Yoga/Bodywork Principles & Therapeutics

DSL: Your Leading Edge Uplink to the Inner-Net!

David Scott Lynn (DSL) is known for his ability to research, distill and teach large amounts of complex information in an easy to understand way. Because he was not heavily indoctrinated in any particular system, he is able to look at information and phenomena from a fresh and unique perspective, often seeing what few have seen before. Being highly innovative, he consistently produces new insights and solutions to problems that few have been able to discern.

David’s system of Yoga/Bodywork Principles & Therapeutics may very well be the first system in which the bodywork component was based primarily on principles of physcial, mental and relational yoga; and the yoga component has been highly influenced by his 24 years in successfully treating private Clients with hands-on, structually oriented bodywork. Many of these Clients, to a great extent, had been given up on by BOTH orthodox AND alternative practitioners. Or, they had achieved a certain level of relief, but were unable to get further progress. With DSL’s work, they were able to achieve far greater levels of relief and well-being — often times, 100 per cent.

DSL has invested substantial time, energy and study in validating his work via orthodox medical and physical sciences. As a result, he is known to be among the most knowledgeable in the country in scientifically verifiable Anatomy, Kinesiology and Physiology as applied to yoga and bodywork therapies.

Additionally, DSL EdgeWork has a strong base in philosphical and psychological understandings and principles of wholistic medicine and natural healing. David’s views are primarily from a Western psycho-spiritual & philosophical perspective, yet are informed by certain essential insights from the Eastern traditions.

David’s primary focus in life is now in writing & publishing about his work, and finding practitioners who want to be trained in his system of DSL EdgeWork. His web site — www.dsledgework.com — along with a certain amount of useful, public content, is being developed as a membership site in which a substantial portion of his training material will be available on-line. Although much of yoga and bodywork are, obviously, best learned in an in-person, hands-on format, with at least 1,500 hours of material, the on-line access — approximately 20 per cent of DSL’s content — will save his students much time and money in their learning process.

EARLY YEARS:
David, born and raised in suburban Chicago in 1954, began his training with martial arts at age 13, where he had his first “accidental” meditation experience. This soon led him to begin study of Buddhism and its meditations (especially Zen), as well as other approaches to spirituality. At 19, he was first exposed to yoga by Joel Kramer (whom some call the first American Yoga Master, and was yogi-in-residence at Esalen Institute in the late 1960’s).

At 22 David attended a 1-month, residential intensive on Physical, Mental & Relational Yoga led by Joel and his partner, Diana Alstad, after which David quit his job as a structural steel ironworker foreman (heavy construction) and began teaching yoga. He also began to practice yoga as much as 3 to 4 hours per day, 4 to 6 days per week, over extended periods of time.

Ironically, his extensive experience as an ironworker, erecting and aligning steel buildings, and trained by his father, a Master in the trade, gave David an unusual ability to see, understand and work with the human structure, a skill that would prove to be invaluable later in the development of his system.

Joel, who had several ground-breaking articles appear in Yoga Journal and was quietly VERY influential in the development of new and deeper concepts of Yoga in America, provided the foundational keys that David built his system on. The primary one is Playing The Edge of Pain & Fear. Also Stretching the Nerves, Lines of Energy, focusing on resistance rather than objectives, integrating meditation into physical yoga, and others, played significant roles in developing David’s yoga AND bodywork system. All of this culminated in David’s system of PsychoMuscular Release Technique.

While teaching yoga in Aspen, Colorado in 1977, David had his first exposures to bodywork: Deep Tissue/Polarity Therapy with Eugene Donaldson (who went on to found the Educating Hands massage school in Miami, Florida) and Jin Shin Do. Moving to Miami, David then trained informally with other owners (or soon to be owners) of massage schools in Swedish massage, Lomi Lomi and structural integration.

At this point, in 1981, he moved back to Chicago and set up practice as a bodywork therapist in the downtown area. He then studied at the BodyMind Center (soon to be Chicago School of Massage Therapy) with Daniel Blake, who had been trained and certified by Ida Rolf, then left Rolfing® after disagreeing with several of Idas’ primary principles. After several years of his own explorations in different realms of bodywork, Daniel began training students in his newly developed methods, of which David was an early student.

From Daniel, David learned a key formula for evaluating posture that was invaluable in determining which were the most important muscles to work with. This was the key to David’s system of Bio-Structural Balancing. Daniel was not, however, open to David’s developing concepts of HOW to work with muscles. (Daniel now practices law in South Carolina.)

All of this culminated in a 3 year period — 1982 thru 1985 — in which old injuries from racing motorcycles in his early teens, plus injuries from his construction days, re-emerged and made life constantly and extremely painful to the point of frequent (several times per week) debilitation. To make a long story short, as David began to integrate the components of his system, he began to apply the work to his own issues, which no one else was able to help him with.

Therein was the birth of DSL EdgeWork, David’s method of physical/mental/relational yoga and bio-structural bodywork, based on a wholistic philosphy, psychology and science of being human.

In 1985, David attended Acupuncture & Shiatsu school in Chicago for 5 months, but found his personal style far more in sync with the Western approaches to bodywork he had already been deeply exposed to, and already successful at administering to his Clients.

Since then, David has continued to expand, as much as possible, his experiences and understandings of what it means to be a human being, and the various disciplines that have been created to advance that knowledge and the tools of healing and growth. When appropriate, David integrates certain of these concepts into his system.