Neck roll

Hi, i've just about mastered the shinbox switch and knee switch, can do 40 reps each side, rest and so on for a about half an hour now.

I'd like to do something for the upper body and thought the neck roll looks like it would help me a lot.

What do need to achieve before I can try it, like would I have to have progressed onto the intermediate ww tape, or can I go straight into it?

I briefly tried it a while back and their was no way I could do it, I couldn't breathe at all.

I think it is the fear of compression and also the fact that you can't really see much and with me that means not very good awareness of gravity, balance etc

I think i'll just DO IT but i'll wait to see if any of you warn me against it.

Thanks!

[Scott Sonnon]

Ed,

Go slowly and go to the point where you can no longer exhale through the movement. Stop there. Begin again and keep exhaling. You can use your breath as a measuring stick to shave away the tension without reinforcing it, and as a result the Fear-Reactivity.

Excellent thanks Scott, i'll wait till tommorow now, it's a bit late here.

One ? following on from your advice is that when I do the knee switch, near the end of the forty reps i'm not exhaling on the compression, more when i'm fully over to the side when I get proper allignment again.

Is this something that could be counter-productive? I have no problem with the breath except it's not uniform as far as timing goes.

Thanks!

[amerasianjoe]

Ed,

In my experience it depends on what kind of tension you have. When I first tried the neck roll I could do it but I had a lot tension in my upper right trapezius. Then I learned the arm screw from Warrior Wellness and the now tension is gone. Keep at it!

Joe

[Coach Gostnell]

When Connie & I visited at Thanksgiving, I'd also been trying to accomplish the neck roll. We wanted a way to break it down into component parts to work on and came up with a helpful variation: (Trumpets please :D ) The Standing Neck Roll!

To wit: Stand close to and facing a wall. Start with the Arm Screw. Keep going bringing the head under as demonstrated in the prone version. Continue until your head is completely down and your back is against the wall. Finish by "unscrewing" to the opposite side you started on. Hips and legs should remain throughout more or less in the same position they started in.

Since my problem with the Neck Roll was getting my neck to actually roll,
this helped me "train" the upper body independently & effectively & later I was able to put the whole sequence together successfully. (And what a rush that was!)

[Scott Sonnon]

Brilliant! Article, please.

[Connie Brown]

Happy memories! Jean, what a blast to see us both plastered against the wall in the ballroom at McMenamin's Edgefield.

And I was very happy to see how quickly it translated to full success for the prone neck roll for you.

Do you have a camera for a picture for this? I really want the article to be illustrated!!!!

Connie

[maxmoon]

that is cool!

there is also a kneeling version of the neck roll that i like to do when i have no room to do it fully!

this is also a cool idea! awesome 8)

max

Thanks for the reply's!

Jean, that's a really good idea, thanks!

I second Scott's request for an article, would make life easier for us bodyflow newbies.

I went ahead and tried the neck roll, and I can't do it at all.

1, I don't have the core strength to move my hips up and over fully, which I think is where Jean's idea comes in, and I can't stand the pressure on the back of my head.

I think I know why, when I was a kid at school some idiot pushed me over and I didn't realise I was falling properley and the back of my head slammed into the ground.

I had a headache for days, and as I was so uncomunicative my parents didn't realise I had been pushed or how hard I hit my head.

Luckily I had a surgical balloon filled with liquid between my scalp and skull near the crown where I hit my head. This was from surgery I had numerous times which I think in itself may have caused fear-reactivity, but i'm not gonna go into that.

I think the problem must be when I hit my head cuz when I tried the neck roll, I remembered it and had the same kind of feeling as I had when I originally hit it.

Scott, do you think that, that kind of fear reactivity can be overcome?

It was a really long time ago and I haven't thought about it for a very long time, so me remembering it now must mean there's a link.

Of course I could be completely wrong, i'm not at a full understanding yet of fear reactivty, still haven't finished reading bodyflow.

I think if I can conquer the neckroll it will make a lot of difference and I think i'll focus on that for the time being.

I'll let you know how I get on. I think if it is gonna be as beneficial as my intuition says it will be, you might wanna research fearreactivity's link with surgery and then present it in an medical journal if you haven't done so allready.

I can see loads of possibility's with your work.

Thanks again everyone!

[Scott Sonnon]

Ed,

All Fear-Reactivity can be over-written through joy, play, compassion and patience.

Cheers Scott, I look forward to healing myself even more!

The nessesitys you've just outlined are all virtues and keys to a harmonious life, and it makes sense that if you do things mental or physical that require them to be successfull, then you will be cultivating them by practise.

ww, bodyflow and meditation are the three powerfull keys to a happy and virtous life.

Thankyou for bringing your system to the public!

Cheers!

p.s i'll get that schema theory article done soon, just got another assignment to do first :roll:

[Coach Gostnell]

Head bashed into the playground, eh, Edward?
Just by way of encouragement to you, I also had lots of issues w/ head & neck. Could be because one of my earliest memories from about two years of age is my much larger, stronger older brother slamming the top of my head with his fist as he strolled by. Don't believe that was the first time & certainly not the last.
So for me to be able to move my neck at all took a lot of work and focus...plus Connie's help (she could also see some defininte hitches in my left arm/shoulder when I was doing the arm screw on that side) and LOTS of Warrior Wellness! Which makes mastering the Neck Roll all the sweeter! You'll get there.

Connie, yes I've got the camera - Craig even has one that does movies which I can borrow, but you'll have to coach me through down/uploading .mpg stuff

[Connie Brown]

Will do, Jean. This will be fun.!

[Ben Waddell]

I found a good way to overcome the neck roll was to break it down into parts and then reverse engineer it. eg start in the spinal rock position which is halfway through the neck roll so arms out to the sides. Just relax and breathe out. Allow your legs to slide back away from you as you roll under your arm to end up flat on the ground face down. That's the easier half of the neck roll. Stop to pause and think about the direction your body just travelled in. DON'T THINK TOO LONG! :evil: :shock: Now travel back in the direction you came from into the spinal rock again. Basically you've done the two halves of a neck roll on the one side, :D but don't stop there. :shock:

Because you've just reversed engineered the half of the neck roll to arrive back in the spinal rock structure, you simply mirror the movement on the other side and presto, one full neck roll. 8) You know you won't want to stop though and you'll probably keep neck rolling with a big grin on your face like I did! :P :lol:

Keep practicing going from the spinal rock to the starting position until you can reverse engineer it, then you'll be making gravy without the lumps.

[Scott Sonnon]

Well said, Ben.

Cheers Ben, i'm nearly confident enough to try it out soon.

I've been blitzing my neck and shoulders since I started this thread and i've felt some amazing release of muscle tension and some pretty amazing mental results.

Along with the neck and shoulders (incorparating advanced ww i'm proud to say 8) ) i've been doing the rest of the body, but in the past week i've done some specialisation on my spine incorparating the priming bioenergy spinal routine.

Anyway, what I wanted to comment on was that i'm also paying a lot of attention to the trinity breathing exercises and at first I found it a bit of a struggle to keep my attention on the feeling of the movement, but I stayed consistent and I now do it with my eyes closed and I can concentrate intensley for extended periods especially with the single armed version.

Now, i've been paying all this attention to the intergration aspect and i'm feeling amazing.

My visualisation has hit an all time high, I can now explain in words special relativity theory using my own examples and I can concentrate on the small day to day details enough now to make interesting conversation with people I don't know very well.

I'm very pleased with all this and i'm now composing music in my head again haha.

Cheers.

[rolandbeauregard]

The neck roll was the first BME that I saw in a video on RMAX. This is what intrigued me and got me on the RMAX path. I said to myself this is weird; I just got to do that. I played with it for a while and finally found that I could do it.

I teach a martial arts class and I have been breaking it down for my students. The first thing I show them is the shoulder screw. I then lie them down on their stomachs and have them do the shoulder screw from that position. Doing the screws in this position is like doing shoulder pushups. I next have them go into a shoulder stand. Then we do shoulder rolls from the shoulder stand. We roll up to the right shoulder and lift up on that shoulder. We roll down to center spine and then do the roll to the left shoulder and lift. We do this back and forth for several minutes. We then drop our legs back over our heads and back roll out of the shoulder stand. When they feel comfortable moving on their shoulders we practice the neck roll. This is a scary movement at first so I caution them not to do it if they feel uncomfortable. I also tell them that if they feel any pressure on the neck they are doing it wrong and give it up for the time being. I tell them this is an exercise to free up the neck not to put pressure on it. Once they realize that the shoulders control the roll they have no difficulty doing it. Doing this exercise has got us to work more with our shoulders and has helped with both our back rolls and front rolls.

I like Ben's methods also and will incorporate that.