Hanumanasana, Creating Stability and Reaching into the Splits
In hanumanasana, or actually, while lowering down into it, instead of focusing on lowering your pelvis, focus instead on your forward leg reaching forwards while your back leg reaches back. At the same time reach your spine up. In all cases, the thing that you can reach away from is your pelvis.
This pose is also known as "The Splits" but to differentiate it from side splits you can call it "Front to Back Splits."
Create a Stable Foundation
The challenge with hanumanasana is that it is hard to create a stable foundation. Your legs and hips may tighten up because you don't have a stable foundation. One solution is to put your hands on blocks so that you can use your arms to help give your body a foundation. You can then use your arms to help support the weight of your upper body. You can then lower your body with control, giving your legs and hips the ability to relax and stay relaxed as you open. Another option is to hang on to ropes or straps, if your have them. Or if you have a coach or partner, they can help you slowly lower your body into hanumanasana as you hold on to them, perhaps with your hands around their neck for support.
Relax and Lengthen
What happens if you don't use your arms to create a foundation for your hanumanasana? If you aren't used to doing splits, and particularly if you have notions of it being painful and a potential cause of injury, then your legs will tighten up. They'll do that to prevent you lowering down into splits. They'll tighten up becuase they are supporting the weight of your body. And so if you place your hands on blocks or hang from ropes, you can pull upwards with your arms, or push downwards, enough to take some of the weight of your body so that your legs can relax. You can then focus on slowly lowering your body with control by using the strength of your arms. At the same time you can focus on first relaxing your legs and then on keeping them relaxed as you slowly lower your pelvis close to the ground.
An additional benefit of doing splits in this way is that it can help your build some arm strength. The arms are only a part of creating a foundation.
Lengthening the Back of Your Front Leg
When doing the splits (or working towards them) one leg is forwards and the other leg is back. In this position the hamstrings of the front leg is lengthened, or needs to be able to lengthen in order for the front leg to go forwards. In general this group of muscles attaches to the pelvis at the sitting bone and to the back of the fibia and tibia (the two bones of each lower leg) just below the knee. You can create some stability for these muscles by "locking" or stabilizing the pelvis via the spine. If you make the spine rigid by using either the spinal erectors or the abdominals or some combination of both, then you can help to stabilize your pelvis and give your hamstrings a stable foundation so that it is easier to relax them and lengthen them.
Generally, if doing hanumanasana while your body is upright, then bend the spine backwards and keep it bent backwards by using your spinal erectors, the muscles that run up the back of the spine and to either side of it. Focus on bending your lumbar spine and thoracic spine backwards. You'll feel a contraction along your lower back and the back of your ribcage when the particular muscles that act on these parts are active.
If you are leaning forwards slightly, then in that case you may find that using your abdominals to stabilize your spine and pelvis is more helpful.
Relaxing the Hip Flexors of the Back Leg
With respect to the back leg in hanumanasana, the main muscles that you can focus on relaxing are the iliacus, psoas, and potentially the rectus femoris. These are all hip flexors but the rectus femoris also acts on the knee. Because it is grouped with the quadriceps, it may activate if you straighten your back knee. You may be able to help it to relax if you focus the effort on straightening your back knee to the region of muscle just above your knee caps.
The psoas attaches to your lumbar spine while the iliacus attaches to the inside of your pelvis. As with the hamstrings, if you stabilize your spine (using abs or spinal erectors) then you provide a still point for these muscles, a stable foundation making it easier to relax these muscles and lengthen them.
Create Space In Your Hips and Spine
With the pelvis unified with your spine providing a stable platform, the next element that you can focus on in hanumanasana, is that of creating space within your hip sockets. You can do this by reaching your front thigh forwards and your back thigh backwards. In either case you can actually create a small amount of space between the head of the thigh bone and the hip socket. You may find that this small amount of space, and the reaching sensation that accompanies it, helps you to go deeper.
You can do something similar with your spine, reach your ribs and head away from your pelvis. Press down with your hands to accentuate this lengthening upwards. Allow your pelvis to sink. Create length and then work at making your spine rigid while you hold the pose.
Gradually Becoming Square in Hanumanasana
So that your hips stay square to your legs you can try using your inner thighs to pull your inner knees to towards you pelvis while continuing to move one foot at a time forwards and backwards.
Do try to point your back knee downwards, but don't be afraid to start with your back knee pointing outwards. You can gradually work at pointing it downwards. If you lift your back knee, try pressing the inner thigh of your back leg upwards even as you sink your pelvis downwards.
Rest On the Floor and Between Sides
Once your hips do touch the floor you'll find it a lot easier to relax because the floor is now your foundation. However, until you reach this point you may find resting your pelvis on a block or several blocks is helpful.
After you do one side, rest for a few moments in kneeling position before doing the other side.
Moving Rhythmically Deeper
Keeping your spine rigid while doing hanumanasana, you can focus on straightening your knees one knee at a time. Do this rhythmically, or if your like, with your breath. With both knees bent, use your arms to lift your torso and reach or press your front foot forwards so that your front knee straightens. Slowly lower, and then bend your front knee when your have to. Repeat smoothly and slowly. Then do the same but this time focus on reaching your back foot away from your pelvis and straightening your back knee. Then try this while trying to reach with both feet at the same time.
Rest (I like to rest in kneeling posture) and then do the other side.
Shape Your Feet
If you do hanumanasana twice on both sides, try it once (on each side) with your back toes tucked under, and then with the top of your back foot flat on the floor. In both instances, try to shape both your front foot and your back foot. With your front foot, press forwards through the front of your foot. Try to shape both your inner and outer arches. With your back foot, if the top of your back foot is on the floor then straighten the inside and outside edges of that ankle and focus on using your leg to press back through the toes of your back foot.
If the toes of your back foot are turned under, work at forming the arches of your back foot and press back through the heel.
Auxiliary actions for Hanumanasana
On various days when I do this posture, certain actions work and then certain actions don't work. Some actions that you can play with include:
* pressing both thighs up (as if instead of your pelvis sinking down, you are trying to lift your legs up, off of the ground)
* pressing both thighs out
* pressing both thighs in.
The feeling of "pressing the thighs up" is literally that. Rather than hinging the thighs at the hips focus on pressing the entire thigh bone upwards, both the back leg and front.
When pressing the thighs out, the muscle action happens at the outside of the hip near the front (gluteus minimus and tensor fascae latae.) You may find this more helpful when your spinal erectors are active and your spine is either straight or bent backwards. You may find that squeezing your thighs together helps when bending forwards.
With more experience, and again, on some days you'll be in the mood for this, on other days not, you can start with your back knee on the floor and your front knee straight and you can "slide" into the pose with your hands off of the floor. Here instead of relaxing, you are lengthening while said lengthening muscles are still active.
Move slowly and stay "tight" until your pelvis touches the floor. Then because the floor is supporting your pelvis, you'll find that you can relax. You may also find that you feel you need to touch your hands to the floor before your pelvis does. That's fine. With practice you'll be able to do this with greater and greater ease. However, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't pay any less attention while doing this. Always be aware so that you can stop yourself if you are having a "tight" day.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Feel Your Alignment
Body Awareness, Learning to Feel Your Alignment Instead of Thinking About It
What if there is no perfect blue print pose for your body but a number of them. What if the perfect way of doing a pose for your body is dependent on any number of factors including the weather, the season, how you feel, the position of the moon, the people you are with etc.
Would a set of alignment points help you find your perfect pose on any given day?
What if instead of learning alignment points (or as well as learning alignment points) you learned to feel and control the elements of your body, learning the potential of each part and each relationship and how to realize that potential.
Instead of striving for a particular alignment you could instead feel each part and how they relate and based on your body awareness you could find your alignment from within.
You could focus on individuals parts or relationships one at a time, making adjustments and then moving on to the next part, continually making adjustments and continually moving towards a pose that makes your entire body feel good.
Instead of waiting for the pose to happen or trying to force it, you steadily move towards it sensing your body all along the way.
Move Slowly, Smoothly and Repeatedly with Rhythm
You can develop your body awareness little bits at a time by moving target areas slowly and smoothly. By doing so you give yourself the chance to notice the changes that are happening in your body. You also develop control since it takes control to move the parts of your body slowly and smoothly.
Feel Your Bones (and Develop Body Awareness)
To develop your body awareness, you can start of with by learning to feel your bones and how they relate. You can learn to feel them by moving them slowly and rhythmically.
Feeling Your Pelvis and Hip Joints
To develop your ability to feel and control your pelvis you can rock it back and forwards.
You can focus your awareness on your sitting bones, feeling them move as your pelvis moves, or you can focus on your pubic bone or both. You could also focus on feeling the upper crests of your pelvis. You can then fill in the gaps, the boney connections that link these points.
From your pelvis you can move your awareness to your hip joints, feeling the change in relationship between your thigh bones and pelvis.
Becoming Aware of Your Lumbar Spine
Once you've got a feel for your hip joints you can move your awarness to your lumbar spine, the part of the vertebral column that connects you ribcage to your pelvis.
As you tilt your pelvis forwards you can feel your lumbar spine bend backwards. As you tilt your pelvis backwards you can feel your lumbar spine bend forwards.
Since the lumbar spine has 5 segments you could also devote effort to feeling the links, one at a time, between these segments. Or you could focus on feeling the vertebrae themselves.
To make this easier you can estimate the position of your lowest ribs and the position of the top of your pelvis. Your five lumbar vertebrae have to fit into this space.
Sensing Your Thoracic Spine
You can rest for a moment (or a day or two) if you choose. Then you can carry your awareness up into your thoracic spine, the part of your spine that your ribs attach to. And so that this part is easier to feel, you can focus on bending your thoracic spine and lumbar spine backwards each time you inhale and then bend it forwards while exhaling. (You can continue rocking your pelvis backwards and forwards while you do this.)
So that you can learn to feel your ribs and thoracic spine you could also focus on twisting your ribcage relative to your pelvis and your ribs relative to each other.
You could expand your ribs while inhaling and twist while exhaling (like wringing out a wash cloth) or you could hold a twist while breathing into your ribs, using your breath to move your ribs and using your arms to help you gradually twist deeper.
So that you deepen your awareness at the same time you can first focus on feeling the left side of your ribcage and then the right.
And so that you feel all of your ribcage you can first focus on feeling the front part the side part and then the rear part of each side of your ribcage. This is easier if you breathe into your ribs, since this will cause your ribs to move and you can then learn to feel your ribs via this movement.
Relaxing Your Muscles to Feel the Weight of Your Bones
Other techniques for learning to feel your bones include swinging actions of the arms where you relax your arms (or try to) so that you can feel the weight of the bones of your arms and even your shoulders as you swing your arms forward and back or from side to side.
Use your hips to provide the drive for these actions.
Muscular Elements of Body Awareness
Once you've gained some body awareness awareness of some or all of your bony elements, you can then use them as references for learning to feel and control your muscles.
You can learn to feel the muscles that attach to the bones that you know by feeling when they are active and when they are relaxed. Again, you can use slow, smooth rhythmic movements.
The differences in sensation between muscle tissue activating and relaxing can help to tell you where the belly of your muscles are. You can fine tune your body awareness by trying to pinpoint muscle attachment points to bone. With this awareness you can then learn to activate specific muscles by drawing one end point towards the other.
Learning to feel all the muscles associated with a particular action you can learn to feel under what circumstances particular muscles activate and you can learn to control when particular muscles activate.
The overall goal can be muscles and bones that work in harmony towards whatever you are trying to do.
Connecting to Your Body
Learning to feel and operate your body by learning to feel the parts (bones, muscles) you can then apply that ability to connect to your body to any situation that you are using your body in whether a yoga pose, sport action or while creating art, a product, commerce or simple fun. You might then find it easier to learn anything that you wish to learn. Practice would still be required but because you understand the elements of your body that practice time would be a lot less than if you didn't know.
Developing your body awareness and learning how the parts of your body work together is like learning the letters of the alphabet and how they go together so that you can write (and read) freely.
Learning how to read music and how to play notes on a guitar you can learn to play any piece of music. Learning basic elements of driving like steering, breaking and speeding up you can drive a car while handling what is going on around you on the road.
Learning the basic elements of your body and how they relate to each other (and the earth) you can learn to freely drive and express your body.
Basic Movement Elements for Developing Body Awareness
* Tilting pelvis forwards and backwards and allowing lumbar spine to bend while doing so
* Forwards and Backwards bending thoracic spine/ribcage
* Side tilting pelvis
* Twisting ribcage (keep pelvis stationary)
* Costal breathing-Lifting and expanding ribs while inhaling, allowing them to relax downwards while exhaling
* Activating feet so that feet, ankles and lower leg are strong
* Learning to shift weight so that weight is over fronts of feet and then over heels. (balance)
* Learning to spread shoulder blades and retract them (for mobility and stability of the arm)
Improving Body Awareness with Basic Body Part Actions
Body awareness is the ability to sense your body and how the parts of it relate. It can also mean knowing what your body is capable of at any moment in time.
You can improve your body awareness by learning to feel the parts of your body and how they relate. You can learn the options or possibilities for each part. You can then choose how to put those options together based on how what you are doing and the circumstances at the time.
Rather than thinking in terms of a perfect "blue print" for a pose, you can think in terms of a set of options for any pose and choosing from among those options given how your body feels at that time.
Scanning
So that you can determine how your body feels, you can either scan your body or feel it all at once. Scanning can be a way of working towards the ability to feel our entire body all at once. In either case you practice body awareness.
While scanning you can decide what to do with each part based on what we feel. For example, scanning your feet while in a standing forward bend you might notice that your feet feel tired and so you shift weight on to the centers of your feet or your heels so that your feet can rest.
Or you might choose to activate your feet and in addition shift your weight forwards to force the back of your lower legs to activate. You might also decide to make feet ankles and lower legs strong so that the hamstrings have a stable foundation-a fixed point-making it easier for them to release.
Feeling your hips we might choose to focus on creating space in the hip joints. Or you could choose to widen the thighs and use the inner thigh muscles to tilt the pelvis forwards. Or you might focus on sucking the top of your upper/inner thighs towards your lower belly activating the psoas and illiacus and using them to close the front of the hip joint and open the back.
The more aware you are, the more options you have to choose from. The more body awareness that you have, the more aware you are of the options for your body and the more aware you are of where and how the parts of your body relate Now.
Integrated and dis-Integrated (or Differentiated)
By learning the small ideas that make your body up and how they relate, you can learn to feel them and control them and then you can choose from among these possibilities in the context of an integrated posture.
An integrated posture uses all elements of the body together. This is as opposed to a dis-integrated or differentiated posture which you might use to focus on learning the small elements of your body.
As for "alignment," that can be a guide to learning to feel your body or operating it. You can learn to feel the position your body is in by repeatedly moving towards an "ideal" alignment or reference position and then away from it.
If the movement is slow and smooth enough you can develop body awareness (and control) because of the sensations generated by moving it. If you can observe yourself in a mirror we can also calibrate what you sense to what is actually happening. You can tune your senses and your ability to control your body.
A List of Actions for Developing Body Awareness
This is a partial list of body part actions that you can use to develop body awareness and better control over the parts of your body. In each case practice doing said action slowly, smoothly and repeatedly.
The feeling while practicing should be a comfortable one.
Rest when you've had enough.
Practice regularly to the point that you can do an action without having to think or "try." Then you can try doing these actions where appropriate as part of bigger, "integrated" postures or actions.
Activating Feet (active arches means front and back of each arch presses into floor while center of arch lifts)
* Roll shins outwards and inwards (Outwards is "active)
* Activate outer arch when rolling shin outwards
* Activate inner arch and outer arch when rolling shin outwards
* Practice holding feet active with minimum effort
While keeping feet active, use feet to feel and control center:
* Rock weight forwards and backwards, from heels to front of feet and back
* Balance on heels, then on fronts of feet
* Shift weight on to heels but keep fronts of feet touching floor-find position where feet can relax
* Shift weight forwards just enough that toes naturally press down into floor but some weight still on heels.
* Keeping weight forwards so toes engage, practice shifting all of weight onto one foot then the other.
* Practice weight shifting with weighted foot turned out.
Hip Joint actions-these actions are designed to help you understand some of the possibilities of the hip joint.
* Reach thigh away from pelvis and then relax. (Can be done first while sitting and then while standing.) This movement is very slight but sensible. Feeling is similiar to that of spreading the shoulder blades. Creates space in the hip joint
* Pull thigh into hip socket and then relax. Makes hip joint stable-handy when balancing on one leg.
* While standing, spread thigh bones and then relax. Can be used to widen top of the pelvis or to create space between thighs.
* While standing, draw thigh bones towards each other and then relax.
* Roll pelvis forwards and backwards while sitting and standing. Do while allowing spine to bend and then while keeping spine straight. Learn to move pelvis at the hip joint.
Leg and hip actions
* Pull shins inwards
* Pull shins outwards
* External rotation leg neutral, back and leg forward
* Internal rotation leg neutral, back and leg forward
* Reach with whole leg forwards, side and back (while balanced on other foot)
* Pull thigh towards belly when leg is grounded...
Sacro-illiac joint
* Pull tailbone towards pubic bone
* Suck sacrum forwards
* Relax sacrum
Mid Section (low back,low belly)
* Tilt pelvis back/front, side to side using abs and low back
* Side bend lumbar spine,
* Front bend
* Back bend
* Slide ribcage
* Pull lower belly in
* Expand upper belly
Ribcage
* Expand front, back, side ribs
* Inhale into back
* Lift and expand ribcage
* Lower ribs (relax downwards)
* Make ribcage big and hold
* Make ribcage medium size and hold
* Make ribcage small and hold
* Twist lower ribcage
* Twist upper ribcage
* Twist pelvis relative to ribcage
* Twist thoracic spine
Neck
* Slide head
* Pull head back and up
* Lengthen neck
* Twist cervical spine
* Side bend cervical spine
Shoulder blades
* Widen shoulder blades and then relax
* Shoulders up and shoulder blades together and then relax
Hands and Fingers
* Magic fingers (wiggle)
* Spread fingers and relax
* Tighten fist and relax
* Hook hand
* Palm hand
Arms
* Pull forearms inwards
* Internally rotate arms
* Externally rotate arms
* Reach arms up, to sides, front, back and down.
What if there is no perfect blue print pose for your body but a number of them. What if the perfect way of doing a pose for your body is dependent on any number of factors including the weather, the season, how you feel, the position of the moon, the people you are with etc.
Would a set of alignment points help you find your perfect pose on any given day?
What if instead of learning alignment points (or as well as learning alignment points) you learned to feel and control the elements of your body, learning the potential of each part and each relationship and how to realize that potential.
Instead of striving for a particular alignment you could instead feel each part and how they relate and based on your body awareness you could find your alignment from within.
You could focus on individuals parts or relationships one at a time, making adjustments and then moving on to the next part, continually making adjustments and continually moving towards a pose that makes your entire body feel good.
Instead of waiting for the pose to happen or trying to force it, you steadily move towards it sensing your body all along the way.
Move Slowly, Smoothly and Repeatedly with Rhythm
You can develop your body awareness little bits at a time by moving target areas slowly and smoothly. By doing so you give yourself the chance to notice the changes that are happening in your body. You also develop control since it takes control to move the parts of your body slowly and smoothly.
Feel Your Bones (and Develop Body Awareness)
To develop your body awareness, you can start of with by learning to feel your bones and how they relate. You can learn to feel them by moving them slowly and rhythmically.
Feeling Your Pelvis and Hip Joints
To develop your ability to feel and control your pelvis you can rock it back and forwards.
You can focus your awareness on your sitting bones, feeling them move as your pelvis moves, or you can focus on your pubic bone or both. You could also focus on feeling the upper crests of your pelvis. You can then fill in the gaps, the boney connections that link these points.
From your pelvis you can move your awareness to your hip joints, feeling the change in relationship between your thigh bones and pelvis.
Becoming Aware of Your Lumbar Spine
Once you've got a feel for your hip joints you can move your awarness to your lumbar spine, the part of the vertebral column that connects you ribcage to your pelvis.
As you tilt your pelvis forwards you can feel your lumbar spine bend backwards. As you tilt your pelvis backwards you can feel your lumbar spine bend forwards.
Since the lumbar spine has 5 segments you could also devote effort to feeling the links, one at a time, between these segments. Or you could focus on feeling the vertebrae themselves.
To make this easier you can estimate the position of your lowest ribs and the position of the top of your pelvis. Your five lumbar vertebrae have to fit into this space.
Sensing Your Thoracic Spine
You can rest for a moment (or a day or two) if you choose. Then you can carry your awareness up into your thoracic spine, the part of your spine that your ribs attach to. And so that this part is easier to feel, you can focus on bending your thoracic spine and lumbar spine backwards each time you inhale and then bend it forwards while exhaling. (You can continue rocking your pelvis backwards and forwards while you do this.)
So that you can learn to feel your ribs and thoracic spine you could also focus on twisting your ribcage relative to your pelvis and your ribs relative to each other.
You could expand your ribs while inhaling and twist while exhaling (like wringing out a wash cloth) or you could hold a twist while breathing into your ribs, using your breath to move your ribs and using your arms to help you gradually twist deeper.
So that you deepen your awareness at the same time you can first focus on feeling the left side of your ribcage and then the right.
And so that you feel all of your ribcage you can first focus on feeling the front part the side part and then the rear part of each side of your ribcage. This is easier if you breathe into your ribs, since this will cause your ribs to move and you can then learn to feel your ribs via this movement.
Relaxing Your Muscles to Feel the Weight of Your Bones
Other techniques for learning to feel your bones include swinging actions of the arms where you relax your arms (or try to) so that you can feel the weight of the bones of your arms and even your shoulders as you swing your arms forward and back or from side to side.
Use your hips to provide the drive for these actions.
Muscular Elements of Body Awareness
Once you've gained some body awareness awareness of some or all of your bony elements, you can then use them as references for learning to feel and control your muscles.
You can learn to feel the muscles that attach to the bones that you know by feeling when they are active and when they are relaxed. Again, you can use slow, smooth rhythmic movements.
The differences in sensation between muscle tissue activating and relaxing can help to tell you where the belly of your muscles are. You can fine tune your body awareness by trying to pinpoint muscle attachment points to bone. With this awareness you can then learn to activate specific muscles by drawing one end point towards the other.
Learning to feel all the muscles associated with a particular action you can learn to feel under what circumstances particular muscles activate and you can learn to control when particular muscles activate.
The overall goal can be muscles and bones that work in harmony towards whatever you are trying to do.
Connecting to Your Body
Learning to feel and operate your body by learning to feel the parts (bones, muscles) you can then apply that ability to connect to your body to any situation that you are using your body in whether a yoga pose, sport action or while creating art, a product, commerce or simple fun. You might then find it easier to learn anything that you wish to learn. Practice would still be required but because you understand the elements of your body that practice time would be a lot less than if you didn't know.
Developing your body awareness and learning how the parts of your body work together is like learning the letters of the alphabet and how they go together so that you can write (and read) freely.
Learning how to read music and how to play notes on a guitar you can learn to play any piece of music. Learning basic elements of driving like steering, breaking and speeding up you can drive a car while handling what is going on around you on the road.
Learning the basic elements of your body and how they relate to each other (and the earth) you can learn to freely drive and express your body.
Basic Movement Elements for Developing Body Awareness
* Tilting pelvis forwards and backwards and allowing lumbar spine to bend while doing so
* Forwards and Backwards bending thoracic spine/ribcage
* Side tilting pelvis
* Twisting ribcage (keep pelvis stationary)
* Costal breathing-Lifting and expanding ribs while inhaling, allowing them to relax downwards while exhaling
* Activating feet so that feet, ankles and lower leg are strong
* Learning to shift weight so that weight is over fronts of feet and then over heels. (balance)
* Learning to spread shoulder blades and retract them (for mobility and stability of the arm)
Improving Body Awareness with Basic Body Part Actions
Body awareness is the ability to sense your body and how the parts of it relate. It can also mean knowing what your body is capable of at any moment in time.
You can improve your body awareness by learning to feel the parts of your body and how they relate. You can learn the options or possibilities for each part. You can then choose how to put those options together based on how what you are doing and the circumstances at the time.
Rather than thinking in terms of a perfect "blue print" for a pose, you can think in terms of a set of options for any pose and choosing from among those options given how your body feels at that time.
Scanning
So that you can determine how your body feels, you can either scan your body or feel it all at once. Scanning can be a way of working towards the ability to feel our entire body all at once. In either case you practice body awareness.
While scanning you can decide what to do with each part based on what we feel. For example, scanning your feet while in a standing forward bend you might notice that your feet feel tired and so you shift weight on to the centers of your feet or your heels so that your feet can rest.
Or you might choose to activate your feet and in addition shift your weight forwards to force the back of your lower legs to activate. You might also decide to make feet ankles and lower legs strong so that the hamstrings have a stable foundation-a fixed point-making it easier for them to release.
Feeling your hips we might choose to focus on creating space in the hip joints. Or you could choose to widen the thighs and use the inner thigh muscles to tilt the pelvis forwards. Or you might focus on sucking the top of your upper/inner thighs towards your lower belly activating the psoas and illiacus and using them to close the front of the hip joint and open the back.
The more aware you are, the more options you have to choose from. The more body awareness that you have, the more aware you are of the options for your body and the more aware you are of where and how the parts of your body relate Now.
Integrated and dis-Integrated (or Differentiated)
By learning the small ideas that make your body up and how they relate, you can learn to feel them and control them and then you can choose from among these possibilities in the context of an integrated posture.
An integrated posture uses all elements of the body together. This is as opposed to a dis-integrated or differentiated posture which you might use to focus on learning the small elements of your body.
As for "alignment," that can be a guide to learning to feel your body or operating it. You can learn to feel the position your body is in by repeatedly moving towards an "ideal" alignment or reference position and then away from it.
If the movement is slow and smooth enough you can develop body awareness (and control) because of the sensations generated by moving it. If you can observe yourself in a mirror we can also calibrate what you sense to what is actually happening. You can tune your senses and your ability to control your body.
A List of Actions for Developing Body Awareness
This is a partial list of body part actions that you can use to develop body awareness and better control over the parts of your body. In each case practice doing said action slowly, smoothly and repeatedly.
The feeling while practicing should be a comfortable one.
Rest when you've had enough.
Practice regularly to the point that you can do an action without having to think or "try." Then you can try doing these actions where appropriate as part of bigger, "integrated" postures or actions.
Activating Feet (active arches means front and back of each arch presses into floor while center of arch lifts)
* Roll shins outwards and inwards (Outwards is "active)
* Activate outer arch when rolling shin outwards
* Activate inner arch and outer arch when rolling shin outwards
* Practice holding feet active with minimum effort
While keeping feet active, use feet to feel and control center:
* Rock weight forwards and backwards, from heels to front of feet and back
* Balance on heels, then on fronts of feet
* Shift weight on to heels but keep fronts of feet touching floor-find position where feet can relax
* Shift weight forwards just enough that toes naturally press down into floor but some weight still on heels.
* Keeping weight forwards so toes engage, practice shifting all of weight onto one foot then the other.
* Practice weight shifting with weighted foot turned out.
Hip Joint actions-these actions are designed to help you understand some of the possibilities of the hip joint.
* Reach thigh away from pelvis and then relax. (Can be done first while sitting and then while standing.) This movement is very slight but sensible. Feeling is similiar to that of spreading the shoulder blades. Creates space in the hip joint
* Pull thigh into hip socket and then relax. Makes hip joint stable-handy when balancing on one leg.
* While standing, spread thigh bones and then relax. Can be used to widen top of the pelvis or to create space between thighs.
* While standing, draw thigh bones towards each other and then relax.
* Roll pelvis forwards and backwards while sitting and standing. Do while allowing spine to bend and then while keeping spine straight. Learn to move pelvis at the hip joint.
Leg and hip actions
* Pull shins inwards
* Pull shins outwards
* External rotation leg neutral, back and leg forward
* Internal rotation leg neutral, back and leg forward
* Reach with whole leg forwards, side and back (while balanced on other foot)
* Pull thigh towards belly when leg is grounded...
Sacro-illiac joint
* Pull tailbone towards pubic bone
* Suck sacrum forwards
* Relax sacrum
Mid Section (low back,low belly)
* Tilt pelvis back/front, side to side using abs and low back
* Side bend lumbar spine,
* Front bend
* Back bend
* Slide ribcage
* Pull lower belly in
* Expand upper belly
Ribcage
* Expand front, back, side ribs
* Inhale into back
* Lift and expand ribcage
* Lower ribs (relax downwards)
* Make ribcage big and hold
* Make ribcage medium size and hold
* Make ribcage small and hold
* Twist lower ribcage
* Twist upper ribcage
* Twist pelvis relative to ribcage
* Twist thoracic spine
Neck
* Slide head
* Pull head back and up
* Lengthen neck
* Twist cervical spine
* Side bend cervical spine
Shoulder blades
* Widen shoulder blades and then relax
* Shoulders up and shoulder blades together and then relax
Hands and Fingers
* Magic fingers (wiggle)
* Spread fingers and relax
* Tighten fist and relax
* Hook hand
* Palm hand
Arms
* Pull forearms inwards
* Internally rotate arms
* Externally rotate arms
* Reach arms up, to sides, front, back and down.
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