Memos by Chase Riner
- Somatic Realignment Therapy
Somatic Realignment Therapy is the integrative bodywork and somatic-healing practice of Chase Riner, based in Los Angeles. Drawing on nearly twenty years studying the body and ten years in...
- Chase Riner
Chase Riner is a somatic practitioner and integrative bodyworker in Los Angeles, and the founder of Somatic Realignment Therapy. With nearly twenty years studying the body and ten years in...
- Recovery Window
Recovery window is the hours after effort when sleep, fuel, and light movement matter most. In Sports Therapy the table is optional in that window; food and sleep are not. It is planning, not a...
- Self-Release Tool
Self-release tool is a lacrosse ball, peanut, or pressure cane used to hold pressure on a point at home. In Trigger Point Therapy the table hold is the lesson; the tool is how the person repeats it....
- Mobility Work
Mobility work is active movement through range, distinct from passive stretching. The person moves the joint; they are not pulled into it. In Sports Therapy that is how range is rehearsed for the...
- Leg Length Discrepancy
Leg length discrepancy is one leg measuring or functioning shorter than the other. In Postural / Structural Realignment an apparent short side is treated as a pattern first: a rotated pelvis, a hip...
- Neutral
Neutral is a segment resting in the middle of its range without effort. A pelvis, a ribcage, a head, a shoulder blade: each has a place it can sit without extra arch, tuck, lift, or brace. Neutral...
- Alignment
Alignment is how the body's segments stack over one another in relation to gravity, described as a pattern rather than a verdict. In Postural / Structural Realignment the practitioner looks at head...
- Holding Pattern
Holding pattern is a habitual tension the body keeps even at rest, often outside awareness. A shoulder that never drops, a jaw that never unclenches, a low back that is always "on": the person is...
- Bracing
Bracing is holding muscles tight to feel stable, a habit the work aims to make unnecessary. A locked belly, a clenched jaw, a shoulder that will not drop: the person is using effort as a substitute...
- Base of Support
Base of support is the area under and between the feet that the body balances over. Narrow it — feet together, or standing on one foot — and the rest of the body has to work harder to stay up. Widen...
- Center of Gravity
Center of gravity is the point around which body weight balances, usually just in front of the sacrum in standing. When the hips push forward, the chest leans back, or the head lives ahead of the...
- Differentiation
Differentiation is learning to move one segment, such as the pelvis, without the neighbors joining in. A pelvis that cannot tip without the ribs thrusting, a head that cannot turn without the...
- Functional vs. Structural
Functional vs. structural is whether a difference, such as leg length, comes from soft tissue and habit, which can change, or from bone, which cannot. In Postural / Structural Realignment the...
- Lower Crossed Pattern
Lower crossed pattern is tight hip flexors and low back paired with underactive glutes and abdominals, a common desk-sitting shape. The front of the hip and the lumbar erectors stay on; the glutes...
- Pelvic Neutral
Pelvic neutral is the pelvis balanced between anterior and posterior tilt. Not tucked, not dumped: a middle the person can rest in without extra lumbar arch or a flattened low back. In Postural /...
- Line of Pull
Line of pull is the direction a shortened tissue drags a segment, which the practitioner traces before releasing it. A forward head may be the end of a line that starts in the chest or the hip; a...
- Realignment
Realignment, in this practice, is improved awareness, more movement options, regulation, and ease — not a bone moved into a correct place. Postural / Structural Realignment keeps the word because it...
- Posterior Chain
Posterior chain is the muscles and fascia along the back of the body, often lengthened and underworked in desk patterns. Glutes, hamstrings, the back of the calf, and the long line up the spine form...
- Upper Crossed Pattern
Upper crossed pattern is a tight chest and back of the neck paired with underactive deep neck flexors and mid-back, the classic screen-facing shape. The pecs and the upper neck stay on; the front of...