The Feet of the Pelvis
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I began to be curious about how that deep front line of the leg might affect or be affected by the deep line within my torso. What was my psoas muscle up to?
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Morning Posture; Morning Attitude
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I also know that moving stiffly--ambulating with the bare minimum of joints engaged--becomes a habit that can’t entirely be blamed on my bodily tissues. Habits take place in the brain. The more often I move stiffly, the more familiar and less optional that way of moving becomes. I can choose how I move.
Read MoreAsymmetrical Stance
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We can imagine this biblical hero raising his left leg first when he puts on his boots. The entire right side of his body is compressed, and this compression would have been reflected in his gait.
Read MoreSisters of the pelvis
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We dipped into pelvic dance, the ancient feminine communion originally meant to prepare women for pregnancy and childbirth. We explored the possibility of dancing from our ovaries, from our cervices. If we could dance that way, could we not also walk that way? But where and when, in current culture, would that feel safe?
Read MoreMinimal Shoes and Biofeedback
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If our hunter-gatherer forebears wore simple hide foot coverings or, depending on the weather, went barefoot, wouldn’t shoes that are barely there be good for us too?
Well, not necessarily, because “we’ve paved paradise and put in a parking lot.” We walk on flat, smooth, unyielding surfaces, whereas our forebears walked on grass, dirt, sand and gravel…
Wake Up Your Feet!
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If you’re thinking that feet are my favorite subject, you could be right. I definitely think that adaptable, responsive feet are a vital component in healthy posture. By adaptable, I mean feet that are able to move--not just to take steps, but also to spread and clasp, to wriggle and writhe and bounce. They can sense the ground and respond to it…
Read MoreBecoming Bone Conscious
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I’ve been browsing through a wonderful new book about myofascial efficiency in movement. Born to Walk, by my friend, James Earls, delves into the minutia of joint mechanics and into how they are supported by the soft tissue layers. The book is exhaustively researched and elegantly illustrated. Earls considers the helical motions of the feet and pelvis, legs and spine, and for my money, gets it about as right as right can be. Body workers and somatic educators will do well to study this fine volume…
Read MoreFoot Massage
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That may not be true for everyone, but for sure, foot problems stop you in your tracks. As a Rolfer® and movement coach, I’ve seen too many miserable feet and the problems they’ve transmitted to the bodies above. So I’m motivated to share anything I come across that might help my readers care for their own precious gravity negotiators. Feet, with their 26 bones and 33 joints and countless soft tissue springs and pulleys, are perfectly designed to negotiate uneven surfaces. When they don’t get to do that—when they’re constantly shod and subjected to flat, hard surfaces…
Read MorePsoas Power
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In my DVD, I speak several times about the importance of propelling the body forward with the back leg and foot, allowing toe-off to be complete. It’s common, in places where space is at a premium (e.g. crowded sidewalks, corridors between work cubicles, small kitchens) for us to pull ourselves forward with the leg that swings forward, rather than propelling our bodies forward from the back leg. When the body is drawn forward from the forward heel, the hamstring muscles don’t complete their potential for movement which is to extend the hip enough to take the leg behind the body. When the hip doesn’t fully extend, the hamstrings are robbed of the opportunity to let go during the swing phase of the walk. This is the scenario of perpetually tight hamstrings…
Grounding Practice
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If we can really let our bodies accept support from the ground and simultaneously widen our perspective to include our surroundings, then that balanced perceptual field automatically optimizes posture—as well as doing a lot of nice things for our mental outlook…
Read MoreYour Posture's Event Horizon
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Posted below is Pack Matthews’ TEDx talk. He talks about the health offascia, the “sitting is the new smoking” research, and the research linking longevity to one’s ability to sit and rise from the floor without using hands or knees–and gives a great demo of this! Pack is the inventor of the Soul Seat™, a great option for people whose work requires that they sit all day. The design invites you to squirm and stretch while you sit. I’m putting one on my next letter to Santa!
Read MoreMore About Fascia
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Here’s an amazingly well-produced television story about the latest research on fascia. Robert Schleip is in it and Rolfing is well represented. The graphics are incredible–you really get a sense of the fascia living inside you and a sense of awe for its role in your life. The video is in German, but the subtitles are clear…
Read MoreDancing Fascia
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The idea for this post came to me while I was dancing. It also grew out of a conversation I’d had a few hours earlier with one of my spiritual mentors, Dunya, about a workshop given by Robert Schleip that I had recently attended. Robert is one of the foremost researchers on the nature of fascia…
Read MorePosture and The Gift of Pain
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This week I read an article about a young woman who does not experience pain. The article contains messages of human generosity and connection woven through the story of a genetic anomaly. It got me thinking about pain as a gift, as something to be thankful for in this season of giving thanks. Pain can signal danger and the need for protection—we can’t ignore that kind of pain. But I’m thinking more about the mundane, ignorable pain of getting up from the computer after sitting there too long, or of having to roll too gingerly out of bed in the morning…
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