The viscera are the organs inside of you.

We are used to thinking of them and the function they have breathing, or digesting, or thinking, or making babies.

But they have another function in the body:
Movement.

All organs have two discrete movement patterns: mobility & motility.

Mobility

The one you are probably familiar with is called mobility.

Mobility is the gross movement pattern of an organ. The lungs expand and collapse. The
stomach churns. The bladder squirts out pee. All organs have a range of normal movement. If an organ
moves too much or too little there is decreased function. In a different blog on the air body we
talked about the problems associated with the lungs moving too little. Likewise, if the intestines move
too little you will get constipated, or if they move too much, you can get diarrhea.

Everything needs to be in rhythm.

Motility

The second movement pattern, as taught in the Barral technique of visceral manipulation,
is motility. Motility is the embryologic movement pattern of each organ. It connotes how happy the
organ is doing its job. When a baby is conceived and the organs are assembled it isn’t like the embryo is
a perfect little miniature of the baby. No. The organs are all scrambled and go on a journey to find their
way to their ultimate homes. The testicles and ovaries develop high up in the abdomen and move down.
If this journey is incomplete by the time a baby is born sometimes you will have a baby with an
undescended testicle. The intestines develop outside the body like a string and then are sucked into the
body and the abdomen is sewn up over them. If this doesn’t happen properly there can be a hole in the
abdomen and sometimes bits of the intestines sticking out.

Listen

When I work with the viscera of your body I am listening to the mobility and the motility of your body. If
the patterns of movement are altered, that makes it hard for your body to do its job happily. Proper
mobility of the organs play a central role in maintaining proper functioning of the transverse planes of
the body and proper drainage of the body. For instance, if the heart has fallen off its axis and the
pericardium is pulling on its insertion in the lower cervical and upper thoracic this can have a direct
impact on the musculoskeletal system, the thoracic outlet diaphragm, the arms, and the head. Not to
mention the heart itself and its vasculature and innervation.

The kidneys live in a fascial funnel snugged up beneath the respiratory diaphragm. As all organs, they
are supposed to move. However, sometimes because of an injury or not having a properly engaged core
they can move too much and go down too far in the fascial funnel. They could have a hard time finding
their way back home, especially if someone is not practicing physiologic breathing. There are three
degrees of ptosis (i.e dropping down) that a kidney can do. Usually with the first two degrees of ptosis a
person will have the stereotypical flank kidney pain. By the time a kidney is a grade three ptosis, or
pelvic kidney, there is typically no pain. However, other problems can arise because that is not where
the kidney is supposed to live, and it is cutting into the territory of the large intestines, ovaries, uterus,
and bladder. That is why for me no pelvic work can be done until I have assurance that the kidneys are
happily at home by the respiratory diaphragm.

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