Moving in water is completely different from moving on land and activates a whole different set of muscles. Without changing our kinesthetic attitude consciously, we move in water in the same way we move on land - against resistance. In doing so, we miss the point: the support that water can offer us. A sad story, making our life harder than necessary.

So with Jahara® Technique we first learn to move. We learn to walk and happily and softly to fall, being supported by the water. We discover a new combination of muscles and an effortless, conscious way to move. This has much psychological impact too. Movement and learnt reflexes express our personal way of being in the world, of discovering and feeling the world, making contact and setting limits/boundaries.

In one method of Kinesiology we test certain sets of muscles and their connection to the hyoid bone. Attached to the hyoid bone, there are many muscles that are responsible for the three-dimensional orientation of body and mind when we move. If these learnt reflexes are not functioning properly, we need a lot of energy to be present, because we have difficulties to feel oriented in space. We lack the connection to our body and the grounding earth. Often we unlearn these reflexes through shock or trauma. We can restore them by crawling or learning to walk again—or much faster through Kinesiology, thus resetting the connections.

With Jahara® we first learn to walk in the water, to orient ourselves in an unusual way by widening our awareness, by using our learned reflexes in a new way. For our brains it is always exciting to make new connections, particularly through body awareness. We can imagine our brains to be a cobra sports car that always has to stay inside the garage because it’s too beautiful to be used. And this poor car is so happy when it is finally allowed outside on a sunny day. Everyone experiences happiness and relief when they start to use the 1-2-3-4 footwork games. They seem absolutely uninteresting and strange in the first morning, but afterwards one feels excitement and relief and happiness.

While widening our consciousness with new ways to move, we get in contact with old learning blockages, traumas and unconscious gaps in our motility.

In Kinesiology every movement has an emotional, mental, meridional and psychological correlation. With the assistance of a kinesiologist, here in Wila, Switzerland we have the opportunity to find out more about the meaning of the different 1-2-3-4 foot patterns and the blockages related to them. This way we may learn to give specially adapted exercises for clients to awake forgotten or never learned body awareness.

Barbara Schmid is Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, and Gestalt therapist. She also has a private Homeopathy and Kinesiology practice in Wila, Switzerland.