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With snow forecast for New York this week, you might think of it as your big opportunity to walk the way your body was meant to-over your center. All that slipping and sliding really forces us to be over the center of gravity, something that most shoes with heels discourage us from doing. Wearing shoes with heels, even most sneakers, tilt us forward as if we’re standing on a hill. To keep from falling forward and tumbling down the hill inside our shoe, our natural tendency is for the hips to go forward, and chest to go back. This helps us to balance. It also creates a kind of collapse, since our hips aren’t under us and the chest is behind us. It’s the All American posture and you won’t see it in anyone who walks around barefoot or in flat shoes. Go to any Caribbean beach town where flip-flops and barefoot walking prevails if you need an example.
What this does…
Heels also tend to shorten the connective tissue of the calves and as a result the hip flexors, and when you’re standing with your hips shifted forward the upper hamstrings shorten which makes sitting difficult. When the hamstrings are tight they pull the sitbones under which makes an upright posture while sitting impossible without strain.
Gentle exercises to try…
Full body arching and curling is a fantastic exercise to find a balance stance, especially the arching part. Standing, try arching back, your tail back and up as if you have a 6 foot squirrel tail and you’re trying to touch the back of your head. Really exagerate it. When your head goes back shift your weight into your toes, this helps the sitbones to lift. With your tail back, weight in the toes, breath deeply, spiraling the arms back to open the upper ribcage. Inhaling is important because it opens the upper ribcage and supports the shoulders to rest more on the back. When you exhale, let your body spring back to neutral leaving your hips back, tail lifted. You should naturally find a less collapsed posture.
You can also go back and forth following the inhale with an exhale into the heels, rounding the shoulders, but make sure you end by inhaling and letting your body come back to neutral.
Another one…
Calf stretches are good with the knee bent and the hips back.. straiten and bend the knees with the hips back, to work different parts of the calves. Be sure to put even pressure in the ball of the big toe as much as the pinky toe ball so your feet dont twist. This will help the hips rest more back over the center of the feet.
Flip Flops…
If this article finds you escaping the New York winter someplace tropical heels probably aren’t your biggest worry right now, but flip-flops might be.
For many people flip-flops or thongs force the wearer to lift their toes or scrunch them up (which is kind of like pushing your toes down while you lift them) to keep the sandal on. Walk down any street in New York in the Summer and you’ll see someone struggling to both hold their cell phone to their ear and balance while they shuffle along in this year’s flip-flops. Holding that floppy footwear on is tough work and it’s kind of like multitasking for the feet.
Your toes were designed to respond to the ground, and they have a much easier time doing so if they aren’t having to wrestle with your footwear at the same time. Lifting your toes is something that most yoga teachers will ask you to do to find your arch. This is a great thing in yoga because it aligns the bones of the foot. If you tend to pronate, you probably have a little trouble finding the ball of your big toe and lifting your toes really helps to find that part of your foot without loosing the alignment of your ankle.
Unfortunately, all that toe lifting makes our ankles and arches stiff, and makes for a hard landing on the heel when we walk. When we are walking we want the arch to flex like a spring. The spring of the arch provides shock absorbsion for our bodies, but it can only happen when the foot is relaxed. If this is you, try this.. Standing, try placing the outside of your heel down first, then the outside of your toes,then the big toe ball and then the inside of the heel. When you press your toes down, you might notice that it’s easier to lengthen them out as you press down. This is the action you’re looking for in flip flops, instead of scrunching, pressing down as you lengthen through the toes.
Easier walking…
This exercise can help whether you’re in shoes, barefoot or in sandals. When you’re walking, try starting by standing over the center of your foot (all four corners with equal pressure) with your knees strait but soft, feet relaxed. Once you’ve found this posture standing, begin to walk. If you try this barefoot on a hardwood floor your walk should go from loud and pounding to almost silent. This is because you are landing closer to the center of your foot, instead of the back of the heel. How you start your walk will essentially determine how you end up moving. If you start over your center, you’ll end up walking over your center.
While flip-flops aren’t the best for your feet, if you wear them, you’ll want to find ones with a tighter strap across the top of the foot for a snugger fit, or one that allows you to press your toes down to hold the sandal on. Your toes shouldn’t have to do anything more than respond to the ground, don’t make them hold your sandals on too.
I hope this helps,
David.
Effort and Grace: Applying the Anusara Principles to Everyday Life
January 16, 2010 1-4 PM
ViraYoga Annex
With Tara Glazier & David Murphy
In this workshop David Murphy (Certified Structural Integration Practitioner) and Tara Glazier (Certified Anusara Teacher) will lead an exploration into how the Anusara principles can be applied to every day movement to create more ease, balance, strength and grace in the way we move through life.
Through breath and movement, we will explore how tuning in and aligning ourselves with our most essential nature, we can feel more supported, improve our experience of ourselves and better connect to others.
After doing a personalized postural assessment with each student we will learn to move from our optimal blueprint by deepening both our perception and our awareness of support. Throughout the class, we will explore everyday movements as well as asana practice.
Cost: $75 Max 5 students
To sign up go to the Virayoga website.
In my last article about the breath, I wrote about the importance of contacting our inherent impulse to breath, and allowing ourselves to be breathed, rather than following an external or mental cue. This exercise is no different, but it takes a little bit more refined focus and it builds off of the last exercise.
The Bandhas in Yoga, or “locks” (as in locks in a river) refer to the horizontal membranes of the body that provide containment and regulate the pressure of the different cavities of our bodies (our guts, lungs, heart and brains).
Where are they?
The major diaphragms of the body are the respiratory diaphragm, the pelvic floor (muscles between your tailbone and pubic bone), the base of the throat, the base of the skull -at the level of the ear lobes (including the roof of the mouth and base of the eyes), the top of the head, and also the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. The joints of the body are also diaphragms.
Why the Bandhas are important…
When we are having trouble breathing, or our limbs are stiff or weak, it is often reflected by in how our breath moves through our bodies. For example, if you puff up your chest you will notice that the base of your throat and your respiratory diaphragm have to tighten to retain the pressure in your ribs that allows you to puff up. These pressure regulators also have a dramatic effect on blood pressure, oxygen delivery to the cells, stress on the heart and overall health. If they are too tight oxygenated blood isn’t able to reach the tissue and if they aren’t toned at all, there isn’t enough pressure to squeeze the blood back to the heart and we tend to feel sluggish. Balanced tone in the diaphragms leads to longer more balanced breathing and a lot less stress on the heart. When we are feeling our best, our diaphragms are gently pulsating between contraction and release to allow a smooth flow of energy through our bodies.
Ready to feel amazing?
Lie on your back and notice your breath. Allow your breath to come and go, without changing anything about it. As you tune in, you may start to notice that when you inhale, all of the diaphragms naturally contract, and on the exhale, they all tend to release. Without changing anything about your breath, see if you can tune into the softening quality of the exhale. As you begin to inhale see if you can continue to soften your diaphragms. Since they all move together, you won’t actually have to focus on all of them to receive the benefits of this exercise.
At first see if you can bring your attention to just one or two at a time or try checking in with different diaphragms as you breath. With practice, you will be able to open your attention to all of the diaphragms at once. Just be sure you aren’t forcing your breath, either breathing harder or speeding your breath up or slowing it down. Just let it flow naturally in response to the effects of your attention on the bandhas.
The overall effect of this exercise is that it will begin to feel as if your whole body is breathing, as if your lungs extend all the way from your fingers, to your toes and out to the top of your head, every cell expanding and contracting. If this is easy, try the exercise sitting or standing. I hope you enjoy the experience.
A word of caution.
Big emotions can often come up when working with the breath. If you begin to feel overwhelmed or even just light headed, take a break, this exercise should ideally make you feel more connected to yourself and more at ease.
Tara and I are partnering again for what promises to be an amazing retreat in Costa Rica. We’ve been exploring the Spanda Karikas and are excited to share our revelations on “The Song of the Sacred Tremor” through yoga, meditation, and of course playing in the waves. Email for more information.
 
I’ve been working in a more extensive way with the breath with some of my clients lately. How you breath, and where in your body you breath really sets the foundation for finding more balanced alignment and more ease. A lot of yoga, meditation and holistic health teachers give instruction on the breath, but why we do these exercises is often misunderstood. I’m a big fan of a lot of these exercises, but sometimes they take us away from our bodies own natural breathing patterns, especially if we aren’t conscious of why we’re doing them. Believe it or not your brainstem, which regulates the breath when you aren’t paying attention, has a better idea of your needs for breath than you or I can consciously figure out. It’s important to to develop a deep sense of what it feels like to be moved by your own breath and allow it to flow on it’s own before doing yogic breath work. This will help you stay in relationship with the needs of your own nervous system as you begin to do more consciously regulated exercises. The more connected to the natural rhythms of your breath you become, the more you’ll realize that most of breath instruction came from some yogi who sat still and listened to their own body long enough to get a sense of what made them feel more whole, and more connected to their source.
So try this…
Lie on your back and notice your breath. Allow your breath to come and go, without changing anything about it. As you tune in, you may start to notice that each inhale and exhale is different. When you relax, or get excited, shift your thoughts, or become more present, the inhale and exhale will become longer or shorter and the rhythm will change. The natural pattern of the breath is to speed up and slow down, become deeper and shallower, moving in waves. If you’ve ever watched the ocean, you’ve noticed that the waves come in groups of waves called sets. Your breath will do the same thing as your nervous system adjusts to the ever-changing needs of your body. As you watch this ebb and flow, it will bring you to deeper states of calm.
Stop breathing
Now, if this is not happening naturally, it may be that something is blocking your natural breath from surfacing. This may help…
Let your mind off the hook, stop breathing, and wait. I promise, if you stop yourself from breathing, you will be forced to take another breath. When you can’t hold it anymore, let the air fill your lungs and rest. Watch what happens next with the question, “what does my body want to do next?” You will probably start to notice a new rhythmic quality to your breath as it moves on it’s own. Try this several times and see if you can tune into the impulse deep inside that is begging you to be breathed and allow this impulse to drive your breath. If you need to reconnect to it again, you guessed it, just stop breathing. The more you relax, the easier it is to feel this impulse, but don’t worry, it will eventually take over, no matter how hard you try to hold your breath.
A word of caution: Big emotions can often come up when working with the breath. If you begin to feel overwhelmed take a break, this exercise should make you feel more connected to yourself.
Staying connected to this impulse is at the foundation of any healthy breathwork or meditation practice.
Tags: breathing, rhythm, structural integration
I’m excited to announce, I’ve just moved into a cozy new office at 920 Broadway at 21st St, on the 14th Floor. Thank you for supporting my practice as I transition into this new space. If you’re there for a 6 PM session, you’ll be in for a treat, the sunsets are amazing.
Introducing the New School of Structural Integration
Friday October 16, 7-9pm
If you’ve ever been interested in Structural Integration as a career, I can wholeheartedly say, this is the school. A dear colleague and friend started this school to combine the best aspects of other Structural Integration schools. This Friday will be a great opportunity to meet the director, and learn what it takes to become a practitioner of one of the most cutting edge healing modalities.
Meet Dan Rawson, School Director of the New School of Structural Integration in Laguna Beach, California. Find out about the next training, starting in February 2010. www.newschoolsi.com
Location: Moving Body Resources
112 W 27th St. Fourth Floor, between 6th and 7th Ave.
According to a study conducted by researchers from Belgium and the UK, your shoes have probably shaped your feet to work differently than their original design. They found that people who go through life unshod tend to have a wider forefoot, better weight distribution through the foot and they speculate, produce less impact as a result.
For a hit of how this might happen, try walking around on a hard floor without your shoes on and listen for the sound. More than likely, your heels are making a lot of noise when they hit the ground. This is often the result of wearing shoes with heel support. We tend to put our weight where we get the softest impact. But when we take our shoes off the padding is gone. When we’re barefoot, the impact of our bodies on our feet becomes our teacher. If you pick up your heel and poke it with your finger, you’ll notice that most of the padding is on the middle of the heel, not the back where you’re probably used to landing if you wear shoes (and who doesn’t!). Try walking letting the soft pad on the bottom of your heel land first. This isn’t easy if you’re used to it and the first thing you’ll probably notice is that you’re walking slower. Don’t worry though this is just the beginning of learning a gentler way to walk. The speed comes from the pushing off, but more about that later. For now, listen and feel if your walk is a little quieter or a little less hard on the rest of your body.
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