How DSL Edgework: Let-Go Yoga Therapy Origins
Evolved from Mindful Medical Massage &
Myo-Structural Balancing, and Vice Versa

The Yoga Path Begins
David’s first exposure to modern postural yoga was a two or so hour demonstration and talk by Joel Kramer (whom many call The First American Yoga Master and The Father of American Yoga) in Downtown Chicago at the old Oasis Center for personal growth in 1973. David immediately recognized Joel’s nontraditional approach to yoga, the mind, and spirituality as a perfect fit for how he saw the world and how it worked.

Joel got the informal title  Father of American Yoga because his teachings were very different, often the opposite of, what was coming out of India. At the time, much of the Indian Guru approach (with a few exceptions) to yoga was very militaristic in its practice. Teachers like Iyengar and his lineage were very aggressive in how they practiced yoga.

Just one example, Swami Rama once said that yoga was about being able to sit in Full Lotus Posture for 8 hours and suffer through the pain! As you will see on other pages of this website, Joel’s approach was a NO Pain, MORE Gain approach to yoga. Joel made the practice of physical yoga FAR more internal and introspective. It was not about accomplishing yoga postures. It was about using posters to explore the inner realities of the BodyMInd.

Several years later, David went on to apply this approach to his hands-on bodywork therapy.

(Joel was yogi-in-residence at Esalen Institute in the late 1960s and traveled widely after that, teaching across the country from an old yellow school bus. Several articles by or about Joel and his partner, Diana Alstad, were published in Yoga Journal over the years, and are on their website at www.JoelDiana.com.

David then borrowed from his best friend’s mother a couple of pocket books (Richard Hittleman’s 28 Days to Yoga and Jess Stearn’s Yoga, Youth and Reincarnation) and began reading about and doing yoga on his own for a few years.

David also gained insights from the writings of J. Krishnamurti, and relatively minor influences from in-person teachings from Goswami Kriyananda of the Kriya Yoga Institute, Swami Rama of the Himalayan Institute, Sri Nerode of India (a full-blooded Hindu Brahmin who taught for 45 years in Chicago), and Indra Devi via Kay Clay (Yoga, Inc.); all in the Greater Chicago area.

He also studied briefly with several B.K.S. Iyengar instructors around Chicago and across the country. David has done extensive reading on many related disciplines over the years, as well.

Joel Kramer at Cold Mountain Institute:
A Major Turning Point in DSL History

In the Spring of 1976, several months before his 23rd birthday, David took a leave from his job as an ironworker foreman and spent a month at Joel’s Intensive Workshop on Physical, Mental & Relational Yoga at Cold Mountain Institute on Cortez Island in British Columbia, Canada (now called Hollyhock Farm). Joel co-taught with his partner, Diana.

David was inspired by watching Joel’s daily, 4 hour, personal practice of Hatha (physical) Yoga sessions, leading to his own practice of yoga 3 to 4 hours per day for months on end in the later 70’s and into the late 80’s (which is how, at a visceral level, he learned what REALLY makes the mind and musculature release tension and produce responsive action.)

Joel and Diana also conducted Jnana (mental) Yoga-based, group process sessions most evenings, dealing with mental, emotional & interpersonal aspects of yoga and being human. This was David’s first significant exposure to in-depth personal growth, phenomenological, and gestalt processes, and, along with the whole process in general, several deeply personal experiences profoundly affected him for the rest of his life.

Interestingly, very near the end of the one-month yoga program, in a group meeting, Joel suggested to David that he reconsider his budding desire to be a yoga teacher. This was based on the fact that David had gotten quite sick and was missing from classes for several days. One of the students adamantly disagreed, saying David was an inspiration to watch while doing yoga and that he would make a great yoga teacher. Several of the students at the Intensive firmly suggested that David had a great future as a yoga teacher, if he wanted to pursue it.

(More on this story on the at My 1976 Summer Vacation with Joel & Diana page.)

Also, as a result of those before mentioned crashes when he was racing motorcycles, and the high stress and imbalances on his muscles from doing heavy construction work, David had a number of long-term tensions, stresses, and injuries in his body. He had a fair amount of pain as a result. He also had a typical construction worker’s posture, which was not very good, and definitely “contrived.”

His extensive yoga practice was eliminating the pain in his body, but he still had significant postural imbalances that persisted. But he was feeling so much better, he was unaware that …

… Trouble was Brewing.

Switching Life Paths:
From Structural Ironworker to Yoga Teacher
After going back home from Joel and Diana’s yoga intensive, David could not tolerate the idea of going back to ironwork. Rather than take Joel’s suggestion, he began looking for yoga students. He taught a few day-long yoga workshops in the Chicago area, then taught several times a week at the student center in DeKalb, Illinois, at Northern Illinois University. He then sold most of his possessions and set out in his forest-green Ford van on his Spiritual Travels, going across the country to California, studying yoga in several schools there.

On the drive out west, he stopped in Aspen, Colorado, where Michael Murphy (not the Esalen one), the director of the now-defunct Inner Garden, Aspen’s first healing arts center, immediately offered him a position as the Yogi In Residence and staff yoga teacher. After returning to Chicago for a few weeks, David returned to Aspen to live and teach for about five months.

Up to this point in time, though he had not taught a lot, when he did, he usually got very good feedback on the way and content of his teachings. The main reason he did not teach as much as he wanted was his deep shyness, cluelessness about marketing, and resistance to being perceived as a salesman.

The Inner Garden In Aspen, Colorado:
First Exposure to Massage Therapy & Bodywork,
Birthplace of DSL Let-Go Yoga Therapy

David’s first exposure to bodywork was in 1977, while living in Aspen, by way of Eugene Donaldson, who later was co-founder of the Educating Hands school of massage in Miami, Florida. Eugene introduced David to deep tissue bodywork and a very deep and intense style of Polarity Therapy. This was the opposite of the more well-known approach to Polarity Therapy that was so light that one was often not even touching the body.

Often, Eugene worked far beyond the point of pain, which went against what Joel taught in yoga about Playing The Edge of Pain & Fear. (Going UP TO pain, but NOT INTO pain.) While positive results were definitely produced, as in looser muscles and freer movement, this started David thinking and comparing bodywork systems and philosophies in light of Joel’s teachings, especially about The Edges of Pain.

Because David had a natural talent for bodywork — strength plus sensitivity plus ability to pay attention to very subtle sensations, he and Eugene would often do extended exchanges in which each session lasted 3 to 4 hours or more … meaning that it took almost a full day just to do two bodywork sessions! This formed a lasting impression, though, on just what people really needed to get enough release in their bodies to truly Let Go of deeply held tension and stress. It doesn’t necessarily go away in an hour or two per week on a massage table or in a yoga class. (Depends on how stressed, tense, or traumatized the person is.)

Beginning while living in Aspen, David studied other forms of bodywork, such as Jin Shin Do.

He left Aspen there when it got too cold and started to snow too much. He then moved, on January 1st, 1978, to Miami, Florida, where he lived for a while at a yoga center in South Miami. He took an Amtrak from Chicago going south through Kentucky. They got stuck in the snow for 24 hours on top of a mountain! THAT was interesting!

He started working with Sam Dworkis and Mel Austin, two yoga teachers in South Florida. He also taught at the now-defunct Grove Health Center in Coconut Grove. He also taught classes at an adult education program on Key Biscayne and other venues.

In Florida, he also studied Swedish Massage, informally trading sessions with the founder of The Florida School of Massage in Gainesville, Florida; a Lomi Lomi workshop in Miami Beach with Farah Allen, founder of The Atlanta School of Massage; and a Body Synergy workshop (an offshoot of Rolfing®) at the Chicago School of Massage Therapy.

In 1984 he studied Shiatsu & Acupressure while studying Acupuncture at the Midwest Center of Oriental Medicine in Chicago. However, he did not find the Eastern models of medicine as useful as what he had been learning from the Western approaches to yoga, bodywork, and wholistic medicine.

By the Way, much of this training was informal — trading sessions with leaders in the field — and David never went to massage school (until 2015). Eugene suggested over and over again that David become a massage/bodywork therapist, but at the time, David felt that massage & bodywork were copouts for people unwilling to do a proper yoga routine. . . .

While still living in Florida, though, he DID buy a massage table, a purchase that, at the time, mystified him. He was not really sure why he did it. . . .

Developing A New Yoga/Bodywork System
David began his private bodywork practice in Chicago in 1981, where he began developing his own approach, integrating various bodywork therapies with The Edge and other concepts of yoga, especially the long, extended holds in postures, the way of using the breath, and other elements, all based on what he learned from Joel Kramer. He quickly settled upon a pretty specific set of techniques and immediately began getting results that were beyond what most therapists in the area were able to provide.

The New DSL Bodywork & Let-Go Yoga Therapy System Emerges

The two foundational components to DSL EdgeWork & Let-Go Yoga are, then, 1.) Joel Kramer’s principles of physical/mental/relational yoga and 2.) Daniel Blake’s basic formula for analyzing structure and evaluating posture, both of which David has extensively developed and refined over the years. And 3.) a third component is the Basic Release Technique of steady pressure on the muscle with very little movement, which David learned from the very first massage technique Eugene Donaldson, or anyone, ever did on him in Aspen in 1977, though Eugene was working way too deep. (Other systems use a similar approach, but without the subtleties brought about by Joel’s and David’s work with and on the Edge.)

Many of the commonly held assumptions — by both orthodox and alternative practitioners — about what nerves, muscles, fascia, and joints do and how they work are not necessarily in accord with reality. This leads to either insufficient results or occasionally counterproductive reactions or, even worse, pain or dysfunction. Occasionally, someone is incapacitated by such misapplied perspectives.

As well, many practitioners work either too deep or too light. In the first case, too much pain prevents the Client from relaxing very well. In the other, not enough sensation does not activate the nervous system sufficiently to initiate change. One of the rules, though, is too NEVER go too deep, and then when a muscle is not releasing, lighter is almost always better. Relaxation of chronic tension is the most important objective, and it is hard to relax when in pain.

This NOT to say that other approaches don’t work. They most certainly do, most of the time, as long as the treatment matches the condition. Yet there are a small percentage of cases where they do not work at all, or are occasionally counter-productive. … David’s point is that if these other approaches do not work, or if the problem keeps coming back, and IF it is a neuromuscular or myofascial problem, then the Advanced Structural approach, with very close attention to The Edge, often what he calls the Minimum Edge, has a very high likelihood of working.

From this point on, David used no other systems or techniques other than his newly developed approach:

• Hands-On, PsychoMuscular Release Technique
• Advanced Structural Analysis & Postural Balancing
• NeuroFascial Deactivation
• Let-Go Yoga
• Internal & External Ergonomics

There are other elements, however these are the main components. You can read more about these components at What Is DSL Yoga? and What Is DSL EdgeWork? at these links.

Scientific Foundations & Other Studies
Along the way, to understand and enhance the healing potentials of yoga and bodywork as an integrated system, David has done extensive study of the physical sciences:

• Structural Anatomy
• Postural & Functional Kinesiology
• Neuromuscular & Myofascial Physiology
• Musculoskeletal Physiology
• Neurophysiology
• Pathology

In addition to orthodox medical sciences, David has extensively studied and worked with scientific principles and techniques underlying neuromuscular, myofascial, and structural massage and bodywork.

And, there is a strong philosophical, psychological, and semantic background to the work, as well as other related disciplines. Along the way, David has participated in many personal growth trainings such as Insight, est, the Forum, Logonet, and others. Much of this material has been integrated into his DSL EdgeWork and DSL Let-Go Yoga Training Programs.