What is BodyMapping?

BodyMapping is the process that Shanon created to assess the postural alignment of a client’s body. This involves looking at how the body parts and joints relate to each other from the foot to the head. Shanon uses this perspective to see how the weight moves or does not move through the body. BodyMapping begins to sifting out of  clues to assemble the mystery of why there are limits or pain in thebody. 

Shanon always begins her exploration for clues at the feet before she ever looks at any other part of the body.  Why the feet? The most clues to why the posture is mis-aligned begin in the feet.  The feet will provide clues as to:

• How weight moves throughout the body
• How each limb relates to each other    How the limbs move
• How weight changesfrom the left to right side of the body
• Where pain angles are held in the body

How injury or trauma can effect any or all of these relationships. The goal of a BodyMapping session is to educate the client on how their body relates to itself. Through this knowledge the client can understand why they are experiencing pain, stiffness or limited range of motion.

What are some of the tools that Shanon uses in a BodyMapping session to gather clues to determine what postural mis-alignment might be causing the pain or limitation in a client's body?

Weighting

How are you walking on your feet?How is the weight distributed throughout the body? if you are walking in correct alignment, the ankle should be strong and in alignment with the foot.This proper alignment allows the foot to flex directly under the ankle. In order to have and hold this alignment all the muscles need to be equally strong.

How one’s foot relates to the ground

Another piece of detective work is to evaluate how the foot strikes the ground. What part or parts of the foot actually strike the ground? From there Shanon can evaluate if the foot supinates, pronates or does something of its own design. If there are alignment issues, these distortions will cause other alignment issues in the calves, knees, hips, back and neck. Each time the body has to compensate for foot disturbances it creates pain angles so that the body can move orhold itself in some kind of alignment.

Pain Angles

Imagine a pool table with a ball bouncing off the sides. As it hits the bumpers on the sides of the table the ball moves away at various angles. The force and angle with which the ball hits the bumpers determines the how the ball will continue in motion and its momentum. In the same way, the direction of forces and angles on the body’s muscles and joints affect the range of motions in a client’s body. Improperly aligned joints and muscles result in reduced flexibility and limited range of motions which ultimately cause pain in various parts of the body.

And this is where the real detective work comes in, to see how the pain angles relate and interrelate with the body. By mapping all these pain angles, Shanon can actually see why the body will not work in the way it was created. Often one muscle group may be over-working to compensate (or not working) because of the creation of a pain angle.

A pain angle can manifest itself in a variety of ways, the most common is that the bones and muscles wlll not be able to hold the body in proper alignment. Pain angles can be caused by injury, trauma, heredity or by another postural mis-alignment.

Another example

If a person is walking on either the outside or inside of the foot this action will cause the body to adapt to a new alignment. Once the distortion is patterned in the body, it will create a disturbance in the gait as well as negatively affect a person's posture. This unwanted adaptation causes the body to compensate again and move utilizing unwanted weight shifts. The result are issues that has been magnified all in response to a distortion in the way one uses the feet.

When this new posturing occurs, many joints become unbalanced. Additionally, one muscle set now dominates while another muscle set becomes recessive. This causes instability in the joint or joints, limited range of motions, and results in pain.

BodyMapping is a tool that assess and collects all the clues from a client’s body that tell the story of how and why The clients is experiencing limits and or pain in their bodies.