Native Yoga Toddcast

Jörg Schürpf ~ Listening to the Body: Mastering Presence and Intention in Healing

• Todd Mclaughlin • Season 1 • Episode 229

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Jörg Schürpf is a distinguished therapist with extensive expertise in both Thai massage and osteopathy. He possesses a unique blend of knowledge as both a Thai massage practitioner and an osteopath, which he integrates into his teaching and practice. He co-authored the book "OsteoThai, The Poetry of Touch: When Thai Massage Meets Osteopathy" with David Lutt, reflecting his passion and authority in manual therapies. Currently based in Switzerland, Jörg is a prominent figure in the world of bodywork, known for his holistic approach that emphasizes presence, attention, and intention in therapeutic practices.

Visit Jörg here: https://www.joergschuerpf.ch/en/

Order a copy of the book: https://lulyani.com/en/boook/

Key Takeaways:

  • Fusion of Disciplines: Jörg Schürpf has merged Thai massage and osteopathy into "osteo Thai," a unique practice that balances Eastern movement with Western anatomical understanding.
  • Educational Insights: European osteopathy differs from American practices, often requiring a background in medical or therapeutic professions, though a unique path is available for those passionate about healing.
  • Concept of Fulcrum: Understanding fulcrums in bodywork can drastically enhance the effectiveness of touch therapies, allowing for precise and safe manipulations.

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Todd McLaughlin:

Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. So happy you are here. My goal with this channel is to bring inspirational speakers to the mic in the field of yoga, massage, body work and beyond. Follow us at @Native yoga and check us out at nativeyogacenter.com. All right, let's begin. Hello. Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast today. My very special guest is Jorg Schurpf. He is located in Switzerland, and he is the co author of Osteothai, The Poetry of Touch, in an amazing book that I got turned on to, and I cannot wait for you to hear your take on life, body healing, Thai osteopathy, movement, martial art, yoga, tai chi. He's an he's a gifted instructor, gifted teacher and practitioner, and I'm so grateful you are here. Check out his website and links in the description. You can order a copy of the book that we're talking about. If you're on the listening side and you want to see some of the ideas that he's sharing visually, go to our YouTube channel at @Nativeyoga, and I hope that you enjoy this episode as much as I did. Thank you. Let's begin. I'm really delighted to have the opportunity to bring Jorg Schurpf onto the podcast with me today. You're you're joining me all the way from Switzerland. Am I correct?

Jörg Schürpf:

That's correct. Yes.

Todd McLaughlin:

Amazing. I love how we can do this. We can we can meet up and be on the other sides of the world. I am really excited to have this opportunity, and I'm happy, excited to have this chance to talk to you about your book that you co authored with David Lutt or I heard you say David LUT, and I'm glad I pronounced, pronounced his last name correctly. It's called Osteo Thai, the poetry of touch. When Thai massage meets osteopathy, and, you know, I I'm a Thai massage practitioner, I'm so excited to meet somebody else who also is a Thai massage practitioner. But am I correct that you are also an osteopath,

Unknown:

that's correct, yeah.

Todd McLaughlin:

So you're, you're a doctor, you're an MD?. How does that work? I don't

Jörg Schürpf:

that works. It works differently in in Europe, actually, in Europe, osteopathy has been brought to Europe, first to England by John, Littlejohn, and then from Great Britain. It moved over to Belgium and France, where some other osteopaths brought osteopathy, and mainly it, they used to teach osteopathy to physiotherapists and then later on, in Belgium and France, osteopathy became quite big, and they started their own schools. And usually it was. It was a domain that was reserved to physiotherapists, doctors and dentists. Nowadays in France, you can actually there is like two ways of becoming an osteopath, either by being a physiotherapist first, or by having studied medicine, being a doctor or a dentist. And the other way that the French actually decided that was also an opportunity was for young people to study osteopathy directly for five years, like a full time study. And most osteopaths in Europe, they have usually followed that path, but in Germany and there was a loophole, because in Germany, you have what they call the healing practitioner. And the healing practitioners, they could do any sorts of trainings and then use the healing arts as a healing practitioner. So I, actually, I. Am coming really, from a completely different end, and I studied osteopathy some 25 years ago in Germany, where I was able to join the courses by not being a doctor, by not being a physiotherapist, by not being a dentist, but I already was a therapist in Switzerland and being a therapist allowed me to actually go to school in Germany. Wow. And that was a five year training back in the day. It still is. They nowadays. I think they upped it by one more year. It's six years study. And so I studied in Germany, and then I was able to bring my, like, my certification, back to Switzerland, but the laws have changed, and so I officially am not allowed to practice osteopathy anymore since the first February this year. Wow.

Todd McLaughlin:

I'm sorry. I'm sorry to hear that, that you could spend much time and love and passion, studying, learning, practicing, and then have the government. Sorry, my friend, nope, not good enough. Start over here. Go take it well. So what would you need to do at this point, if I have so many questions for you, so let me start with this one. What would you what would you need to do if you wanted to legally say I'm an osteopath currently?

Jörg Schürpf:

If currently, I wanted to continue to practice as an osteopath, I would have to enroll in at any university offering a courses of becoming a master in the science of osteopathy, so that will be at least two years of studies. And I would have to, you know, make a what's really big nowadays in Europe is the so called Evidence Based sciences and osteopathy is going down that road. So I would have to write a thesis, a master thesis, where I would have to do some statistics and maybe do a double blind study in order to prove the validity of osteopathy, wow. And if I would do that, then I could continue to practice as an osteopath,

Todd McLaughlin:

wow. So okay, if I've never heard of osteo, osteo osteo being an osteopath. Can you give us the osteopathy for Dummies definition for those of us listening that are like, What? What are we even talking about?

Jörg Schürpf:

Well, the way I like to to say it in a few words, were by the words of Andrew Taylor still, who is the founding father of osteopathy, who's American originally, and he said, osteopathy is a holistic manual medicine that only resorts to the hands and to The knowledge and understanding of anatomy and physiology in order to heal. So not in order to heal, but so that the body can heal itself through the touch of the Osteopath.

Todd McLaughlin:

Cool, great definition. Yeah,

Jörg Schürpf:

I think that's a good definition too, actually. So it's not us healing, but it's in osteopathy. Still, he he put for forward a few really important principles, one of which was the body is capable of self regulation, self healing. And he used to say very much like Michelangelo, who was once asked, But how were you able to create such beautiful sculptures out of the stone? And he said, Well, you know, in a way, the sculpture was already there. All I did was take my hammer and my chisel and take everything away in order to free up view of what's already been in the stone and and I like to say that, in a way, health is already present within the human being, and it's up to us to find a way so that that health can express itself more freely. Very, cool,

Todd McLaughlin:

excellent. So then how and where and when did you learn about and begin to study and practice Thai massage or Thai bodywork?

Jörg Schürpf:

So my path actually started in 1992 Yeah, and I studied, not Thai massage at first, but I studied shiatsu. And so shiatsu being also practiced on the floor, on the mat, but more coming from Japan and having its roots more in Traditional Chinese Medicine and the five element philosophy of the traditional Chinese medicine. That was my entry point. And so I started at 1992 and studied shiatsu, very, very intensively. And then I also was, I love to travel. So I was traveling quite a bit at the time in the later 90s, and I went to Thailand quite often. And so first time in Thailand, you know, you've been there yourself. That's like, one of the good things you do is, you see, ah, there is a way I can get a Thai massage for like, 300 baht. So you just walk up to a salon and you book a session, you can walk in and you receive a session. And that's what I did. And I was really, really amazed by the beauty of how Thai massage really was touching me and actually really connected with me deeply. And so at first I was really just a receiver, and I was just like, wow, this is fabulous. It's very similar to shiatsu, but it's not shiatsu. Thai massage uses a lot more stretches, uses a lot more mobilization techniques, which in the traditional Japanese or European shiatsu was not as much emphasized, and that's what really caught my attention. So I Okay, I need to go a little bit deeper here and start to study that

Todd McLaughlin:

very cool and the term that you use for the book osteotai. Can you give us a little bit of some of the history of how this term came to be? Because I only came across the idea of osteo Thai about maybe three years ago, where I had a chance to interview somebody that said, Oh yeah, I studied osteo Thai. And I was kind of, oh, wait, I haven't heard that little spin on it yet. Can you give us a little bit of an understanding of, maybe your understand what the history of the blending of osteopathy and Thai massage and how that came to be?

Jörg Schürpf:

Yeah, definitely. So my friend and colleague, David, well, he, we call him David because of the French, you know, in English, he would say David, but he really doesn't like to be

Todd McLaughlin:

called that way, all right, David, it is David. It is. That's

Jörg Schürpf:

why we call him David. So he, I met David in 2001 I had just begun my studies of osteopathy, and I met him as a student of mine in a shiatsu camp in a shiatsu summer camp in Belgium. And he was really fascinated by the work that I did. I was really just, I had just finished my first year of osteopathy, and I put a lot of emphasis on, like, the understanding of anatomy and physiology and bringing in those concepts. And he was really fascinated by that, but he was already much more on the path, also of Thai massage. He had done shiatsu training. That's how he got to body work. And then he continued his studies in shiatsu. But also parallel, he studied Thai massage in Chiang Mai, and there he met another French guy that goes by the name of Arnaud, lermeet. And Arnaud and David, they were both really, really fond of Thai massage, and Arnaud had done a little bit of training in osteopathy, and David, having been inspired somehow by the work that I was doing, he started his studies of osteopathy a year after like we met. So he studied osteopathy in France, and he then with, together with Arno, they were developing their own curriculum, because Arnault and David, they're both very agile practitioners. They and they, what they learned was used to be called Thai Yoga massage, and so they were. Lot of moves and a lot of dynamic moves that they brought into the Thai massage, but then also the idea of osteopathy, really for them was very important, because they thought, well, this gives a little extra to the Thai massage, which doesn't really take into consideration the anatomy and physiology of how the body works. And they, the two of them, they have created the name. They came up with the name osteotai.

Todd McLaughlin:

Very cool. Yeah. They were the first ones to coin the term

Jörg Schürpf:

Exactly, exactly. And then they developed the they developed osteo tie together for a while, and they started teaching it in Thailand, but also in France, in and all over, actually, all over the place. And then some years later, David and I, we met up again that when David had finished his studies, we met again. Our paths crossed at a workshop that I was teaching, which was introduction to osteopathic techniques. And that's when we got talking and going a little bit deeper, and we said, well, you know, it's really fascinating where we both discovered that the love for touch, and especially the listening touch, was something that we really shared. And that's how we then decided, hey, let's do something together. And I, back in the day, had just come up with with a training that I offer to therapists that didn't have the time, the money, or whatever other reasons to go and study for five years and become an osteopath, and I had created what I had called the Shen master training. And when David heard about that idea, he said, Oh, that sounds really cool. I'm going to come and do the same. I'm going to come and do the course with you. And I said, Well, you know, you are already an osteopath. How about you just come and assist the course, that way we have time to talk, that way we have time together, and we'll see where this is going to take us. And that was, in a way, than the start, where we just spent more time together, and then we started also going to trainings together, to see some different osteopaths. And we just became aware of we really share the same idea and the same vision, and that's how we then decided, okay, let's continue to develop osteo tide together. By that time, him and Arnaud had gone separate paths, and Arnaud continued his his version of osteo Thai, which is much more structural, which is much more oriented towards mobilization, stretches, adjustment techniques. But with David, we decided now we also want to bring in all the visceral manipulation, the cranial sacral system and the especially what I mentioned before, the listening touch, and that's how we then decided to develop osteo tie together. Wow, in a way, the how the book has then now, out of the work we can like, we have started teaching together in 2015 so like 10 years ago, and over the years, we have discovered more and more possibilities of where we wanted to go with osteo tie. And that's how we like five years ago, we decided maybe it's time for us to write a book about how we see osteo Thai, what we do with it, and also especially because meanwhile, we have inspired some other people to actually go down the path of becoming an osteopath. Wow. So we decided it's time for us to put something in writing, because it's really our passion and it's also our way of life. Wow,

Todd McLaughlin:

I love hearing that story. Thank you for giving me the details that is so cool. I like I like hearing how you guys have been able to work so well together, both being so passionate and just the evolution this like slow, steady evolution of well, let's see how we work together. And then, wow, this is working. Let's try to put a book together. And then, you know, I just want to say I collect Thai massage books anytime I find a new one. Try to get it. But this book is really artistic and beautiful, so I'm just randomly opening up to a page, and the first one that pops up is he who excels at marksmanship does not hit the bullseye. And we have this really beautiful painting of an archer aiming toward a circle that has the word pie written in it. I'm randomly pulling this up. Can you give me a little bit of insight into the point that you both are attempting to make with state, with a statement such as, he who excels at marksmanship does not hit the bullseye?

Jörg Schürpf:

Yeah. Well, so like, as I mentioned before, David and I, we share a passion for touch, but we have met through shiatsu, which is a Japanese art of touch, and we both have a passion for Japan. David has been working in Japan and teaching in Japan for pouf, I would say, almost 10 years now, probably a little less, maybe seven or eight years. And so what we really, really love about Japan is especially that Archer, because there is a little book that we both really appreciate that was written by a German author, Eugene heryl, and he had written a book about Zen in the art of archery. And we find that his book really, really describes, somehow, the path that we share with people when, when they come and start training with us, we tell them, Hey, we are not here to tell you, this is the way to do it. We are more here to invite you to to go on on the path of mastery of touch by discovering new ways, by discovering different ways of how we can touch, how we can perceive through touch, and especially how we can actually tap into the health which is present In the body, and in that sense, the archer aiming at the pie, the pie for us is it has like, you know, you, you may, you might have been to pie yourself in in Thailand. And so we made we, we made out of pie. We said, okay, pie is presence, attention and intention. And so like the archer, you need to be completely present to yourself before actually being present to the target. You're not aiming at the target. You are really present to yourself, and then you expand your presence and your consciousness to your receiver. Then you bring your attention to your breathing as well as to your receivers breath. And somehow it's like in a whole process of attunement, of how we first really through the presence, and then the attention get into contact with the other person, and then we set an intention, and like the archer, whose aim is not to hit the target, whose aim is much more to be in the present moment and to go through the different moves that allow the archer, in a way, to disappear, so that it's not the archer with his mind and ego that is drawing the bow and letting the arrow fly, that it's much more. It is happening through him, we become a channel. And by becoming that channel through presence, attention and the intention of simply allowing the energy which might be stuck somewhere to transform itself back into movement. And that's that's, in a way, our first definition of pi and how that goes in with the archer. Wow.

Todd McLaughlin:

And that's, that's just one picture in the book. I need to we're gonna have to schedule a couple of days to for me to interview, because there's like so much incredible imagery in here. But I love that. That's absolutely amazing. I think the intention part every time I go down a path of Study and Learning in a different tradition, intention seems to be something that is in made emphasis is emphasized in a lot of different approaches to things. And so I'm curious when you describe. Describe the presence, attention and intention, and then you related engaging in physical touch, or the ability to use touch, how much of the healing experience percentage is on the on the pie, The Pai, or on the touch. Do you give it like a 5050, balance, or do you feel more like it's about more like 95% on the PAI and the touch part is small, or the other way around, is the skill that you teach and have learned is it mostly about palpatory skill and the intention? I know these are hard. That's a hard question to answer, because, like, how do you break it down? Because then, obviously, you've spent so many years studying anatomy and physiology and then the biology of the body that that probably has a huge factor. I would just love to hear how you would explain your understanding of what is most important and how important is it to learn good physical skill as well,

Jörg Schürpf:

well as as we actually described in the book, we believe that the presence, attention and intention part, they are really the parts which relate to the practitioner, and we find it even we are really aware of the fact that this is a really subjective, a subjective part. At the same time, we also feel that being present to ourselves and having the awareness of being present like a channel between father sky and Mother Earth, and being centered in our hearts is the really most important part before we actually start to touch someone. So we call them subjective factors, but they are so important for us because we truly believe that there are many incredibly great technicians out there. They know amazing techniques, but as both of us have experienced on our path of learning, especially in osteopathy, we have met amazing technicians, but very rare were the people that actually touched us where we felt touched, where we felt they really connected to My being or to our being while being touched, and that it was not just, Oh, you've got this problem. I will do this technique, that technique, and that technique, and you'll be better. That's just something that doesn't work for us. So in a way, as we describe in the book, we find it's most, I don't know if it's a 5050, or if it's a 6040, or a 9010, but I would say definitely we need to start with that presence to ourselves, and with that connection to the sky and to the Earth and to the heart, and with the connection to to what really is, because by being connected to ourselves, it is such an incredible discovery to actually meet someone else through touch and through Those qualities of presence, attention and intention, and that opens up a whole new dimension and a whole new world where we find that we are actually capable of really, truly perceiving the person's needs, rather than thinking, Oh, You've got this problem. I know the solution we, we. We believe that through presence, attention and intention, our intention, when we touch is to allow stuck energy or stagnating energy to transform into movement, back to life, and it's the body that actually tells us that if we have that presence, if we have that attention, and if we listen, if we have that ability to actually listen to the body that we touch. Amazing.

Todd McLaughlin:

Well said, Do you have a. Personal practice that you do in relation to a form of exercise or meditation, I guess my mind is going down the track of like either a yoga practice or a Tai Chi practice or martial arts practice or some type of movement therapy that you found has helped you, helped helped you to develop your ability to master. Pai, uh, maybe Master is a strong word, but you know what I mean? Like to engage with it and build it and grow it for your hands on practice,

Jörg Schürpf:

yeah, for myself, I have I've always been a very physical person. Ever since I can remember, I was always really into sports. I really was a a person interested in different sports. So that was, in a way, my entry point. And then I discovered martial arts around the age of 18. And I discovered martial arts with a Frenchman who was the right hand of a Japanese guy that went by the name of Yoshino Nambu, and Nambu, he created a sort of synthesis of karate, judo and Aikido and Jacque, My master that I have followed for many years. He was really amazing at really taking apart the different movements. And he always said, we use karate in order to open the dialog, in order to engage the dialog, but then we use much more Judo or Aikido the circle, rather than just blocking like it would be the case with most karate practitioners, we would use much more the judo way or the aikido way in order to Answer the engagement or the opening of the dialog. And of course, through that martial art practice, he also introduced me to a very dynamic form of yoga. I had then studied a little bit of yoga later, which for me, was less my path. I I needed a little bit more action. David, he is much more on the path of the yogi. He has an extensive yoga practice. I have a lot of yoga exercises that I have practiced, but I would say with a different focus. The focus that I learned was how to really combine my breath with my movement and so and like I said before, it was really all based on the circle, like in Aikido, and that's also something where David and I, we meet. He's, he's an incredible Capoeira practitioner. He has also practiced martial arts. He's, he's a yogi. Is a very flexible person. I'm very flexible myself, but my practice is more I would say, Yeah, I need to move, and I need to combine my movement with my breath. So it's I've then also discovered tai chi through my master's wife, she was an incredible Tai Chi practitioner, and Jacques always told us, if you want to go fast one day, you need to slow down. So if CO of course, he had us practice with his wife so we would slow down. And it was amazing to actually really experience, you know how through slowing down, the movements could really become extremely fast.

Todd McLaughlin:

Yeah, wow. Very cool. Very cool York. How do how? Okay, I'm trying to think of a listener that maybe is unfamiliar with Thai massage. Maybe never had Thai massage before. You did a great job of giving a nice, concise and relatable and understandable definition of osteopathy. How would you define? Thai massage to the listener that is maybe having question marks like, what is that? Actually, I'm think, I always think that everybody knows what Thai massage is, especially if they're in the world of yoga and body work. But, but let's just assume somebody listening is really curious. What is Thai massage? How would you define that?

Jörg Schürpf:

All right, so my first words to describe Thai massage would be, it's a sacred dance. It's it's something that is usually happening on a mat. The person is wearing clothes, usually with natural fibers, preferably. And it's really a sacred dance where the practitioner enters into contact with the receiver's body, usually in traditional Thai massage, you start at the feet, and you start working your way up from the feet through the legs by working on the pelvis, working on the lower back, starting to open the diaphragm, using also a lot of movements stretches when the whole energy moves from the feet up pelvis, diaphragm to the shoulders, coming all the way up to the neck. And then the sacred dance usually will also shift from a supine position into side position to come towards the end into a sitting position, where, again, these different parts of the body are being touched, mobilized, stretched, needed and then at the end of the session, you come back down into what the yogis would know as shavasana position, and where you will finish the treatment with working on the face. You can also work on the head. And then, really, after this sacred dance that can last up to 90 minutes, up to 120 minutes, an hour and a half, two hours of being moved, stretched, needed, compressed, opened, where at the end you just lie and you feel how that sacred dance continues on the inside and starts to open up the pathways of energy where people experience how life is really expressing itself,

Todd McLaughlin:

yeah, best Definition yet for Thai massage, you definitely that was awesome. Yeah, well done. Well done, man. I really hope I get a chance to have to meet you in person and experience Thai massage from you. Yeah, that'd be lovely, because you're so passionate about I really appreciate that. Is, um, so now I'm curious, like, what I picked up on from, well, the fact that I love that you guys blended the osteopathy with the Thai massage. I started practicing Thai massage. I and I love it, and I've been at it for a while, and and then I have my own body challenges, physical challenges, that the more as I'd study anatomy more, and then I would, you know, be in a situation where I would go for a Thai massage. I found myself getting nervous because, like in Thailand, I remember, because the communication, language barrier was there, and that if I was to, if I would try to let somebody know I've got this low back issue where if I go into a back bend because of the spondylolisthesis, it just compresses on the nerve, so it kind of hurts. So is there any way we could avoid doing the back bending in the lower back well, even just the fact that I tried to say that just now in English, that would mean absolutely nothing other than I could use a little bit of sign language to say, you know, shaking head, hand on low back, this movement, no, thank you, that type of thing. And then I found myself being pulled into the deepest back bend ever right after I got done saying it. And then, you know, like, going, Ah, and then laughing a little bit and saying, haha, you know, like, maybe you were hiking too much, and, and, and so it was challenging. I find it challenging even now when sometimes, when I go to have someone work with me, I that hasn't really had a lot of training in the anatomy side, and I know they just did, like a weekend long time massage training somewhere. I get a little cautious that are they gonna understand the orthopedic component to manipulating a body? So I would love to hear your take on how. So bringing the anatomical understanding that you've learned through osteopathy into the world of Thai massage has transformed you working with others, and what you've noticed people studying with you, how it's transformed perhaps their practice as well.

Jörg Schürpf:

So before you asked me about my background in movement, martial arts and meditation. So part of the whole thing was also the meditation I didn't really talk about before, but the meditation being the sitting and just the centering between just Heaven and Earth, and centering in my own heart, which is for me, really the most crucial part of the beginning of a session. And it is within this centering, within this presence to myself, that when I start touching the body, my first and foremost important thing that I share with my students is, before you start talking, before you start doing anything to your receivers, body, you need to listen. And as you mentioned, the language barrier in Thailand, sometimes they ask you, you know, when they see me come, and then they go, Oh, you strong, you very strong. You want strong Thai massage. And I say, No, no, no, not strong. I want good, good Thai massage, not strong. And I found that that was a real, real, beautiful key, because Kai, they do know, because they know how to move out of their own body, what they what's more inherent and like in it, within the Asian person, is that movement that the Japanese would call move out of your tan Tien, move out of your Hara. And the Thai, they know how to do that. It's an it's an innate intelligence that they have. And by telling them, don't, give me strong, give me good, it brings them back to their own centering. And when then they start doing the practice with me. They they feel, they sense immediately the tensions of my body, my resistance, and they go much more slowly. But I've also had the experience like you trying to tell them, yeah, pay attention to my lower back. And like you said, you know, they just stretch you apart in a way that you think I'm gonna break into pieces,

Todd McLaughlin:

like, am I gonna survive this? What's gonna happen if I got to go find a wheelchair? But then feeling so good after, and that is such an amazing part of it, isn't it? What? What do you think that is all about? Where, oh, you know the mind, and then the worry, you know, almost like a fear of, like, will I be hurt? And then feeling so good, you know what I mean? Like, so much better. And you just think, Wow, this is so funny. The mind is so funny.

Jörg Schürpf:

Oh yeah. I mean, I feel that's, that's what I found, is it's a lot the mind. And that's why, when I, when I tell my students, or when I work with my students, I tell them, you first center, bring that presence your attention. And then when you land, you let your hand land, and then you merge with the person. And then you listen to the body's ability, how it expresses itself through breathing, how it expresses its own vitality and how how resilient the body is, and you can learn how to you can learn to listen to that, to those factors by taking the time at the beginning of really landing, merging and listening, and then especially for the lower back, we bring the attention to the student that you know you have maybe learned, yeah, deep, vertical pressure down on the spine, but on the lumbar spine. That just doesn't make sense if you press down vertically into the floor, if somebody has, like you said before, spondylolisthesis, if you press on down deep, it's just gonna hurt like hell. By showing them the spine and the mechanics of the spine, we tell them, you know, when you come. To the lower if you, if you're pressing down on the thoracic spine, not a problem. But if you come down to the lumbar spine, you don't press down like this. You press up. You so you land, and then you you go like at 45 degree angle, and you press up towards the diaphragm, up towards the thoracic spine. That way, you actually free up the lumbar spine and you avoid of really hurting your receiver, because you're respecting and that's really where osteopathy can can come in with its precision of anatomical understanding and visualization of, hey, the spine is is designed in a very specific way, and you need to have the awareness of how the the facets, they articulate, how they work. And once you understand, you are automatically going to adapt your touch, especially in the lumbar spine, to the anatomy, and that's where osteopathy really brings something very precious to Thai massage.

Todd McLaughlin:

Amazing, I agree. And that made me think this morning I was reading in your book about the fulcrum. And I loved, I love the detail that you guys put in relation to examining, say, like the leg, and we have the ankle, and we have the knee, and then we have the hip, and then being able to find the point for which, with the movement, is hinging on and hinging off of and understanding the fulcrum. Can you talk a little bit about the importance of the fulcrum? Because I feel like you, you were going there in the relation to how important it is to understand the body. I guess, I guess, got to make a little side note here. I work with a lot of yoga teachers that are learning how to do assists in a yoga room environment and and there's so much to learn and to teach, and it's a really challenging element to to get people to understand how powerful touches and how careful but or how attentive to the detail like you're mentioning, you also brought up the idea that the body is very resilient, and sometimes our minds are freaking out while we're being pushed or pulled on and then, and, you know, and in reality, it's it does work out Okay. But I also think that's important to really emphasize with people learning that we do need to learn some of these mechanics so that we're successful and not injurious to individuals or people. So I guess, with all that being said, Can you give us a little bit of insight into how important it is to understand the fulcrum in relation to working with others in a healthy way. Well, yeah, I know that's a tough question. I'm glad you're not asking me that question. Is this too in depth for a podcast? I don't know. Can we pull that off in 10 minutes? Kidding?

Jörg Schürpf:

I might, I might. So let's see. I'm just gonna use a little prop to cool to make explain. So, yeah, you can see this little thing here. This is what's called a Taurus, right? It's a metallic structure, and I can just roll it onto my arm. And in the Taurus. So there is this emptiness inside. So if you look at it from here, you can see there is a hole right inside and

Todd McLaughlin:

your York I'm so sorry, just for those listening that aren't watching, and if you, if they want, if they want to watch on YouTube, the native yoga is our channel. You'll see it on there. But just so people know what you have looks like a slinky that is made into a circle where the slinky is the two ends of the slinky are touching, so it makes a circle. And then you were just putting the slinky on your arm and rolling it down one arm, and then putting your hand in the little hole and rolling it down the other. I just wanted to say that so that if someone's listening or not like, What the heck is he taught? Yeah, okay,

Jörg Schürpf:

so to come back to the definition, let's come back to the definition of the fulcrum in that slinky. There is an empty space, and it's an. Around that empty space, that movement actually starts to present itself. And the slinky can move in two directions. It can create like a suction, or it can also create like a push. So if let's let's go first with the definition of the fulcrum, the fulcrum being a three dimensional space. So the listener could imagine like a ball, and now a fulcrum. The definition of the fulcrum in osteopathy is the fulcrum is suspended, and it can shift automatically. So let's bring this back to the body you mentioned before. We have the leg, we have ankle, we have a knee, we have a hip joint. In every joint, there is a suspended three dimensional space between the two bones. And so let's say if I have a straight leg, the leg is extended, and now I start bending it at the level of the knee, that empty space is going to be compressed, and it might move in one direction or the other. That's the suspension card of the fulcrum. If the knee functions properly, I can extend and flex my knee, and my fulcrum will be compressed, and then it will actually expand again, and it might shift a little bit sideways to more towards the center, more towards the outside, more towards the front more towards the back. If the joint is perfectly healthy, the movement of the fulcrum is actually allowing a harmonious, healthy movement capable of extending and flexing the leg, like what we need to use, like what we use when we're walking or when we're jogging or when we're running. So the definition of the fulcrum is, as long as that three dimensional space is suspended, it will shift automatically. What that means is it will adapt automatically to the body's needs or also to the needs of gravity. So if a yogi learns how to do extensive back bends and stuff like that, where the risk of injury is big, they need to understand that somewhere within the spine there is a fulcrum, a three dimensional space that needs to be capable of adapting as I back bend, the fulcrum needs to move slightly more towards the front of the body. As I forward bend, the fulcrum needs to move more back. If I doing a certain extension, the fulcrum will move down a little bit. If I flex, it will move up a little bit. So it's this three dimensional space being suspended capable of adapting automatically. Wow. So that's the definition of the fulcrum. Very cool. I

Todd McLaughlin:

followed all that. That makes perfect sense. Thank you. So

Jörg Schürpf:

now, if we do something and we hurt ourselves, we lose that ability of automatically adapting. So I, let's say I go way too fast and way too deep into a back bend. And it could happen that at one point, my fulcrum moves forward towards the chest, and I feel, ah, I feel a deep, sharp pain in my back. But that pain, if you ask the person, they will tell you it's directed towards the front of the body. It's directed towards the sternum, and somehow, now, if it stays there, I the fulcrum is not a fulcrum anymore. Now the fulcrum has become a fixity, a fixation, or a fixed point. So that means that when the person tries to go into a forward bend or into another back bend, they cannot, because somehow the segment of the body is being fixed in a position where now the ability To shift automatically is being lost. So with touch, let's imagine we feel that point. It's somewhere between the back and between the front of the body. If I put one hand in the back of the body and one hand in the front of the body, now I can compress that space and see what does that. Do. Usually, if I compress the space, and the space is healthy, it will expand back into my hand. If I try to expand the space, I would have to feel a reciprocal retraction somewhere so between the compression and the opening, I should be able to feel in which direction the fixation has occurred. So let's say it's occurred when I compress the body is not expanding back into my hands. So now I'm thinking, Hmm, how can I how can I show the body that it would actually be capable of expanding? So now I adjust my hands. I compress, but now I move maybe one hand a little up and the other, I move it a little bit down. I move one a little bit more towards the front. I move the other one a little bit towards the back. And now I go and check so it's like trying to to tune into that three dimensional space of fixation. And by those very gentle movements, all of a sudden the body will start to Oh, yeah. I like to go this way? No, I don't like to go that way. So, ah, you like to go this way? Let's go a little bit this way. Do you like to go up or down now? Oh, I prefer to go down. Now, let's go down a little bit. Now, let's see if you come back towards the center. No, I don't like that. You go a little bit further away from the center. Yeah, I like that. Now I compress again and then I release. Now, all of a sudden the body, because we have moved with the body, and this fixity, this fixation, into a direction of where the body feels at ease, the body at one point will now, when I compress again and release the body is capable of expanding, so it's reconnecting to its in inherent intelligence of being a fulcrum. So by creating a suspension of the fixation between my hands, I can actually bring it back towards its fulcrum reality. And when that happens, usually the person they will feel, oh yeah, this feels good. Oh yeah, this ah. And then all of a sudden, what are they going to do? They're like, Ah, let me they're going to take a deep breath, and they're going to reconnect. And by that reconnection, the fix it, the fixation now shifts and back to its original ability of being a fulcrum, being suspended and capable of shifting automatically.

Todd McLaughlin:

Wow. Yeah, Jorg, you are, you are a good teacher, man, you're good, you're good, you you explain that so well. Thank you. That was really cool. I don't know that I've ever conceptualized that like that before. I think the right away when you first started to explain, like I was imagining the knee, the knee is bending. So I imagine like, if I'm laying on my belly and my my knee is bent. And if you were kind of gently pushing down on my heel and then rocking my knee a little forward, and then rocking a little back, the way the pressure in the knee joint, like the way you explain that the fulcrum can move anywhere. And so as you're flexing the knee a little more and pushing down, all of a sudden, the pressure is kind of going out over here, and then you're bending over this way, and then the pressure is pushing over here. So it's like, even though it just looks like one knee, one one area that's bending, really, you're right. There's so many different little gradients of pressure moving around. So I knew that, but the way you explained it, that was cool. Man, I really, I think I get it. I like that. You that's just fascinating. Very cool. That's where I think I need more training from the professional side, like osteopathy, where that's what I've always loved about studying with Michael Shea is like the amount of years that he's put in. We hosted him here once to do a course and for a continuing education course, and man his his knowledge of the body is just mind boggling, you know, like I like, I love anatomy. But then when I'm hanging around him, I feel like I really don't know anything yet I got to keep studying, because questions would come from over here, and he could go down into like, the the biology of the blood. Good, you know? Oh, wow. Okay, that's the part of the anatomy book I flipped over real quick, you know? Like, I like, let me just focus on muscles and bones. That's more than enough to study and then, and then to go into the embryology, or, I don't know, all these other aspects of the human body, and that, it's such a huge subject that every time I put myself near someone of such a high level of study over so many years, it just does wonder. So I guess what I want to highlight is I'm so grateful to have this chance to meet you, and I can I love that you have this many, this many years of study behind you, but you explained it very well, Simon, For to me, it just seems like I can, I can tell that you've spent a lot of time with students. Oh, I have, yeah, okay, because you probably had a lot of practice trying to explain that and it not landing. And then be like, let me start over again. Let me, let me try to get this right, because, I mean, it's not easy to explain concepts like that, just simply enough but with enough detail and have it land. That's a true art. That's a true skill, right there.

Jörg Schürpf:

You know, I think it has to do with the fact that I, I was actually a senior in at the Washington High School of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the class of 1984

Todd McLaughlin:

1984 man. What a classic era, and what a classic place. Yeah, yeah.

Jörg Schürpf:

For the listeners, you know that's when the Thriller video came out on,

Todd McLaughlin:

yeah, baby Prince thriller. That's when all the greats were throwing it out there. I know,

Jörg Schürpf:

amazing, yes. And I got and I got home and my and that I came home and I thought, Well, what do I want to do with my life? And, of course, my father asked me so, so what do you want to do with your life? Well, you know, I want to become a translator. I want to become a simultaneous translator. And he said, really? I said, Yeah. And said, Okay, well, get smart about it and find out how you can become a simultaneous translator. So I got smart about it, and then they told me, Well, if you want to do simultaneous translation, you got to go back to high school, and you got to finish your curriculum, and then you can only, then can you become a simultaneous translator? So after I finally went back to school, but then I took a different path, but then later on, by starting to teach and becoming a teacher, I at one point, years later, I started to realize, well, somehow I did become a translator, because sometimes the language you know, used by the anatomy books or by The physiology books or by the doctors or whatever, the language sometimes so complex, and I found myself being capable of actually taking those complex words and concepts and models and simplify them so that Other people could actually also access the knowledge and the beauty of whatever is contained within that body of knowledge. And so I kind of had to smile to myself and thought, Well, I never went to study to become a simultaneous translator, but somehow my life has put me on a path where I still translator for some different reasons and for, especially for a different topic,

Todd McLaughlin:

oh man, I can see how that's coming to light. That is so cool. Jorg, oh man, our our time, our time is here. Our time is here. So on that note. Jorg, I hope I can have you back, because obviously, there's so many. I have a ton more questions. I what could you What would you like to leave us with in relation to, well, anything really, do you have any final words that you'd like to share that potentially could motivate us to want to continue to study and learn about the body and fall in love with healing and health and and maybe a sense that it's possible for us to heal.

Jörg Schürpf:

Yeah, for me, the what I said before is, you know, to land, to merge and to listen, is really something I practice also with myself, that I've learned to practice with myself, to land with myself, to merge with myself and to listen also to myself and my body's needs. And I found that as. Especially in body work and through touch, the beauty of the sacred dance actually unfolds when I take that time to land, to merge and to listen. I am I definitely much more an auditory person. And for me, when I touch the body. I hear music. I I hear the harmony. I can. I sense it, but I also hear it. And so for me, the listening part is just so precious. And so I would say of capital importance, because before I start talking to the body, I first need to receive so it's I feel that healing is possible when I stop, when I learn to listen to myself, when I take the time To to feel, what do I need? What does my body need? What does my soul need? What does my spirit need? And then to see, how can I give it to my body, my soul and my spirit? I feel that healing is the most powerful thing that actually happens on planet Earth, and it happens every day in every so many different ways. And I've had personal experiences that, you know, where I used to be kind of a crazy young child, ending up in the hospital quite, quite a few times, to the big dismay of my mother, but, but I always healed, and I always healed very easily, and I find today that that healing was really able to take place because of the time that I have accorded To my healing the space that I have given it, and it is through that listening that we actually create space, and within that space, that's where I feel that healing is possible.

Todd McLaughlin:

Well said, York, thank you so much. Thank you so much. You're

Jörg Schürpf:

very, very welcome, Todd, and thank you very much for inviting me to your podcast.

Todd McLaughlin:

Well, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you.

Jörg Schürpf:

You're very welcome.

Todd McLaughlin:

Native yoga. Todd. Cast is produced by myself. The theme music is dreamed up by Bryce Allen. If you like this show, let me know if there's room for improvement. I want to hear that too. We are curious to know what you think and what you want more of what I can improve. And if you have ideas for future guests or topics, please send us your thoughts to info at Native yoga center. You can find us at Native yoga center.com, and hey, if you did like this episode, share it with your friends. Rate it and review and join us next time you Oh, yeah, no, you.