"The Origins of Stretch Therapy, and Deep Well Being"
Part one of a new series, Dave Wardman interviews Kit, and together they explore the origins of our collective work. Influences include G. Spencer Brown, Anthony Wilden, Alfred Korzybski, the Buddha, and countless students, here and overseas.
Kit talks about how he discovered some of the core techniques of ST (before finding that, of course, he was only re-discovering what others had found!), and Dave asks Kit about some of his major influences in his thinking.
The ST Forums can be accessed here:
https://www.kitlaughlin.com/forums/.
Membership is free and there are many wonderful and helpful people there.
Dave has a channel here too; see https://vimeo.com/user18755817.
Time stamped show notes
00:00 - Origins of Stretch Therapy
01:00 - Kit goes to dance classes!
02:00 - “Rubber Man”
03:00 - my fellow students at the dance classes
04:15 - the way Kit used to move
05:00 - Kit goes to Japan, first breakthrough
06:15 - Kit rediscovers contraction stretching
07:10 - our mind are lying to us all the time!
08:00 - applying contractions to all of Mr Iyengar’s poses
08:45 - Greg’s invention of the ‘bent-leg’ approach to hamstring stretching
09:45 - Kit was extremely flexible—and completely unstable
10:45 - back pain and hip flexors
11:30 - experimenting at the ANU in exercise classes
13:15 - “tinkering” and retesting: the core of the method
14:45 - Dave describes his experiences in class
15:45 - your perception is a lie
16:30 - the body is experiencing sheer panic!
17:10 - “What else have I been wrong about?”
19:10 - what are the real limits in the experience of life?
20:30 - “breaching the height envelope”
21:15 - One element we have not talked about: relaxation
23:55 - When you can relax enough in daily life, everything will change
24:30 - Reich and character armour
26:00 - “No unnecessary tension”
26:55 - Dave describes how he learned deep relaxation
28:30 - having the experience of being deeply relaxed as an option to return to
29:10 - Liv and alignment
30:00 - “Grasp the nettle!”
31:15 - restrictions are cyclic
32:00 - Olga’s story and her experience of becoming aware of her fear habit
34:40 - Kit’s road into learning deep relaxation
37:30 - There’s work to be done, right here
38:15 - “I’ll just do this, then…”
39:25 - Sometimes when doing physical work, a change can happen
40:35 - “You are changing with every breath—or perhaps you haven’t noticed?
41:30 - Our bodies are tied to the Earth in a way our minds are not
42:40 - There is no user’s guide to the human body; we are making one
43:45 - The learning process is a two-way process
44:50 - It’s new, all the time
45:40 - “How do you stay enthusiastic?”
46:10 - the privilege of teaching
46:45 - Dave argues the word “therapy” is not completely fitting
47:00 - “You can’t give people self-knowledge
47:15 - “You can lead a horse to water…”
48:00 - Science is looking in the wrong place
48:45 - Why science likes “cause”
49:15 - Dave discusses the mindset he began ST training with
50:15 - Practitioners never deal with single cause problems
51:00 - When Dave and Kit first met: the contents of the bookcase!
52:00 - the problems of consistency
52:15 - there are no contradictions in nature
53:45 - Nature is complete, seamless, undivided
54:20 - Kit apologises for never having mentioned Alfred Korzybski to Dave
54:45 - Dave explains why he wanted to record a CSC: all the things D&K are discussing are not in Kit’s books!
55:30 - Kit talks about G. Spencer Brown
56:20 - The mind divides the Universe
57:30 - Dave’s experience of ST: “stretch therapy plus extra”. K&D agree to record CSC #2