structural integration

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Release Your Upper Neck by Changing Your Perception

2010/05/29 in Articles, Integrate Wellness, Try this..., structural integration

Most of us have the proverbial pain in the neck on occasion and changing the way we perceive the world through our senses can often give relief. A lot of the movement of the neck happens in the top two vertebrae and a lot of neck tension happens because of what’s happening above it. I’m going to start with a few basic assumptions about the relationships between the neck and head and I’ll leave it up to you to decide if they’re true for you. So here are my assumptions:

  • Your top vertebra, C1 (the atlas), is balancing the tension of your brow (if furrowed), your sense of sight, and your inner ear.
  • Your 2nd vertebra, C2, (the axis) is balancing the tension in your nose and your sense of smell.
  • Your 3rd vertebra, C3, is balancing the tension in your jaw, temples and outer ear, or your sense of hearing.

It goes without saying, upper neck tension can be caused by a lot of things, but these are some of the big culprits and in my experience they go hand in hand with a flat neck. When you try the following exercise, consider it a success if you are able to produce even a small change. Developing a richer awareness takes time and commitment to changing the way you relate to your world through your senses.

Start by lying on your back. Try moving your head side to side to see how well your neck moves before starting. Begin by tilting your head back slightly, allowing for a slight curve in your neck, letting your chin lift. As you gently tilt your head back, you should begin to feel a curve forming in your neck as the neck vertebrae shift forward.

C3 and Hearing… Gently place your fingers on either side of C3 (just below the vertebra at the top of your neck that sticks out). The C3 vertebra should feel tighter on the side that your jaw is tighter. Bring your attention to your jaw and imagine all the tension melting away into the floor. Try making the sound “ahhhhhh” and allow your back teeth to float apart. Finally open up your ears. What do you hear? see if you can allow your ears to expand out to meet the sounds. Often in New York we are so overwhelmed with loud noises, it’s easy to develop tension around the temples and ears. Let this go and you should feel your jaw letting go. Check C3, did it soften at all? If not, you may need some more help getting your jaw to release.

The Axis and Smell… To work with C2 find the vertebra that sticks out just below your skull when you let your jaw go slack it will shift forward, but lets see if we can release it with your mouth loosely closed. If you flatten your neck and tuck your chin, you’ll notice that most of the air goes through the bottom of your nose. Now try breathing in through the top of your nose. To do this you might have to tilt your head back a little and relax the bridge of your nose. The upper passage of the nose is where the olfactory nerve allows us to smell. It is no coincidence that the posture of reckless abandon or ecstasy is with the head back. When we are most enjoying ourselves, our heads goes back to take in our environment through our noses. I find that it helps to close your eyes and imagine smelling a beautiful flower to really get the feel for opening this part of your nose. Alternately, flattening the neck and tucking the chin is the posture of disgust (when we don’t want to smell something) or more generally the posture of withdrawl, something we have a lot of opportunities for in New York with summer garbage smells. If you play with breathing through the bottom and top of your nose, you’ll begin to notice a difference in the way things smell, but it is the ecstatic posture of really taking it all in, that allows the 2nd vertebra to lift and open up. You might experiment with some smells you really like-a rose, an incense or fragrance- to see if it helps you to open your upper nose. When it begins to open you will feel a lift and softening in the vertebra with your fingers. Breathing through this part of the nose also facilitates a deeper breath as the breath is directed more forcefully into the bottom of the lungs.

Seeing, Balance and the Atlas… C1, the Atlas, named for Atlas who holds up the globe, is harder to find from the back of the spine because of all the muscles around it. The musculature around the Atlas  both holds up the head and also helps us to know where we are in space. It sits between the skull and the 2nd vertebra. For this exercise feel for the muscles between the 2nd vertebra and the back of the skull. To soften these often overworked muscles, imagine your temples softening and floating away like a balloon, let go of any tension in your brow by first furrowing and then letting go of your brow. This is the proverbial third eye, so you might also imagine an eye in between your eyebrows.  Allow the eye to open and see how it feels.  Allow your regular eyes to relax back into their sockets. If your eyes are open, imagine that the world is coming towards you rather than your eyes having to go out and get the images. When we try to grab what we see with our eyes it throws the head forward and forces the upper neck muscles to tense. Instead, let the world come to you. The inner ear is where we find our relationship to gravity and if we’ve lost touch with our inner ear we instinctively tense our upper neck to brace for a fall.  One way to help jump start the inner ear is to hold your hand in front of one eye (on the tense side) and move your hand back and forth. Notice how the hand blurs? Keep the hand steady and move your head back and forth. Notice how the hand doesn’t blur? That’s because your vestibular system is talking to your eyes and telling them where you are in relation to your environment.  If your neck releases from holding your gaze on your hand and moving your head, it’s likely that the tension in your upper neck is from your vestibular system.  Now check your neck. Did the muscles at the top of your neck soften?

Finish by rotating your head back and forth. Did you gain any range of motion? If your neck is moving more easily, build up to doing this exercise standing and in different environments. Does it change when you’re with certain people or in certain places? If you allow yourself to breath through the top of your nose, soften your eyes, or let the sounds come in, does your experience change? Often it is our relationships to our environment and the people around us that determine whether we are able to stay free in our neck. Did you notice anything else change when you changed your perception? Let me know by sending me an email.

Walking on the Front of the Heel

2010/02/13 in Articles, Try this..., structural integration

I started shooting video this summer with my friends Weena and Matt, but never got around to a final edit. I decided to cobble together some of the footage to show off Matts video…

In the slo-mo, we shot weena walking the way she normally walks (the way most people with heeled shoes walk), landing on the back of the heel. If you look closely you can see the shock-wave going up her leg, hyperextending her knee. In my experience, this can lead to stress on the knee and a stiffening of the subtalar joint (between the heel and ankle). If you’ve gotten used to wearing heeled shoes, you’re probably doing the same thing without even knowing it.

The other thing we played with that we don’t show in the video is how important balance over the knees is. For Weena, the shock-wave really diminished even more when we worked with her knees. When you stand with your knees locked, it’s much easier to hyperextend your knees once you start walking. While you’re standing, even just unlocking your knees until they’re loose can make a big difference once you start walking. Try it and let me know how it goes.

Weena Pauly is an amazing dancer, trainer and a Yoga Therapist and can be found here…
http://www.weenapauly.com/
…and Matt’s various creations can be found here…
http://MatthewTarr.com

Scientific Evidence to Support Barefoot Running

2010/01/29 in Articles, Barefoot Running, Integrate Wellness, Try this..., structural integration

A fantastic story just came out on NPR about the impact of running in shoes vs. running without them…

Something I’ve claimed for years, based on my own experience running barefoot and also from working with runners, is that shoes causes more impact on your body than leaving them behind.  Running in your birthday shoes lowers the impact on your body simply because it forces us to improve our alignment to avoid pain.  Very quickly our alignment and running posture improves from the simple act of trying to avoid blisters and hard landings.  Getting blisters running, while a painful annoying experience, actually help to tell you if you’re moving with too much effort!

Barefoot running works like this… Most people with very little coaching will naturally switch to landing forefoot first when running barefoot.  When we land on the more stable forefoot (rather than the unstable heel) it guides the foot into the center of the arch.   Anytime you land over the center of your arch, the foot acts like a spring.  Something that might not be so obvious is that when we run heel first the leg is extended in front of us and all that straitening keeps the knee from being able to bend and really absorb shock. by landing on the forefoot or the center of the foot the tendency is to land with the knee slghtly bent and with the torso directly over the foot.  This keeps us from driving our heels into the ground in front of us like it’s a pole vault we’re throwing ourselves over the top of, hence, less shock.  With the knee bent, the body is also prepared to absorb shock by bending the knee.  With a strait leg, the only thing that can absorb the shock of running is the little padding in your shoe and the curve in your lower back.  Personally, I would rather use the full bend of my knee as a shock absorber than my low back.

Another thing that isn’t as obvious when you haven’t run barefoot is that the muscles you use are different.  We are adaptable creatures and we can put ourselves to the task of all sorts of horrible postural imbalances if they serve our purpose, but there is a cost.  The muscles that are activated from heel (shoe) running vs toe running (barefoot) are going to be different because you are balancing differently.  If you lean forward your back muscles engage, if you lean back, your belly tones. This should surprise no one.   So not surprisingly, when you land over the center of your foot, it tends to create more balanced muscular tone whether running or walking.  When you walk or run with the weight in your heels it tends to engage the back and outside of the legs disproportionally because you’re swinging the front leg out in front and hooking your heel to bring yourself up and over the leg.  When you move from your center it allowing the leg to go behind you to push you forward and engages the front and back of the legs in a more balanced way.  When the leg goes behind the body it also lengthens the psoas, but this can only happen when we are walking or running over our centers.  In the NPR article the photo of the man running in shoes is pitched forward and he as to be to get his weight over the extended leg. It’s far easier to be centered over a pair of moccasins or barefoot than fancy running sneakers.

Light like a deer… When you are running barefoot you generally want to be light on your feet to avoid impact. The tendency is for the drive of the run to come more from lifting the knees  than from pushing the foot down.  I’ve discovered from my own experience that this action tends to both strengthen and engage the psoas so much, that pilates exercises I thought I’d never be able to do became effortless after a 15 minute barefoot run.   The opposite is true of running heel first.   I’ve worked with many runners, or former runners who complain of tight hamstrings and painful IT bands as a result of  running heel first.

Since it’s winter in New York I wouldn’t recommend going out and trying to run barefoot, but there are some great shoes for simulating the feel of running barefoot like Vivo Barefoots and Vibram Five Fingers.  To really get good feedback on your form though, nothing beats doing a couple minutes around your gym track or on the treadmill unshod.  Just be sure you start out slow and keep it around 5 minutes the first time you give it a try.  Build up slowly.  There’s a lot of adjusting that has to happen if you’ve been running with shoes your whole life.  You wouldn’t go into your first yoga class and try to bring your ankle behind your head.  The same caution applies to running barefoot.

Ida Rolf describes Structural Integration

2009/12/15 in Integrate Wellness, structural integration

Classic! I couldn’t describe the work better myself.  Below are two videos of the woman who created ‘Rolfing’ or Structural Integration, Ida P. Rolf.  Back in her day there was a lot more use of the metaphor of stacked blocks to describe the body and it’s alignment, though her understanding was incredibly nuanced.  I remember hearing Joseph Heller (created Hellerwork) tell a story about how they were at a restaurant and when a waiter walked in wearing a suit, she could pick out that his quadratus lumborum was short.  Amazing.