By Kali Chandrasegaram
Pain is like a baby crying for attention. What do we do when a baby cries? The initial response is to pick the baby up, rock the baby, dance with the baby, sing to the baby and these actions create vibrations that the body needs to heal. The vibrations are subtle but have profound healing effects. The pain in the body needs to be held with care and love.
When I was developing the 5-A method to understanding pain for dancers through the Unmasking Pain project with Balbir Singh Dance Company, before I started my research on fascia, I began to realise the importance of loving my body. It was a journey of reconnecting to my body and to my inner self.
As a dancer I always struggled thinking that I am fat, the usual dancer’s dilemma- it was an obsession and I used to hate my body. Looking back at my dance photos, especially in my 20s and 30s, I was actually skinny but, in my mind, I was fat. Of course, as a “dancer,” I don’t eat darling! Hence, I was diagnosed with acute gastritis the day before my Arangetram. I laugh thinking about it now of how immature I was for not loving my body as I should have at that time. My body, just as every body, is a miracle and I didn’t understand that. The disrespect and derogatory attitude I had towards my body was self-harming. My mind was in conflict with my body and that disconnection was a slippery slope.
“Your mind and body have a toxic relation. The social training in our culture causes the mind to become the manipulator of the body rather than serving the body. Your mind is an outside influence on the body”, Satyakaam Ramakrishan (in the book Shakthi: The Divine Feminine).
Balbir, the artistic director of Balbir Singh Dance Company gave me a set of props and suggested ways to use them to describe and articulate my pain, and this led me to develop the 5A method as below.
5 A:
1. Acknowledge
– The Mask
Pain is a hidden experience. As a dancer I had learnt how to mask the pain behind my make-up, facial expressions and an ambiguous smile. This was because of fear of rejection, peer pressure, satisfying choreographers demand and personal goals. The outside of the mask was beauty but in the inside of the mask, the side that is not shown to the audience was the hidden pain in different shapes and forms. The struggle was kept under wraps. The acknowledgment began when the mask was flipped, like ripping off a bandage and revealing the true nature of the wound seeing how bad it got! That itself was a revelation.
2. Accept
– The Labyrinth
The hardest task for me was the acceptance. The thought that pain would be an obstacle to my career as a dancer created a block in my mind. I had to dig deep. My journey of acceptance was like a labyrinth in my mind with numerous obstacles that which I had to clear every step of the way. As I journeyed within through guided meditation, I saw the obstacles as trauma and worked on negating them, it helped but I wasn’t really hitting the source. Now, through my research in fascia, I understand the obstacles better and that generational trauma is stored in the organs and fascia, and this led me to TRE –Trauma Release Exercises by Dr David Berceli and it’s a game changer. As human beings we don’t shake off the excess adrenalin created in the body when we are confronted with immense emotions of fear and anger, we bottle it in and that results in trauma being stored in our organs and fascia. With TRE exercise the body is encouraged to shake involuntarily through various exercises and this releases the stored trauma. My healing journey continues with trauma release and it’s liberating. It’s unbelievable the amount of trauma that can be stored in the body.
3. Attention
– The Frame
Taking the time to go deep within and paying attention to the feel and different intensity of the pain during the day. I began to listen to my body. Observing how the pain stays and travels through the different parts of the body and what happens to the pain when I dance a lot, when I don’t dance at all and when I am lying in bed for a long time. Now, with the understanding of fascia I see my body as a whole and how every part of my body is connected through the fascia lines (image – Tom Myers – Anatomy Trains Myofascial Meridians). The isolated pain can be supported by the fascia throughout the body, and the source of the pain could be from a different part of the body because everything in the body is connected through the fascia which is incredible. The body is a self-supporting intelligence.
Image: Fascia Meridians mapped by Tom Myers, Anatomy Trains; Erik Dalton Blog.
4. Articulate
– The Balls
Finding the language to describe the pain, for me it is through movement. The use of balls as props with different colours and textures (smooth, jagged, spikey, roughness), size, feel and weight were external interpretations of pain. Balbir’s questions were what is the shape, colour, feel, size and weight of the pain. Looking at the pain outside the body and initially confronting it through anger (getting rid of the pent-up emotions) and then coming around with compassion and care. This is healing arts.
5. Act and Allow
– Releasing the Clutched Fabric
South Asian classical dance is gestural. Using a fabric crushed and clutched tightly in a fist to create tension and then releasing and watching the fabric unfold, open and regain the original form. As a metaphor it was profound. I could see my pain dissipating in front of my eyes. In my fascia research I came across pandiculation which is the stiffening and contraction of the body and slowly releasing and unfolding and Fascia Maneuvers by Human Garage along with deep diaphragmatic breathing works every time for me to ease my pain. We act on it with these techniques and allow the body time to recover.
The journey of Unmasking Pain led me to finding my pain as my friend who I listen to with so much love and care and not as my foe. I created my pain through the insecurities of my mind, and now I take great care of it as I would if I had a child of my own.
The journey coming out of Unmasking Pain led me to Uppsala, Sweden for Fascia- The Living Body Conference 2025, where I heard amazing speakers and all will be revealed in the next article.
