Tara Kachroo Integrative Movement Therapy and NeuroKinetic Therapy

01/22/2024

I had a client, let’s call him Roe, come in with no pain complaints. While eliminating pain is often the goal of the work, it’s not such an important assessment tool. Compensation patterns can be in place for a long time before they finally cause enough structural strain to cause tissue damage or pain.

The posture assessment revealed his whole body was turned slightly to the right - including his head! When looking forward, he actually would look slightly out of the left side of both eyes. This gave him a bit of a fun, mischievous look! 

Left unresolved, this compensation pattern could eventually cause strain in his right hip, ankle or knee and leave him vulnerable to injury. Fortuntately, we caught it before it was even noticeable. 

Roe’s history included a decade-old deep cut just above his left ear.  Palpation revealed deep adhesions here, through the bone of the skull and right into the meningies (the connective tissues around the brain, the spinal cord). The sclera of the eye is just an extension of the dura- the outermost of the brain’s meninges, so looking to the right strained these adhesions and Roe’s body rotated right to compensate.

The connection into the meninges was confirmed when the scar tissue around the ear was pulled tight when Roe lifted their right leg, as if they were doing a nerve tension test. 

The treatment was an extension of the final assessment.  I pinned the scar tissue, and Roe pulled on his brain by tensioning the sciatic nerve with his right leg. After this intervention Roe’s eye movements were more relaxed, his mischievous side eye was gone and his posture had straightened. He felt more stable. Several days later, he reported continuing to feel amazed at how easy it was to look around and that he could now look out of the corner of his eye without pain. He had been so habituated to the pain that it felt normal. The pain was there, but he didn’t know to complain about it!

11/06/2023

Abdominal scars can cause knee pain!

If you follow me, you know that abdominal scars can cause back pain, but they can cause other issues too. 

A client hurt her left knee during a workout and had canceled her appointment worried that it wasn’t the kind of thing I worked on. When she came in a month later it was still bothering her. I noticed very quickly that her left hip wasn’t centrating well. The head of the femur was sitting medial in the hip joint socket and this was putting pressure on the knee. We had already resolved some back pain by working on the right side of her hysterectomy scar, but I thought it might be causing this hip decentration as well. The middle of the hysterectomy scar was thicker and a bit matted.  I could feel the scar pulling on my client’s p***s on the surface, and more deeply, back through the endopelvic fascia into the sacrum. All this pull caused an anterior pelvic tilt and reduced glute functioning. Imbalanes in the functioning of the hip muscles mean that the joint can’t line up optimally.

The surgery had been 18 years ago and for all that time, the scar tissue had been preventing my client from activating her glutes properly. After the release, she walked through the clinic with much longer strides, remarking on how she could actually feel her glutes working. Even more remarkable, during the course of the session, this clients fallen arches started to lift a little as less pressure when down through the inside of the legs and more went down the back and sides via the posterior kinetic chain (hurrah for glutes!) 

My client left happy with no pain at all in her left knee and a spring in her step. 

10/24/2023

When organs are stuck in the wrong place they have trouble functioning. The whole body is happy to distort joints and disrupt daily activities to support organ function. Hip pain or incontinence is a low price to pay for well functioning kidney or spleen. Thus, visceral manipulation can dramatically change postural and functional issues.

A new client came in with dramatic incontinence and a new prescription from her medical team to try and control it. The incontinence came on after a pregnancy, which is not uncommon; but this level of incontinence was. Core muscle imbalances are usually the culprit, and something I treat often.

But a physical exam showed something more alarming. Many of this client’s joints were malpositioned. In addition to rib, spinal, hip and cranial subluxations, the p***c bone was almost a half inch lower on the left! Postural examination also revealed a vortex of postural torsion around the left lower ribs.  While this client hadn’t had major trauma to the ribs in this area, what their history revealed was a nasty case of mononucleosis at age 17 which had caused inflammation, swelling and upward displacement of the spleen. Palpation revealed the left kidney was also upwardly displaced.

I formed a hypothesis that the left kidney had been displaced during the pregnancy and was adhered to the already upwardly displaced spleen. My client’s body was trying to use the muscular force of the left pelvic floor to reposition it. 

The initial assessment took 75 of 90 minutes, leaving little time for treatment. Usually, I would book a follow-up instead of treating at this point. But, a brief palpation of the area revealed a clear point of adhesion along the splenorenal ligament. Less than a minute of targeted visceral manipulation here reduced tone in the client’s pelvic floor and began to reposition the p***s. Great evidence we were on the right path. Two weeks and one follow-up later, her incontinence had reduced by 80% without ever touching her pelvic floor. Moral? More assessment+ less assumptions = more effective treatments!

05/18/2023

Scars contribute to chronic pain.
Scars have depth, texture, density, form and pull. To say what we see on the surface is the tip of the iceberg is a huge understatement in many cases. I have become obsessed with scars since fall of 2018 and my obsession continues.

I have so many clients with large scars that interfere with their motor control and cause chronic pain issues. A motor control issue means that the muscles and joints aren’t coordinating well to create smooth, easy and functional movements.

When muscles become uncoordinated they start to ache, get tight and painful, and they can impinge on nerves. This creates problems like sciatica or numbness.

Tight muscles can also change blood flow, causing versicose veins, issues with the skin like rashes or hairloss, and temperature control issues like really cold feet and hands. Both over active and underactive muscles can be painful.

Read the full blog post at www.tarakachroo.ca/blog (link is in my bio!)

04/25/2023

Here to say hi and let you all know that I have a blog!

If you enjoy my in-depth posts about client experiences and the complex workings of the body then you should head on over to the blog where I dive even deeper into these topics.

You can find the link to the blog in my bio or visit www.tarakachroo.ca

02/13/2023

Working with me is a unique experience, and the precision and care with which I do my in-depth assessments mean I get results where others don't. You can look at the reviews on my google page if you want someone else's word for it.

But now it's a bit easier to pay for sessions in a more conventional way. I have been a Registered Massage Therapist for more than a month now but held off on sharing the news until my new website was a little more fleshed out. All the work I do as an Integrative Movement Therapist falls under the scope of practice of massage therapy.

This means that most private health insurance programs will reimburse you for the cost of your time working with me. Got coverage? Now might be a good time to book. If you have questions, shoot me a message.

09/14/2022

For the next two weeks, I’m at a dance intensive. Here I'm focused on joy and connection instead of therapy and trauma. That doesn’t mean it won’t be healing though. It reminds me of a client I had in the spring.⁠
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I'd been seeing this client, an older man with physically demanding work, to help treat his Dupuytren's Contracture. ⁠
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The treatment for this idiopathic hand deformity involved several sessions of fascial and adhesion release around the joints of his 4th/5th digits. Once the passive range of motion of these fingers had been increased we tried to get the muscles working actively. My client was baffled, completely unable to move his fingers on his own. I used graded motor imagery techniques to teach his brain to connect to the nerve endings in his hand, priming his brain for movement.⁠
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After a few minutes, with my attention focused on his fingers, I was surprised to hear what sounded like sobs coming from this gruff man. There were tears in his eyes. Worried, I asked if he was ok. He was. Better than ok. He grinned at me and told me that he used to wiggle his pinky finger at his baby sister to make her laugh. His sister had passed away years ago and the memory brought him joy.⁠
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This memory was recovered with the intention to move in this same way - a movement that for him was full of play, joy, and love for his sister. With the joy of the memory, the movement itself found clarity and strength. Within a few minutes his fingers had recovered most of their function and the pain in his hand had receded almost completely. ⁠
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The memories that most often return when I am working on people's bodies are traumatic. While processing these memories can have a profound effect on emotional health, physical pain, and motor skills, there is no doubt that the experience of joy and connection in movement is incredibly healing. This is what I am seeking over these two weeks also, a return to the joy of my body, a return to playfulness and connection with others.⁠
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At work we contract, we close in on our goals and our movements become mechanical. But what we lose in work, in play might be recovered.⁠
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07/09/2021

I have found, in my practice, that C-section scars lead to more discomfort, hip pain, back pain, and postural issues than other lower abdominal scars do. Why? ⁠
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1) New mothers often do not have time to rest and heal immediately after this major surgery.⁠
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2) They have the additional load on their damaged core muscles of carrying a baby.⁠
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3) Physiotherapy or other types of rehab are rarely assigned after c-sections.⁠
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4) C-sections can be emergency procedures in which the patient is already in a state of deep stress before the surgery begins.⁠
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If you have a C-section scar and back pain, postural issues, or core stability problems, explore the connection. How much recovery time did you get? Where was your attention after this major surgery? Did you do rehab? Was it effective?

I put up this post on Wednesday on Instagram and got more heartbreaking stories than I expected. It really felt good for all of us that might have suffered silently to hear each other and to not feel alone. Comment and let me know what your experience was like.⁠

03/05/2021

An episiotomy is a surgical cut between the va**na and perineum made during labor (a technique originally designed to reduce the incidence of severe perineal tears during labor). It became a routine procedure despite a lack of evidence of its efficacy. The scarring from episiotomies tends to cause MORE motor dysfunction than tearing, though this depends on the severity.⁠
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It is common for these scars to cause pelvic floor dysfunctions (abnormal or uneven muscle tone in the pelvic floor, disco-ordinated firing of pelvic floor muscles); BUT ... pelvic floor dysfunctions don’t ALWAYS show up with the typical signs and symptoms. Urinary symptoms like dribbling and urgency, inability to easily start a stream, and/or pain during penetrative s e x are common with pelvic floor issues. However, you can have a pelvic floor dysfunction WITHOUT urinary symptoms, and without pelvic floor pain. ⁠
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I have personally had a pelvic floor issue that simply caused a lack of hip stability on one side. I got cramps in my thigh and occasionally popping in my knee. After treating this dysfunction I had better hip stability AND increased pelvic sensitivity and better s e x - a happy and unexpected bonus. ⁠
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I don’t do manual work on episiotomy scars myself, but I do guide my clients through working on them themselves. Neurokinetic therapy testing can be done without touching the area myself, and self-release treatments can be done draped, with relative privacy, while I verbally guide the client. If you have an episiotomy scar or a scar from ripping, start by examining it yourself. Notice its texture, and how easily it moves in relation to the other tissue in that area. Check for tenderness, and temperature (functional tissues in this area should be warm). And, if you are interested in further assessments, send me a message!

12/16/2020

YOUR EYES ARE PART OF YOUR BRAIN


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Most people don’t realize it but our brain and spinal cord are actually one continuous tube of cells (mainly neurons and glia) and our eyes are actually part of our forebrain. As more cells are added to the neural tube it gets thicker and starts to bend at various places along the tube. (For instance, at the top of our spine the tube bends 90 degrees and there starts what people call “the brain”).
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By watching neural development we can learn a lot about how our brain is organized. For example when we see that our eyes are extruded from the rest of the forebrain we start to appreciate why eye movements, pupil dynamics and gaze are such powerful and DIRECT indicators of brain state, state of mind, etc.
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11/21/2020

A post from Kat Nantz on Instagram. Kat, Thank you for this beautiful testimonial, and for sharing your story. Kat writes:
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"I’ve done a lot of trauma work in my life.
If I’m honest, I avoided my medical trauma for a long time.
It felt the biggest. I felt the most locked out of it.
You know that feeling?
You’re not ready til you’re ready.

I’ve been working with for the past while, she’s been doing scar tissue remediation and movement correction (not the language she would use lol!).

Here’s what I’ve notice so far...
LESS pain! Less back pain, knee pain, and jaw pain. Less stiffness.

I’ve been walking barefoot. This seems so subtle but has been the biggest transformation. I’ve barely walked barefoot in 20 years.
This is something I felt certain would never change. Certain.
That’s the thing about trauma, we get so used to living with the symptoms of it that we just think it’s who we are. Once we start unraveling, another part of us emerges. A new possibility.

The final thing I’m noticing, I want to move my body more! Since I gave birth to my daughter by emergency caesarean, I’ve struggled with wanting to be active.
My desire to move has returned!

I’m sharing this for a couple reasons.
One is that Tara is pure magic. If you have even one scar, you should book with her.
I have almost 60 surgical scars, I thought it would be years before anything would heal, happy to say I was wrong.

The other reason is that I want you to know that it’s OK if you don’t feel ready to work on that thing that feels so big, when it’s time it’s time, and only you will know when that is.

And, I want you to know that healing is possible, restoring wholeness as possible, you deserve to be supported and held in your healing."

11/05/2020

So tattoos… ⁠
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A new client complained of feeling less stability and strength over the last year. His visits to physiotherapists for a variety of small complaints hadn’t yielded results. He found me through the NeuroKinetic Therapy directory.⁠
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He mentioned a lot of neck tension and frequent headaches. When we tested his reflexive stability it was notably lacking in his cervical spine and around his collarbone-where he had a dark tattoo.⁠
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It doesn’t happen very often, but tattoos CAN cause motor control dysfunctions. They are, in fact, SCARS-though generally ones that don’t go very deep. Dark tattoos like this one affect motor control more than lighter ones. We found these tattoos downregulating his cervical extensors, especially the ones of the right (though the tattoos went all the way around). These muscles on the back of the neck are critical for holding the head up and for making neck movements. He was compensating in various ways to make up for their inability to function properly. The muscles were quite toned up there, certainly contributing to his frequent headaches.⁠
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Motor control is created through a feedback loop in which information is fed from the body to the cerebellum and back again. Sometimes the body needs less information from a certain part of the body to work correctly (for example, less tension in an area around a scar sends less information about tension to the cerebellum). Sometimes the body needs MORE information-more stimulation. For example, a muscle that isn’t contracting properly might need to activate to send more information. There are a LOT of different types of information (and a lot of types of mechanoreceptors). This particular area wanted light touch stimulation-sensed by hair follicle receptors or Merkel’s disks. Once the area had been lightly stimulated for a minute his cervical extensors were online. He’ll have to do his homework to retain the effect and build motor control slowly over the next few weeks.

11/03/2020

The body keeps the score. This explanation of how trauma lodges in the body is helpful for understanding how scar tissue release work can have a profound emotional impact without direct counseling for those particular emotional issues. Scar therapy can be a great adjunct to psychotherapy because of these connections.

What if the traumatic event wasn't the cause of trauma? It's time to rethink trauma by looking to the body's memory of the event, not the mind's interpretati...

10/21/2020

I used to have a huge muffin top above this c-section scar. (My child will be 8 years old a week from now). For the last few years, it’s been flat & pretty pliable. I’ve done a TON of work on it myself. Many of the clients that come to me for c-section rehab haven’t even really touched their scars. If you have one, take a few moments to explore it - both while lying down and while standing. This is part of your body, this is YOU. Get to know yourself. I’m gonna stand by this: You have to to .⁠
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Here are things to notice:⁠
- Areas of numbness, tenderness, or sensitivity⁠
- How easily it moves (or doesn’t move) in a few directions⁠
- Places where it’s harder or softer⁠
- Areas that are indented or protruding⁠
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C-Sections are a MAJOR surgery. The transverse cut severs aponeurotic connections to the p***s and cuts into the iliopsoas fascia that is extending into the anterior thigh, leaving behind a tangle of messy, highly unpredictable scar tissue that can really confuse your motor control center. These fascial connections are critical for the maintenance of pelvic position, which is central in creating core stability.⁠
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Abdominal scar tissue doesn’t JUST affect core stability leading to LOW BACK PAIN (though this is often the case). They can: ⁠
- Affect hip mobility and stability (anterior hip stiffness)⁠
- Inhibit shoulder movement (through the External Oblique)⁠
- Create neck pain⁠
- Produce pelvic floor symptoms ⁠
- Contribute to foot & knee pain⁠
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My scar was causing hip pain and breathing restrictions. (Also, I didn’t like that muffin top.) When I finally got the appropriate releases done on my scar my rehab exercises took a week to hold. I was breathing freely and the majority of my hip issues were gone. Pretty damn significant. My clients see similar results in similar timeframes. PM for an assessment.

10/09/2020

I have many clients that come in with chronic neck pain or headaches that have untreated concussions or head injuries. I have reposted this from 's feed. Read on for a part of this client's story.
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A few weeks ago .wilch posted about neck pain post concussion and how it may be caused, not by the neck itself, but by issues with the vision and/or vestibular symptoms.

I've spent over 20 years going to different therapists for my neck pain. On the drive home from my third visit with I noticed that I could turn my neck smoothly from side to side! And guess what? She hadn't touched my neck itself!

Thank you so much to .wilch and of for talking about the importance of treating foundational symptoms when working with persistent concussion symptoms.

If you're anywhere near Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, definitely check out . Tara is magic! Well worth the 4 hour round trip to be able to catch this view out the passenger window.

10/07/2020

A history of Concussion or even mild Head Injury can lead to chronic pain

Many times, even many years post-concussion, I’ve found that even those who feel asymptomatic still have sensory or motor imbalances. They’ve found ways to compensate. Studies have shown that athletes are more likely to tear their ACL or have lower body injuries post-concussion. They feel ok. They feel ready to play. But they aren’t. Why? The persistence of sensory processing deficits and motor dysfunction after a concussion can run below the radar. This can lead to headaches, back pain, neck pain, and other chronic pain issues.

Do you have a history of concussion or head injury? If you do, they might still be impacting you despite the obvious signs and symptoms of concussion having dissipated. OR, perhaps the signs and symptoms of concussion were mild enough that you never registered them as serious. Don’t take chronic tension and pain as a fact of life. Get assessed.