Class 1: Awaken Your Tremor | 2/9

This is a foundation Shaking Medicine class journey where we explore several tremoring shapes in varying positions. This class is balanced in yin and yang in that it's not too strong and not too soft—right in the middle.

We explore one of our fundamental strategies for finding the tremor, the 'Moving Slowly Through a Range of Motion' as relaxed as we can. We also briefly explore another one of our strategies of Tiring Out to start to connect to spontaneous shaking.

We learn about the 'Radio Analogy' whereby the Range of Motion strategy is like tuning one of those old analogue radios, if we turn too fast we'll skip the shaking stations.

We explore letting go of control, relaxing, allowing, and surrendering to how the shake wants to move us and thus listening more to our intuition and instinct. These qualities are key in Shaking Medicine.

Transcript

Welcome to journey one,

Where we'll be looking at the foundations of shaking medicine.

This will be a class that's balanced in yin and yang,

So it's not super soft,

It's not super strong,

It's somewhere in the middle.

We're looking to surrender,

Allow,

And let go of control to our therapeutic tremor mechanism using some of our most foundational techniques and strategies to explore therapeutic tremoring.

Remember,

Less is more,

Be gentle,

And don't force the shaking to arise before it's ready.

If we force it,

We destroy it,

It becomes voluntary shaking.

So as I guide you and give you strategies to explore,

Namely,

We'll be looking at the range of motion strategy in this one,

Where we'll be moving really slowly,

As slowly and as relaxed as we can,

Maybe multiple times through a range of motion,

And we'll be waiting patiently for basically those bumps,

Lack of smoothness,

Quake,

Shakes,

To signal through our nervous system to say,

Hey,

There's a shake to be had here,

Some shaking medicine to hang out in.

Now,

Rest anytime you need to rest,

Less is more,

We want a sustainable practice.

So let's get into it.

Let's start with our warm up here on our back.

Let's hug our knees in,

Come into this beautiful fetus-like position,

And start to breathe.

Hold with effortless effort enough to keep it safe,

But then relax within the effort.

And let's breathe into our belly,

Abdomen,

Breathing like a baby,

Parasympathetic.

Inhale,

Fill up your belly.

Allow a sigh as you exhale,

Ah,

Ah.

One more like that.

Inhale,

Take your time with the breath,

And then when it's ready,

Ah.

Let's bring in some movement,

We're doing our physical warmup,

Rocking side to side,

And releasing the lower back.

You can lift your head,

Tuck your chin.

Rocking maybe a little bit forward and back,

Gently,

Very mindful of the spine and vertebrae.

And then what we'll do is we'll plant our feet down.

Let's extend the front of our body into the air.

Okay.

This is a bridge shape.

Inhale,

Maybe lift a little higher.

And then exhale,

Sink vertebrae by vertebrae back down.

Bring the knees in and kick the legs up.

Beautiful.

Let's see if we can lock our knees out,

Feel the back of the legs,

Press the heels away.

You can hold for support if that's really challenging.

And then what we're gonna start to do is wave,

Bending the knees and wave your legs,

Or bicycle them,

Warming up the legs and the core.

Let's try externally rotating the legs.

How does that feel?

A different angle.

Beautiful.

Feel different parts of your body now,

Internal rotation and pedal.

Beautiful.

And then waterfall,

Both together.

We go down and up.

Do whatever variation is comfortable with your body.

Anything in this,

You can make it slower,

Or smaller,

Generally to be a little gentler.

Beautiful.

Change directions just a couple of times.

And then let's tabletop our legs.

We're gonna start to,

And let's hear our arms and let's gently go side to side as we're moving into the core,

Some more of the obliques,

The waist.

I just want you to slowly rock side to side,

And each time go a little bit lower,

But never go too far,

Too quick.

Always stay within your limit.

That applies to this whole course,

And really life in general,

I feel.

Beautiful.

Maybe eventually,

If you haven't already,

Make it your twist all the way to the ground,

Feeling a nice,

Beautiful release through the side body,

The waist area.

Beautiful.

Okay,

We're gonna hug in those knees again.

And gentle rock up and down your spine.

I love this for massaging the back.

Definitely,

If it's not working for you,

Leave it,

And we'll all meet in this boat,

This boat-shaped floating.

And then pedal,

Kind of like Tai Chi wave,

And float,

Explore,

Awaken a bit of intuition here,

And just reach,

Feel,

Stretch.

Tire out the core.

And then we're gonna,

After a bit of that,

The hands can certainly be down for extra support,

Or if you get tired in the middle of that,

Let's do a little bit more.

Pedaling,

Rotating internally and externally.

We're having a little awakening of our intuition,

So feel what feels good,

A little chance to dance and explore,

Particularly,

I want you to try to feel new angles through the legs,

Through the hips.

Tire out different core muscles,

And we'll all meet in this easy chair.

Maybe you can go there with no hands,

Advanced,

Or just kind of work your way up through the squat.

And let's come into an easy chair.

I want you to find Wu Wei in this effortless effort,

So definitely be sinking down into your imaginary chair.

See if you can level out your pelvis,

So the weight is even through both legs.

Let's breathe in and out.

And as you exhale,

Go a little bit deeper.

Inhale,

Come a little bit higher.

Good.

What we wanna do with this is now doing our chair squats.

Exhale down,

Inhale up.

Intentionally tiring out these beautiful roots of our body.

One of the big intentions of this class is to open the roots,

To shake the roots a lot today.

Clear those out,

Which sets our whole practice up to be deeper and more powerful and safe as well,

Because when the roots are clear,

We can ground.

Exhale down,

Inhale up.

Exhale down.

Beautifully,

Maybe some of us can get quite low.

Inhale up.

Let's start to inhale,

Reach your hands up.

Exhale down.

Inhale,

Sweep them wide and high.

Exhale,

Sink down.

This time,

Inhale up,

Up on tippy toes.

And then ground right into your center,

Knees slightly bent.

Let's come into our mountain stance.

We're doing a little qigong as our energetic warmup.

Here,

Palms open.

You're telling the universe you're open.

Inhale into the belly,

Abdomen,

Breathing.

Belly expands in all directions.

And then like a balloon deflating,

It goes back to center,

It deflates.

Inhale,

Breathing in your belly.

Wait for the next breath to happen when it's ready,

And then let the exhale happen.

All the air out.

Find your rhythm with it.

Maybe it's faster or slower,

But let it be kind of spontaneous,

Like at the top of the inhale,

You wait before the exhale starts.

And similarly,

At the bottom of the exhale,

Wait for it.

Your nervous system will say when,

And then the inhale begins,

Ideally through the nose.

Exhale out.

We're gonna move into spinal breathing.

Inhale to open.

Remember,

This is a practice of our central nervous system.

Exhale to close.

Anything we do to warm up our central nervous system is really powerful.

So our spine here,

Inhale.

We wanna lift the tailbone.

We're curling the spine into extension,

And then exhale,

Curling it to flexion.

Tuck the tailbone,

Tuck the chin.

See how my arms are coming in?

Elbows kind of coming towards the pit of my belly.

Inhale,

Open.

Just like we did,

Let's let the breath lead the movement.

So letting the breath be spontaneous,

Wait at the bottom of the exhale for the inhale.

Similarly,

At the top of the inhale,

Wait for it,

And then exhale.

Beautiful.

Inhale,

Open.

Exhale,

Round.

This time,

Back to mountain,

To neutral.

Let's play with tilting our pelvis there.

What are the angles of our pelvis?

We can tuck the tailbone.

We can lift.

We kind of just did that in spinal breathing,

Right?

We can tuck,

And we can lift.

Tuck,

Lift.

Another dimension is lifting one,

Lowering the other.

Up the side body,

Down to the earth.

Hands can mirror if you want,

Like me.

One up,

One down,

Let's go.

Not so fast,

But slow and steady.

Let each one be unique.

Let yourself feel different angles of the pelvis and the hips articulating.

And as one side lifts,

Then squeeze these obliques,

This side body into there.

And then the other side.

We're squeezing here,

And we're lengthening here.

Beautiful,

Getting into that core again.

We're freeing up the pelvis.

Again,

Using movements to feel parts of our body that might be numb is very helpful to help us find shaking,

Which we'll do shortly,

As well as to neurally rewire our brain to body connection,

Very important in shaking medicine.

One more pelvic dimension,

One forward,

One back.

Articulate,

Bend the knees a little bit.

It can help to think,

Drive one knee forward,

One back.

That kind of pulls that pelvis back and the other forward.

Let's go a little bit kind of in that imaginary chair.

This will help tire out the pelvic muscles,

Part of our roots,

As well as our legs some more.

And a fun kind of way of like exploring our body in ways that probably most of us aren't doing this so often.

Few more here.

And then just for fun,

Combine,

Just a little play,

Combine any two of these,

Up and down,

And forward and back,

Just a spiral.

Anything,

It's not about getting it right here.

It's more about a play.

Spiral the pelvis,

Create some unique circles.

Using any of these pelvic dimensions.

And for the last little bit,

Feel,

Find an angle.

Any of these three dimensions of the pelvis where it's like,

Oh,

It's a little more tight or blocked.

And I want you to hang out there and just kind of micro move,

Squeeze into it a bit,

Feel it with your hands.

Wherever the most sensitive,

Tight,

Stuck spot is for you.

Okay.

This is learning to feel the sensations of the body that say,

Hey,

There's a spot here that might be worth looking at for the tremor.

So we want to build a sense where tensions and such are.

Okay,

Back to center,

Inhale,

Reach up,

Exhale,

Ground.

This is a go-to Qi Gong self-regulating process.

Inhale,

Fill up with energy.

Exhale,

Do a body scan to sink any heavy energy up high and to sink it down low,

Ground it into the body.

Inhale.

This is exhale,

Wash fresh energy over the body.

Let the old sink and drain into the earth.

This is the basics of grounding and energetically integrating.

Moving with that parasympathetic breath.

Deep belly breathing.

Let out a sigh on your next exhale.

Parasympathetic rest and digest.

Inhale.

And just create a reference frame by scanning your whole body,

Just take a note,

A short little note.

How is it now in this moment?

How are you feeling?

One more breath.

Exhale,

Feeling,

Moving deeper into feeling,

Into sensation.

One hand on heart,

One hand on belly.

If you'd like to set an intention,

You're so welcome.

Maybe it's to experience shaking medicine for your first time or there's a particular something you're working with,

Feel free to do that.

Honor your why right now.

Maybe it's to journey into or towards your higher self,

Making it about the journey instead of any destination.

Perhaps simply seeing how your innate tremor mechanism wants to move you today.

Okay.

And then let the arms rest.

Let's start a little voluntary shaking.

Last little bit of our warmup today.

I want you to get a sense straight away of the difference between voluntary and involuntary shaking.

So with this,

They're both relaxed.

And then with voluntary shaking,

We're kind of bouncing in the legs here in our mountain,

Bouncing in our roots to send a pulse really intentionally through the body in a kind of a big bouncy way where we get all the wiggles and jiggles happen and we might bring the shake more into our hands and arms to wiggle the meat and muscles,

The shoulders,

Relax the shoulders.

Move from the chest,

Front,

Sides,

And back,

Down the ribs,

Front,

Side,

And back,

The belly,

Front,

Side,

And back.

Even everything inside,

The spine and the organs,

Wiggling and jiggling.

Pelvis,

Starting into our,

Getting into our roots,

Releasing the,

Relaxing the muscles around the pelvis.

Get the glutes,

The glutes,

TFL,

Where the quads attach to the pelvis,

The adductors,

Shaking down the legs.

Maybe we can change the rhythm as well.

Side to side,

Wiggle all the hamstrings,

Quads,

Even the joints,

We can wiggle and jiggle,

Creating space and allowing the energy to flow through the joints,

Like the knees.

Ah,

Another sigh.

Let's keep moving our nervous system into rest and digest.

And then we'll go calves,

Ankles,

Down into the feet.

Let's move that into stillness now.

We're gonna turn this voluntary shake off,

Which is more of a forced shake.

Then we're gonna start to move into therapeutic trimmering.

We're gonna start right here in mountain stance.

So moving through that imaginary chair,

We're starting with this range of motion strategy.

And all the warmup we did will have tired a bit of the muscles and help us tune into the shaking here.

So we're gonna go up and down.

Maybe the first time or two is a little bit fast.

And we wanna explore the range of motion of our kind of half or even quarter chair.

It doesn't have to be too much.

And then each time you do it,

Very importantly,

Go a little bit more slowly than the last time,

As well as more relaxed in your whole body as much as you can.

Then just start to,

Now,

So this is a strategy we're using to feel the sensations of where spontaneous shaking wants to arise.

So start to notice any sensations.

It could be like skipping,

Bumping,

Like the range of motion stops being smooth and it gets jumpy or skippy,

Quakey,

Shaky.

I want you to start to notice any and all of that.

Maybe you're starting to feel it.

As soon as you start to find a spot,

I want you to go with the strategy to find it and just hang out in the shaking.

It's kind of like tuning one of those old analog radios.

If we turn the knob too fast,

We'll skip all the stations.

So we wanna go nice and slow and find our shaken station.

So what can happen is like maybe you find a little bumpiness and it stops.

So then you can,

The part where you get the most shaken,

You can narrow the range of motion.

So for me,

It's like around here.

So I could narrow just a little bit in and out of this spot where I start to get a couple of little pulses,

Quakes,

And it can be very small,

Like almost just an internal vibration.

But the idea is to narrow the range of motion,

Keep going through it,

Whether you're doing the whole or just now the narrowed range,

Keep going as slowly and as relaxed as you can.

And then eventually you'll be able to hone in on where you shake the most and then listen in on that shaken station.

And then the game changes.

We go from trying to discover and awaken it to,

Okay,

We're in it and now we're hanging out in it.

And being in any shaken station is really the point in many ways,

Just to find shaken stations and then more and more surrender into it.

It'll get easier and easier to surrender into it the more we do this.

Then we let that shaken move us how it wants to move us.

We can add in,

Let's just do the simple pelvic tilt,

Tuck and lift the tailbone.

So this can be done with the legs going or completely separately.

It can be like an add-on or it can be its own range of motion and to explore another part of the body,

In this case,

The pelvis.

So tilt and tuck each time.

The trick is to,

If you didn't get it,

The next time you have to go slower.

Go slower and bit by bit,

You'll be able to find it.

And at first it might happen a few little shakes and then it stops.

So then continue until more and more you can hang out in it and eventually it'll be like,

Oh,

You found the resonance and you can just be with it.

So in mountain stance,

These are our roots,

The bending and straightening the legs,

Tilting our pelvis.

These are two big ones to get our roots going.

And it could be like the combination of the two,

Some combination that gets it.

If you got this one,

Stay with that.

Generally it's deeper to shake in a more relaxed shape or sometimes we need a stronger one.

So just for a moment,

Let's try a shaky lunge.

What we wanna do is bend our back knee towards the ground and lift.

This is our range of motion here.

Press the heel back.

If you've ever been in a yoga class,

You probably felt yourself shaking in like a big lunge or something.

So again,

No rush.

If you're newer to this,

It'll likely take you several iterations of moving through bending and straightening until,

Ah,

Eventually you can hang out in it.

For now,

I'm using the stronger shapes more to start building your relationship with the shaking rather than hanging out in those for a long time because generally the softer shapes are where the deeper therapy is.

So let's just quickly try the other leg.

No rush,

No rush.

Try the other leg.

See if you can find your shaking station.

And then once you're in it,

It's like let go.

Just let it move you how it wants to.

Maybe as you hang out in it,

Make sure you're breathing deep.

We don't need to be too focused on that but every once in a while it's nice to just,

Ah.

Am I breathing?

Maybe add a gentle sound on your exhale,

Ah.

Hoo,

Beautiful.

Let's come back to our mountain and integrate this phase.

Sweet,

This is called pulling down the heavens.

So we're inhaling,

Gathering fresh heavenly energy.

Exhale,

Washing that over us.

Doing our next rinsing,

Washing,

Grounding.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Checking in,

We wanna turn the shake off,

Very important.

We need to be able to stop it just as much as we can start it.

So now's the time to bring it to stillness.

To allow any excess energy that's discharging up high to send it down there.

Ah.

Let's come to all fours and we will.

We'll do two more rounds.

We'll play here on all fours and then on the back.

So on all fours,

Let's come into our shaky down dog.

This is another good one for the legs.

What we wanna do is set up our dog so we're,

We're not super locked out.

So micro bend the elbows,

Relax the head down.

And then we're gonna start to bend and straighten the knees again towards the earth and then lift them slowly,

Press the heels back.

And look at that,

Got it on my first go.

I have a lot of experience in this.

It's easy,

It gets really easy to turn on after a while.

And then once it's on,

You just go with it.

Likely you're new to this and,

And it may not get on so easy.

So just bend and straighten again.

Go slower and more relaxed in your whole body.

And,

And just authentically slow it down.

Treat it like Qigong where you go nice and slow and relaxed and that in and of itself is therapeutic.

We wanna not force the tremor in on,

But we're looking for it.

We're looking for the signals where it wants to happen and explore it so we can build a relationship with it,

Understand it by experiencing it,

Get to know it,

Be able to turn it on and use this powerful self-regulating mechanism.

It's very common that one side will shake and not so much the other.

So go with that if that happens,

It's beautiful.

For this next one,

We'll slowly,

Maybe even go so slowly that you can hang out in the shake and we'll drop one knee.

We're in our next one,

Modified shaky plank.

Some of us will be able to just transition there and the leg is going.

Many of us will get here and it'll stop and we're like,

Okay,

Let's turn it on.

Let's,

Let's bend this back knee down.

And towards the eighth and lift and press that heel back,

Lift the knee.

Do that two,

Three,

Four,

Five plus times.

Each time more slowly and more relaxed until it starts trembling,

Quaking.

If it's a little bit or a lot,

Go with it.

And if it's sustainable,

That's all you need to do.

Hang out with it,

Listen to the shake and station,

Allow it to move you for a while until you're ready to try the next thing or until it stops.

And then if it stops,

Come back to the discovery phase,

Find it again and then rinse and repeat,

Hang out with it.

And each time you're hanging out with it even a little bit,

You're building your connection to it.

You're learning to trust it,

You're awakening your instinctive mechanism of neurogenic therapeutic tremor.

Let's switch sides so we can do the other leg for a bit.

Different side,

No expectations that it'll come on line at the same point as the other or shake in the same way.

Most likely actually it will be at least a bit different.

We tend to hold ourselves often a bit asymmetrically or tensions asymmetrically.

It's always such a good idea to just,

Once you're in it,

What helps you surrender and relax more?

There is always some effort to hold whatever shape we're in unless we're just completely melted onto the earth,

Which we're getting to.

We're getting there.

So hold that,

But with minimal effort,

That woo way.

And once you're in a shaken station,

How can you surrender to it more?

Maybe it's relaxing the mind.

Maybe it's breathing a little deeper,

Letting your belly or your neck relax more.

Okay,

Let's drop that knee.

Let's invitation to play with our shaky pushup.

Both knees down,

So it's a modified version.

We'll bend and straighten our arms.

Let the arms,

It's kind of like our legs in standing,

But our arms here.

We wanna go down nice and slow and lift even more slowly.

The shoulders can kind of press in and drop.

We press down into the earth and then drop in.

That's a add on getting the range of motion of your shoulders and elbows.

Maybe they dance together and you find a nice rhythm there.

Of course,

Eventually that pulses through your whole body.

As you advance,

It'll get easier to connect all through.

For now,

Even just a little isolated spot is more than enough.

And if you don't get every shape,

Don't worry.

That's not the point.

I don't even expect hardly anyone to probably get every shape I'm offering on their first go.

Most people probably wouldn't.

So at this point,

You can start to kind of like hang out in any of the suggestions that are working for you as I want you to prioritize building your relationship with your tremor mechanism.

And that might mean coming and playing on your belly with me.

If you wanna play down here.

First,

Let's have a little integration.

So we just did a wave of shaking.

So let's check in.

Let's stop the shake.

I wanna hold myself up so I don't mute my mic,

But you might wanna just rest down on your hands and see if you can fully let go here,

Melt into the earth.

Integrating is softening.

It's allowing the power of this tremor mechanism to be within you,

But in stillness now.

So turn it off and it very well may want to residually tremor.

Notice it if it does,

It's not bad.

Just encourage it to in softness,

Move towards stillness.

And breathe.

See if the vibration of you can kind of merge with the vibration of the ground.

This is,

Allows us to compost the energy that doesn't serve us within us because the earth loves our compost.

And fill ourself up with fresh energy that does service.

If you wanna play with me here,

Some more tremoring today.

And if you've had enough,

I'll hear that.

No need to push to go too hard,

Too quick.

We can,

What we can do is slowly lift the pelvis.

Lift and lower the pelvis.

This is our shaky sphinx.

Good for the core.

So we press our knees and elbows down essentially to lift our pelvis and lower.

And that one often gets going like a pulsing,

A popping.

This is a bit of like,

A bit of a tiring out strategy as well as a range of motion.

So anytime you're in a shape that's using a bit of effort,

As soon as you either get uncomfortable with it or as soon as you get in the shaking,

You can start to relax the effort so that slowly your body melts towards the earth.

Maybe it's only just a little bit and that's how far you can go while hanging out with the shaking.

But eventually your relationship will get better and better where you'll be able to melt the pelvis,

In this case,

The pelvis back down and still allow tremoring to pulse through you in a softer way.

Now the legs,

Coming into another option is the hammy love.

This is great to release the hamstrings and our roots there.

So bend and straighten the legs.

One leg might shake different again.

No rush,

Less is more.

Do the range of motion quite a few times as it might take a little while to get it.

Some shapes you'll get more easily than others.

Some will be harder.

Beautiful.

Okay,

Let's come into our back.

One last phase here.

If you're feeling it,

Rest if you've had enough.

And we'll all take a little micro rest regardless.

So lay on your back.

Another body scan,

Another reference point to feel the effects of the practice so far.

Be with it all without avoiding,

Without attaching.

Be the witness.

And then for one more wave,

Let's start strong and go soft.

So strong legs in the air.

We wanna bend and straighten.

This again is,

It's a range of motion of slowly bending and straightening until we find those quakes and trembles.

But it's also a strong one.

So it's gonna tire the roots,

The leg muscles out quick.

And so that might get us to start shaking.

Another,

The tiring out strategy.

Again,

This is a strong one.

So once you're in it,

You could slowly just melt any effort.

So the legs only melt as quick as you can hang out with the tremor.

And for this,

For the purpose of this to build a relationship with it,

Eventually they'll either melt onto the earth or you'll just come to this position to go for a shaky bridge lift and lower your pelvis.

This is another one that's usually good for the core popping action.

And then last option here on the earth is to let the hips come down and let's let the knees fall open into a shaky butterfly.

And we slowly can bring the knees about halfway or so towards each other.

And then slowly let it fall open.

And this,

With this one,

Your butterfly wings will start flapping.

We basically just wanna find your shaken station and surrender and relax into it and allow it to pulse through you.

Go back to the bridge,

Your legs in the air.

If,

If the butterfly's not serving you,

If it's not landing right now,

To hang out for this last little bit,

To hang out in a shaken station and see if you can find one and whatever happened for you,

Whatever you tuned into,

To,

Let's move into complete acceptance of,

Of the effort we've put in to show up for ourselves,

To nourish ourselves.

And let's just move into deep feeling witness consciousness.

And wherever we are with the shaking,

Letting,

Allow it to deepen through surrender,

Letting go of control and allowing it from a primal animalistic place to do its thing and to move through us how it wants to move us in this moment.

There's no right or wrong.

Ah,

Allow sounds at any time,

Emotions,

Tears,

Laughter,

Growls,

Animal noises,

Burps,

Digestive noises,

Whatever.

It's all good stuff here.

Ah,

Ah,

Ah,

Ah,

Ah,

Ah,

Ah,

Ah,

Ah,

Ah,

Ah,

Ah,

Ah,

Ah,

Ah,

Ah.

Last five or 10 breaths or so.

As we slowly make our way to our final relaxation,

Turning the shake off and shavasana,

Moving into deep stillness.

This is the other side of mastering the shake.

It's to be just as relaxed,

Knowing that you can,

You can allow it to move through at any point,

But holding it in this stillness,

Allowing your body to rest and integrate this practice.

You're welcome to rest a bit longer if you're feeling it.

When you're ready,

Start to bring movement into your body like you're waking from a long,

Deep sleep.

Intuitive movement,

Squeezing sounds.

Ah,

Whatever it wants to flow through.

Eventually we'll roll over,

Come up to a comfortable seat.

Take a big breath in to sweep wide and high.

And then ground,

Clear one more time.

Let it go.

Hands to prayer.

Take a big breath in.

Let it all go.

Thank you for training with me.

See you in the next one.