Toshiharu Kasai - "Arm Standing Exercise"

Professor Toshiharu Kasai
Department of Clinical Psychology,
Faculty of Humanitied,
Sapporo Gakuin University
Japan

A manual of how to carry out the arm-standing exercise for perceiving your arm weight well and enhancing your sensitivity of subtle muscle control.


• "Arm-Standing Exercise for Psychosomatic Training"(PDF file)
  
  Bulletin of Sapporo Gakuin University. Published in March,2005
  
  while lying on your back
  
  at a mental clinic, instructed by Mika Takeuchi.
  
  This exercise was pioneered by T.Kasai and Mika Takeuchi, both Japanese Butoh dancers and certified dancetherapists, through Butoh dance workshops and day-care programs at mental clinics. It has been used for "relaxation","dancetherapy", and "rehabilitation from depression" programs at mental clinics.
  The extremely slow and elegant movements are derived from sublte muscle control and mind-set in Butoh dance. The Arm-Standing Exercise, "ude-no-tachiage" exercise, one of 20-30 exercises utilized in our Butoh workshops, has been described fully in English with some practical suggestions.
  
  

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  This exercise has been cited in a Butoh book
  "Hijikata and Ohno"(Routlege,2006)
  written by Sondra Fraleigh and Tamah Nakamura.
  
  This exercise was introduced and used in the ECArTE presentation (Sep.17, 2009)
  European Consortium for Arts Therapies Education in London
  
  • "Sense of safety and security for creative works nurtured by meditative Butoh dance movements" abstract (pdf)
    
  • "Some experientially obtained points for nurturing the sense of safety and security" hand-out (pdf)