Which foot hit the floor first as you got out the bed this morning?
Which sock did you put on first?
For a while now our mat practice has focused on side to side harmony.
Most of us, your truly included, are discovering that we are only aspiring side-to-side harmonists, and that the left and right side of our bodies may as well be from two wildly different worlds. Mars and Venus, anyone?
Naturally, questions like "what the heck?" and "why is this so hard!?" come to mind. I totally know how that feels.
Today's e-lesson is an attempt to answer that naggy "what the heck" question.
To a degree at least.
Most likely you weren't aware of which foot hit the floor first, or which sock or shoe went on first this morning. It is, in fact, quite possible for all of us to live our entire lives without ever noticing which leg goes into the pants first. (Do you know which leg goes in first?)
Very few of us notice which leg we habitually stand on, which arm is always on top when our arms are crossed, which leg is on top when our legs are crossed, or which thumb is on top when fingers are interlaced.
There is a very consistent habitual way in which we go about our everyday tasks, and it is directly related to our right or left handedness.
A normally formed skeleton (that's how most of us start our lives; I didn't get the privilege of the normally formed one - so I think I am special!) will always move toward a symmetrical balance, unless the muscles attached to it are distorting its balance.
If the weight of our bodies is shifted to and supported by only one side, if we are consistently over utilizing one side while under using the other, our musculoskeletal system functions under a considerable strain because one side of our bodies is more compressed.
This one-sided compression can lead to a number of one-sided symptoms: a pain in the right shoulder or the right side of the neck, or maybe in the right ankle, knee, hip or SI joint. Some people experience soreness in the right side of their low back, and others have persistent headaches on the right side of their heads. Many of us experience all of the above symptoms - and all on one side.
Changes in our musculature are not isolated; our nervous system changes along, too. Overtime, the underused side can disappear entirely from both our sensory awareness and voluntary control, so it becomes almost to impossible to lift our toes, engage our gluts or hamstrings, or sense where that place of side-to-side harmony is.
Eventually we begin to experience somatic distortion: we bear all of our body weight on only one side, yet to our internal sense of body position in space this posture feels perfectly side-to-side balanced.
Correcting somatic distortion on one's own is not an easy task because our very awareness of our bodies position in space and in relationship to gravity is compromised. It is as if a corrupted software has been installed into our operating system, and the messages that it is sending are all wrong.
This is why in class we use a variety of unstable tools to provide the feedback for us. At home, a simple exercise of shifting your weight from one foot to another can help to turn some sensory light bulbs on: stand in front of the mirror, and balance your sides out as much as possible (left ear and right ear on same level; left eye and right eye on same level; same goes for shoulders, two sides of the rib cage, pelvis, hips, knees ankles).
Now close your eyes.
Shift your weight several times from one foot to another keeping your eyes closed.
1. Find a place that feels most familiar to you in how you stand. Open your eyes and check your position in the mirror - how far off balance have you shifted?
2. Now close your eyes again and find a place where you feel weight sitting evenly over your right and left foot. Open your eyes and again, check your position in the mirror. Are you actually centered?
As you go about your daily tasks check in once in a while to register how you are standing over your feet.
Have a great weekend!
