well—achy painful joints—can cause difficulty walking, chewing, typing, turning your head, bending your knees, moving your fingers. During your Trager session you'll experience your full range of easy motion, remember freedom of movement without pain, and discover more effective ways of moving.
Joyce will also encourage your open-minded attention to the sensations within your body, helping you create new links between your brain and your body in motion.
Lighter, Easier Breathing
Breathing is movement—groups of muscles need to function well so you can inhale, exhale, take a full breath. When the muscles of breathing–inhalation and exhalation–are tense, tight, locked in contraction, or with too little tone, it’s hard to breathe. Taking a deep breath in is difficult. Exhaling a full breath feels impossible. Simple breathing takes too much energy.
When breathing is difficult you may feel tired, with aching shoulders, hurting ribs, and tense belly–even your jaw may ache.
Do you feel like your shoulders do the work of breathing? During your Trager session you can feel what a relaxed breath is like. Balancing the tone between muscles of inspiration and expiration, interrupting unnecessary muscle use (like shoulders and jaw), and reconnecting to your body's easiest breathing patterns can allow you an authentic sigh of relief.
Learning to Move? Really?
What do you mean teach me to move....I already know how to move!
Much of our movement is habitual, and that makes life easier when it works well. But sometimes injury, pain, disease, poor posture, and life events create dysfunctional changes in our movement habits.
A Trager session is an opportunity to replace poor movement habits with healthy, new patterns.
Movement & Awareness
During a Trager session both your body and your mind are involved—your body as you experience new comfort of motion and your mind as you become aware of your new range and ease of movement.
The motion of your body allows changes in your nervous system.....
Your awareness of the difference in sensation allows changes in your body.....
It's a great feedback loop!
View from Joyce's office window on a snowy day. The indoor pond contains tropical plants.
Testimonials
I walk to my car like I have springs on my feet.—a client with Parkinson's Disease
So this is what a deep breath feels like! —a client with asthma
My full-time massage practice keeps me busy. Getting a Trager session is what I do for myself.—a regular client
Depression is like being frozen, buried in concrete. But no matter how low I've gotten, after a Trager session I feel like moving again. My brain is unlocked and I can feel my body. When the depression is deep, this feeling of wanting to move might only last for a few days, but sometimes that's enough so I can do other things I need to feel better. —a client with chronic depression
I've tried lots of treatments for fibromyalgia, but regular Trager sessions really do give me a break from the pain. Sometimes the pain is gone from one session with Joyce to the next.—a client with Fibromyalgia
Joyce taught me so many tools for letting go of this &*%$ pain, for taking a deep breath, for just staying in my body. I can focus on my life because it's not all about pain anymore. —a client who manages chronic pain