“The force arises from the situation.” Helga Schubert

When we translate axial undulation and cognitive modulation into a physical healing practice, we leave the field of mere recovery and enter the realm of biomotor synergy.

Morning Flow – A Guide to Axial Undulation & Cognitive Modulation

Goal: reduce protective tension, calm the sympathetic nervous system, allow the nervous system to prioritize axial wave-like movement, and begin without strain.

Preparation – Attention & Breathing

Lie on your stomach. Close your eyes. Feel your weight resting on the surface beneath you. I call this © normal-force saturation. Breathe deeply and evenly. Let the belly soften. Become aware of the spine as a waveguide. Hold the thought: “Everything is safe. I let go.” The nervous system reduces protective tension. The theoretical context is simple:

Whatever is cognitively experienced as safety immediately produces physiological effects.

Once sympathetic dominance can be dampened through a prioritization of axial undulation and cognitive modulation, we experience relaxation with physiological and neurophysiological consequences. The nervous system works more efficiently, muscular and protective tension decrease, and the system becomes better able to process sensory patterns.

Sympathetic Tone and the Illusion of Relaxation in the Horizontal

The intuitive assumption that the body automatically enters a state of complete relaxation in a horizontal position is physiologically inaccurate.

Although lying down reduces mechanical gravitational load, the sympathetic baseline tone does not disappear. Continuous activity remains necessary to maintain vital bodily functions.

Even in the horizontal position, the body remains a dynamic system. Breathing movements, the heartbeat, and minimal shifts in position constantly generate sensory signals that must be processed.

The vestibular system and blood pressure regulation continuously monitor the organism and intervene when necessary. Such processes require neuronal control.

Axial Spinal Waves – Snake Moves

The exercise begins with the conscious generation of a kinetic chain.

Create a deliberate impulse at the lower end of your spine — a small accelerated mass (the impulse, the momentum) — and guide it upward like a wave. Each vertebral segment passes the momentum to the next so that a continuum emerges.

Ideally you experience how the targeted acceleration almost fills the back; a state of saturation appears.

Before one wave fades, the next already flows in, until the system reaches a state in which the flow of impulses circulates smoothly through the entire axis.

What began as a mechanical push becomes, through neural fine control, a stable energetic cycle in which the body regulates and supports itself as a unified system.

In doing so you return to the oceanic origin of undulation — that ancient wave-like movement from which all aquatic life derives its power.

You feel the basal vitality inside you.

It is the sex of the organs.

Eventually the torso feels charged and electrified like a vivid marlin darting through the water.

Later, in the vertical, you become an air-fish.

Lateral Waves and Neurobiological Asymmetry

The next exercise addresses the neurobiological asymmetry and evolutionary origins of locomotion.

Laterality (side preference) is embedded in our subcortical systems — in fight/flight/freeze responses, the grasp reflex, breathing, and the heartbeat.

I often think of the primordial fish.

I tell myself:

“The flexible spine, the 400-million-year-old fin stroke — the oldest movement pattern of humanity.”

This kind of movement creates explosive power.

Remain lying on your stomach, arms extended at a right angle.

Become aware that your brain uses two hemispheres to control your body.

The movement we now awaken originates from a time when we still slithered sideways through the water.

Again create the continuum, but with a different perspective.

Notice the flow difference between your right and left side. That alone is the experience.

To get good on the right, you need to get better on the left.

Invite the left side (assuming you are right-handed) to nestle into the rhythm of the dominant right side.

Use the marlin impulse. Imagine you are a powerful fish whose torso is compact and indivisible.

By consciously steering these lateral waves, you fill in the underrepresented areas of your kinetic chain.

Isolated Muscle Movement – A Counterexample

The next exercise concerns isolated muscle movement.

It is a stepchild of the Enlightenment and reflects a mechanistic image of the human being as a machine.

Whoever trains in isolation believes they have emancipated themselves from the horizontal operating system. But this is an illusion.

In the prone position we expose this anthropocentric hubris.

Here is a lesson contrasting muscular will and kinetic momentum — contraction versus transmission.

(I will explain this organizational shift separately.)

Lift your legs alternately. You will feel a pleasant stretch — we take that along.

Then activate the kinetic chain again and experience the frictionless flow of movement.

Let go of the idea that arms and legs are isolated tools.

In the prone position draw your knees upward to the sides and bring the soles of the feet close together, or allow the lower legs to fall outward — the classic frog position.

Enter the posture slowly. Explore the stretch gradually until the full form appears.

I remain like this for several minutes.

Then I move the legs only through the arms.

The wave travels through the torso and mobilizes the lower extremities as if by magic.

Turning the Field of Force – The Supine Position

Now turn onto your back and thereby change the force field.

The body now acts as a tensegrity model, in which elastic energy is no longer kinetically working against the ground but is stored within the system.

Spring vs. Blockade

Load the body at the hips and shoulders. Briefly stiffen and then lift the legs.

You should immediately feel the transmission.

The impulse is now stored in your tendons, fascia, and muscles.

The impulse flows and makes the movement effortless.

In this resonance the connective tissue stores the energy — elastic recoil.

The body feels light, almost autonomous from will.

Here the kinetic chain becomes a pure transmission medium, nearly without loss.

The Test – Contraction Instead of Transmission

Now we perform the anthropocentric counter-experiment.

Stop the swinging abruptly by contracting all major muscle groups at once.

Clench into the ground. Contract with full force.

Within seconds you are exhausted.

This is a mechanical dead point.

Returning to Kinetic Grace

Suddenly release the contraction and let the impulse flow again.

Notice how greedily the system absorbs the oscillation.

The transition from rigid contraction to flowing transmission feels like releasing a brake.

The body remembers its horizontal operating system.

And again you are in the oceanic rhythm.

The Role of Imagination

Imagination is the software that determines whether the system operates kinetically cleanly. Those who hold linear or box-like images automatically sabotage the effect.Those who imagine spiral, flowing structures allow momentum to arise organically — and can later transfer it to a partner.

The Central Role of the Rib Cage

The foundation of an axial spinal wave lies in the mass of the rib cage. It is the body’s central weight center and generates the first impulse for the entire kinetic system. When the rib cage is rhythmically set in motion, an internal momentum emerges that travels along the spine. This movement is not merely a localized effort. It creates a continuous wave that runs from the torso through the entire kinetic chain.