Confession of an alignerd: I don't fly anymore: a Modern Miracle

Early in my alignment journey, after much studying, memorization, restorative exercising [thank you Nancy], and walking, (and walking!) I made my way to the RE 'holy city' of Ventura, CA, to see and be seen.  There, we would have private sessions with Restorative Exercise heavyweights and take group classes for nearly a week, at the end of which we'd take a test and practice teaching people who volunteered to learn something for which they'd pay nothing, and we'd be observed teaching alignment basics.  We were to be inspected.  Nay: certified.

Now, I've been certified before and found it nerve wracking.  Pilates on all the apparatus.  I worried I wasn't knowledgeable enough and would be found wanting.  Probably waited an extra year before "testing out."  And though the folks conducting the test were perfectly lovely people, I felt as if I were going into battle, and I was, but with my own demons, not anyone assessing my ability.
Of course, I could see that only after I'd passed (whew) but forgot the lesson and felt the same stuff (dang demons) in the private sessions prior to the Restorative Exercise Exam.  Gird your loins.

Bright lights. Big City.  To get this tall, alignment is KEY.

A few weeks prior, I'd taken a trip to my hometown, (NYC) and had the pleasure of staying in a friend's apartment on the lower East side (which is now incredibly hip).

There's a place on Orchard to get individually brewed cups of coffee w/designer beans in seconds.  The tube sucks just the right amount of which ever bean you desire, your cup's brewed, and they all have crema on top!  Man, the lower East Side ain't what it used to be.
(But the pickle guys are still there.  FYI)

The buildings haven't changed much at first blush (until one gets a load of a spacious marble shower stall) from the tenements of the old days and there are many flights of steps to climb.  No sweat.  I'm a fitness professional with a well-toned core and all that goes with that.

Leaving there one evening for a dinner date at another friend's place uptown, I slipped on the worn-down marble steps and flew down about a half a flight of steps and landed pretty hard.  Twisted an ankle and wrenched a knee, so that when I'd decided I was going to continue on to dinner uptown, I had to "monster walk" forward so I didn't have to bend knees or work ankles too much [which I perma-dorsi-flexed]. From the stares, I think I made a convincing monster.

I stayed on 57th Street for two days (ice, elevation, tender loving care of my oldest and dearest friends) and a week or two later, there I was in at my anxiety-producing event in Ventura.  I explained that my knee & ankle weren't doing that well, so I might not be able to make the right moves just then, when heavyweight A informed me that it was because I was basically falling all-the-time, not in control of my descending, that it went the way it had for me.  What???   I did not possess the grace (in the moment) to actually receive his message.  I thought, " You (blankety-blank), you have no idea why I fell down those stairs....#*!!+=(."

Fast forward (I know, not a moment too soon) to me leaving a movie theater earlier today.  I was about to descend a staircase and I think it was because of the interesting carpet replacement color choice I mis-read that the stairs were beginning when I thought I was placing my foot on the landing and it would be my NEXT step which would be the step down.

SURPRISE!  I was releasing my weight onto a foot which did not have anything underneath it to land upon, and I did fall a bit, but as I no longer leverage gravity as I once did, I didn't fall forward.  I was not accelerating.  Easy to recover, I just reached for the bannister.  I was in slow motion anyway, not hurtling anywhere. Shazzam :o)

So even though I did pass my exam at the end of that week, it has taken me another couple of years to realized and validate my fundamental operational transformation:  I'm back to using my own power.  As a matter of habit (because you know I was turning my smartphone back on when I mis-read that step) I hold my weight over my heels now, apparently whether I'm thinking about it or not.

So thank you, Katy and alignment community:  thanks to you, my tissues grow happier daily and I don't fly down staircases anymore, either.  Sweet.

If you'd like to stop flying, call me.  Or  Bodywisdom Studio or read about everything you ever needed to know about alignment here.

Sculptors Awaken

Whilst at the recent homecoming training for Restorative Exercise faithful I noticed that for most, sitting, [getting upright atop of their ischial tuberosities] folks need a block or a bolster for it to be easy and I do not.  And in stark contrast to so many in the room, I rate myself an under-achiever.  While many declare daily multiple hour devotion to our exercises, I do very little.  Well, I do walk a couple of miles almost daily and that walk is more and more aligned and posteriorly-driven.  I do teach a few classes too, so I get to demonstrate stuff, and hang a bunch, but I invest precious little time to our corrective exercises.  So it seemed to me I didn't deserve this, I'd done nothing much to earn my great range of motion.

Then it struck me. (I flash back six decades) I grew up in a house headed by a Native American.  It made sense to him that people naturally sit on the floor; (the minivan and lazyboy had not yet been invented) we had almost no furniture.  Made sense to him...  Hey, I didn't have furniture when I was growing up...

So I spent my earliest years sculpting MY body to raise and lower my butt to & from the ground, not from the couch or the barcalounger [how do you spell bark-a-lounger]?.  The operations department in MY head has a huge datafile relating to what people in the yoga classes I attend refer to as crazy flexible hips.  Mine just grew up with the experience of natural movement, and theirs, in the main, did not:  different cultural program working here.

Now, I expect my body to be able to do just about anything I'd like it to.  I have a "why not" attitude founded on my body responding with willingness to try new things because I am constantly aware of its potential, not constantly being reminded of its limitations.  It has ever been so.

I grew up thinking that everyone was just like me (!) and the rest of life has been a series of little ah-ha moments about just how different I am.  We're all unique, right? You can do stuff I can't because of who and how you are. Robustness of pelvic experience from floor-sitting right through formative years gave me a giant 'leg up' on this existence.  Hey, I got my PhD in floor-sitting when I was 7 :o)

I just plunked down so my spouse could take a picture

If you have read earlier posts, you know that I've sustained injuries that limit my knee flexion and those are improving daily, as I re-sculpt myself.  I don't know the number of degrees I've gained.  Becoming pain-free was my happiest milestone passed and the rest is just gravy.  If I live long enough I'll get my ten-year-old knee back. 

If you're a glass half-empty type, you think well, goody for you, missy, I grew up with furniture and am out of luck.  But that wouldn't be exactly true, as you're not dead yet, and expanding your range of motion and re-sculpting is something you can work on continuously throughout every day if you'll pay some attention to your alignment, walk some, hang from your hands some, and squat some. 

Start lowering your butt to the floor a few times a day.  Use a hand to begin with if you need to.  Celebrate your loudness of groan. That's your body saying, where have you been all my life!  And it will be grateful for every single millimeter of more opening, caused by more muscle tissue getting involved as you lower more and fall less.  If you're able to keep this going on even a fairly regular basis, you can become more functional (youthful) not less, over time.  And you're going to be around for a while, right?  You could make a start now.  Well, alright, maybe NOW.  Want help? alignedandwell.com

We're sculptors.  How and how much you move continuously (slump much?) molds and shapes our tissues.  We're sculptors working in the medium of our own human tissue.  How you move your body [or don't] is your tool for fashioning the masterwork.  And you can call a "do-over" any time at all. 

So get up and boogie as it is truly never too late to start and I think I'm almost old enough to be living proof.  Thanks, Pop for the floor sitting ability.  And Mom too, who was into the healthy, whole, healthy food long before it was defined as such by anyone.  (Even if she always did yearn for a comfortable couch)  And you were right Mom, one day I would be glad about having vegetables for snacks.  And it's been pretty much everyday for decades.  Didn't see that coming...

Your body is trying to tell you something. Are you listening?

Movement is better for you than medicine:  If you do a lot of the former you’re a whole lot less likely to require the latter.  Yet we're conditioned to take a pill if we have discomfort instead of receiving it as a message from our operations department that we need to pay attention to something important.  We're taught by those who sell pills and potions that they are the answer.  I still hear the words of my father, offered to me when I was very small - on pain/or when something hurt:  "your body is trying to tell you something.  Are you listening?"  Is anybody listening?

In our affluent society, the more privileged one is, it seems the less one needs to do, for oneself or for others.  Someone else tends, cleans, prepares, fetches, delivers, conveys, trains, all so we have more time to enjoy ourselves.  Or work.  Or workout. Or work late.

If you’re sitting all day at a desk, drive to and from work (or school), even if you exercise for an hour every day, that one hour out of twenty-four won’t make up for the stasis your body must endure the rest of the time.  The human body’s not designed to be inactive but for the time you are asleep.   You’re designed to move around during waking hours (the other 2/3 of your life).

Your heart is a muscle, one of several hundred. It’s designed to move blood around your body and maintain circulatory operations at a minimal level while you’re asleep.  But it only pumps around the big pipes.  If you want to get blood to ALL your tissues, you need to use ALL YOUR OTHER muscles to get blood all the way out to the littlest blood vessels, fill the capillary beds, make your fingers and toes warm, keep your complexion looking fabulous. For this result you need to move everything a bunch.  Which you can probably guess I'm not doing while I'm typing this.....

When you wake up in the morning one of the first things you probably do is stretch.  It feels good.   There’s been little circulation to your muscles because you don’t move very much when asleep (well, some more than others).  Get some circulation going where there’s been none for a while. Have a stretch.  It feels so good, you lean into it and you don't even have to think about it, the operations department simply demands it and you comply without question because you're not really awake yet.  You're so receptive to your body's commands :o) Good times.

Sitting in a chair all day long is no good for you or anyone else.  A sedentary life may be survivable indefinitely, but if you want to feel good, you have got to move your body.  Get some circulation going and keep it going.  All over.

In third world nations where folks have to walk everywhere, hunt, carry water over land for their survival, folks don’t have diabetes, heart disease, pelvic floor disorder, or an avalanche of hip and knee replacements.  When they sit down, they sit on the floor or ground. (Tried that lately?) For toilet functions, squatting is the order of the day.  When’s the last time you squatted for long enough to "take care of business?"

Birds fly, fish swim, snakes slither, humans walk.  Mostly.  We’re versatile :o)  Our feet are unique in the animal world, and we’ve managed to get ourselves to the four corners of the globe (and long before anyone got their learners' permit).  We walk LONG distances.  Swim, too, but not nearly as far and maybe that’s because we'd be likely to become somebody's lunch long before we made land.  We've evolved to walk, to move around from place to place.

And here' s a thought that just came to me:  what if ADHD is simply children being aware that sitting in one place is illness in the making?  What if they’re still in touch enough with their bodies to get the message it’s sending them?  Robust and a variety of movement is the way the body takes care of itself.  Muscles move, circulation results.  Oxygen, food, garbage removal only gets to  tissues when the local muscles are moving.  So instead of giving our young drugs so they’re able to sit without moving for hours on end, maybe we should get a clue:  everyone’s body wants and needs to move a bunch.  

These bodies of ours are remarkable recovery machines.   You tear your skin open shaving, skin your knee, cut your finger, and it will cover the hole and then close it up and then grow a custom replacement cover [that blends in so well you can’t even tell where it was] and it does all this without you having to think about it.  An amazing self-healing machine.  And that’s just a part we can easily observe.  Ever wondered how goosebumps happen? 

The operations department in your body monitors operations 24x7 to keep things ‘just right’ so you can enjoy your life right up until the very moment your time’s up.  99.3% [ok, I made that up] Very nearly all of the cells in your body aren't older than ten.  So there’s really no reason why you couldn’t feel like and do a cartwheel right now.  Right?  Except for maybe your body's been talking and you haven't been listening for quite some time.  If you're reading this the good news is:  it's never too late to get moving.

In this great nation illness is just another profit center and nearing 20% of GDP.   Big Pharma would much rather doctors tell you to take a pill than to take walk.  No one’s going to get rich selling you a movement prescription.  But if you fill that one, you just might never have to go back to the doctor again.

Your body is trying to tell you something.  Are you listening?  Defy gravity.  Stand up straight. Align your body so the operations department gets accurate data and keep everything moving.  Then listening to your body will be a LOT more fun.

Think you're doing nothing?

Yeah.  You've read your email.  Checked your FB, your G+, who knows, maybe you tumble and tweet [I don't even know what the last two ARE] maybe you've played a half hour [or more] worth of games online, and NOW you're looking at my blog about alignment.  OK.  I'll try to be quick, so we can all log OUT and go for a walk.

While you're vegging (or perhaps you have a standing workstation for your computer-time which would be SO smart of you) at the computer and think it's only your brain and eyeballs and fingers that are working right now.

Well, surprise! You're always tearing down & building up your body's cells.  So even when you appear to be doing nothing, there's a whole lot of important stuff going on.  Your job (your real job) is to replicate every cell in your body, perfectly.  There are no ancient cells in your body.  You replace them every 7 years.   By the time you were 20 you'd done that successfully several times already.  As you're reading this you've probably done this many more since then.  Many cells are replaced faster, and you're mostly water anyhow (taking a sip, now) so you'll want to keep that supply pure and plentiful, no?

So what do you think?  When you were a kid, you had a lot of fun, learned new things, danced and swam, skipped and climbed (well, maybe you paddled a canoe), what I'm getting to is this:  maybe you have to move around a WHOLE LOT (get lots of blood circulating to ALL your tissues) on a regular basis to get that job done (the re-making of you) perfectly.  You did it just fine as a young person and let's face it, you weren't all that learned then, you just moved around a lot.  So maybe aging could be looked as: cells being replaced by one whose movement/circulation isn't sufficient to get the cells copied perfectly.  Maybe it's not just time on the clock, but how you're behaving as the clock is ticking.

It just may be how and how much you are in the habit of moving (lately; like over the last seven years) that determines how successful your cell re-creation (wouldn't want to call it recreation:  that makes it sound like fun :o) can be.  And even when you're old as me, moving all over can be a pleasure and as simple as going for a walk (& especially if you employ reciprocal arm motion).  Check back for the next installment:  the magic of reciprocal arm motion!!

I've been inching myself [for the last year or so] into better and better alignment.  My muscles are VERY happy to becoming ever-closer to their optimal length.  I'm getting dangerously close to standing up with legs absolutely straight and I'll be darned if I don't feel like playing and dancing and surfing (OK, I don't actually know how to surf) but I feel like I could [well, if the water were warmer hereabouts].

What I keep finding a complicated to say:  the better my alignment is, the more fun I find it to be in my body.  Core strength alone was not enough:  even getting pretty-darned-close to good alignment's made all the difference.  And if I could happen upon this starting my alignment adventure at age 60, imagine how easy it can be for you.

Come see me in at Body Wisdom Studio in Pt. Richmond for a class:  there are many.  Katy's coming soon:  check the A&W website!  I have colleagues around the world, and you can find one near you, here: AlignedandWell.com.  If you live on a mountaintop, there are a line of DVDs, a really good book, Katy's blog, plenty of resources to get you started on the road to feeling so good you'll want to run and jump, too.  Cartwheel.  Surf.  Shuffle off to Buffalo.

Enough.  I'm going for a walk and I'll probably do a cartwheel or two.  I may turn heads.  I'm an actor and I'm used to people watching me, I think I can handle that.  It's the blogging I find challenging!

The best things in life are free :o)

Stressful times.  If you’re not already rich, your net worth has likely taken a beating in the last little while.  Dang, Jim.  For most of us, enriching one’s existence will likely be headed in the “inward” direction, not in the acquisition of cool toys.  My Tesla will just have to wait for me.  And that’s not entirely a bad thing.  What the greed heads don’t want you to know (or feel) because when you do, then you don’t need to buy anything:

The Best Things in Life are Free  :o)

(I feel a song coming on) A genuine smile shared, holding your baby in your arms, a moment to reflect, taking a walk in the sunshine OR on a rainy day and jumping in puddles, or __________(your good and free thing goes here).

For the moment, oxygen is free, so take a deep breath and notice:  are you creating downward pressure on your Pelvic Floor in so doing?  If you move your ribcage to bring air in, make the cavity larger-changing the air pressure-outside air rushes in, downward pressure doesn’t happen.  Huh?

If you ride a horse, the next time you dismount:  notice that their entire ribcage expands as they breathe, it’s not just their belly reaching down to the ground and back up again.  If you toss a stick or a ball to your dog, once they’ve fetched it back to you and set it down, check it out: their entire rib cage grows all over for respiration. The ribcage is a moveable affair.

Put your hands on your own ribcage and see if you can give them a ride away from each other when breathing in deeply.  Breathe into those hands:  booyah!  See?  You can "ride" your hands in and out using the muscles in and around your ribcage. 

Soon, we’ll see swimmers race in the Olympics.  Their ability to compete successfully has a great deal to do with how much oxygen they can take in repeatedly:  the ability to move their rib cages.  After the race is over and they’re hanging poolside or on the ropes, check them out:  their backs are big – the ribcage goes all the way around.

Maybe you don’t partake in competitive sport.  You may take something else seriously, encounter other daily stresses.  In a stressful time [or when you’d like to remain separate from one] give your hands a little ride:  a couple of good, deep breaths.  It’s so relaxing.  And relaxed is where you do your best stuff:  like dancing or singing in the shower or ____________ (your best stuff goes here). 

Adult diapers: are you in? (know someone who is)

I think it's pretty clear that anyone who's outgrown them, does not want to return to wearing diapers.  Yet there are football and tv stars advertising them on tv in primetime:  expensive time.  That means the market for this item is BIG.

So many of us spend lives with our butt permatucked (a technical term) and it ain't natural.  Gentlemen and women, influenced by a 'civilized' culture, that sticking your bottom out isn't done, "tuck" them and in so doing set off a chain reaction of tension traveling throughout the body.  Think: tossing a pebble in pond.

Sitting for long periods of time [all day?] [got an hour commute to add to that on either end] exacerbates the situation.  Your hamstrings are way tight, (another technical term) from being asked to do nothing all day long, and while seated, the weight of your torso is jamming that sacrum in from the bottom. We're designed to sit on our ischial tuberosities, where the sacrum can assume its natural position.

So you say, "what's the big deal, I'll do my downward dog, and stretch those hamstrings, all right already."  Sure.  But your pelvic floor is muscle and it's the only thing keeping your guts up inside you and not falling out on the floor. Your PF is attached to different spots in the pelvis, one of which moves: the sacrum.  If it's jammed in on the bottom, there's slack in the PF muscles created only by the narrowing the obstetric conjugate (the shape is slightly different in men, but is the functionally the same). The PF muscle which used to be serviceable is now hanging like a hammock.  The muscles shorten and tighten in an effort to remain structurally useful, yet if the angle is extreme, you're out of control.

Your doctor (who's likely forgotten any of the biomechanics he/she may have studied in college) recommends kegels to you, so you can strengthen your pelvic floor, failing to realize that the tissues are weak not because they're lazy, but because they are not physically able to shorten any more than they already have.   Not too loose: too tight! 

Your entire body is amazing and it moves just as you ask it to.   Were we a people who squatted for toilet affairs we would not have these issues.  The places in the world where people still squat for eliminations have no need of diapers.  And they're definitely not tucked, as the tucked squatter sends their business between their feet (and those desiring to leave some items behind will be UNtucking their pelvis, no?) 

Developing your ability to squat and stick your tail out (and one ought to be able to maintain this position for as long as is necessary) will restore their obstetric conjugate to its natural ratio/relationship to the rest of the pelvis and your pelvic floor will (magically) be able to function normally once again.

Surgery doesn't work for long, so if you're dealing with pelvic floor issues your choice is simple.  Start asking your rear end to behave naturally or start shopping for diapers.

And if I've piqued your interest in restoring your body to its natural vibrant state, come see me or my colleagues in lovely Pt. Richmond for classes in Restorative Exercise.  And if you're not nearby, don't worry.  There is much instruction available on line, a line of DVDs, a great book on Fixing your Feet (they're where the rubber meets the road) all available at www.alignedandwell.com. 

the Hurry Cane. Really?

How about learning to use the hurry canes that were issued along with the rest of you?  They're ever so handy and they're always there when you need them :o)  The graphics in this commercial are great.  The stick, the leg.  The bend at the knee.  Oh, that's right.  What's so useful about the Hurry Cane is that the middle doesn't bend.  That's why you'll need/buy it.  It's so handy!  You don't have anything that will do this...oh wait.  You do.  Your LEGS.

OK that sounds a little sarcastic.  Sorry.  People suffer traumatic injuries and require all manner of TEMPORARY assistance in such times for the miracle healing machine to get itself back to Go.  Your very own pair of hurry canes are designed to serve you for a lifetime.  And you can decorate them a whole lot better than you can the hurry cane offered on tv.

Long term use of your body parts outside of what's delineated in the owner's manual can be deleterious to your health and well-being, so you'd be clever to inform yourself.

My sixty seconds are almost up, so instead of purchasing something additional which you'll soon stuff in the hall closet, why not take a peek at the owners' manual at allignedandwell.com?  Your own hurry canes will be glad you did :o) and you will too, as the better you feel the more fun you can have. In fact, when your body feels good you can have a whole lot more of whatever it is you want:  good time or bad.  Sweet, no?

bodywisdomstudio.net  Here's where my journey into these good times began.  Thanks, Nancy!  See you soon.

Alignment: what it means [to me]

what's found in the dictionary : 1. To arrange things in a straight line or 2. The process of adjusting parts so that they are in proper relative position.

If you're going to align dominoes so you can break the world's record of greatest number of dominoes progressively knocked down, you will of course have to pay a lot of attention to alignment (and not sneezing).  You'll make curves and be careful that the forward motion of each will impact the one that's in front of it at least enough to send it forward into its' neighbor.  Alignment is very important to this endeavor and probably making sure all your dominoes have a nice square bottom on which to stand (no wobbly dominoes thank you).  

If you're stacking blocks, the straighter you stack them vertically, the higher you're able to build.  Aligning them perfectly one atop the other makes them most stable.  Where you're slightly off center, that's going to be where the toppling occurs.  You align the blocks to successfully oppose the force of gravity.  This definition of alignment clearly presents the good reason one's knees ought to be straight as opposed to having a slight bend:  as soon as you bend even a little bit, you're going down, my friend.   The only way to stop going down is for there to be muscles gripping somewhere and that sets off a chain reaction of needless tension even when you're standing still and take it on the road the unnecessary gripping possibilities expand exponentially.

The second part of the definition is the one I find myself plummeting through these days:  the process of adjusting MY parts so that they are in proper relative position.  We didn't cover this in Physical Education school (but we could have).

I'm a singer and I have developed the ability to listen really well.  I've come to think of it as good relative pitch:  I know where to place my sound relative to what others are playing or singing.  Anyone can easily tell when it's working, as it sounds good.  Conversely, anyone can tell when it's not working so well, as it sounds SO bad.  Puhleeze make it stop!!

Properly relating one's body parts could be looked at this way, also.  When you're in optimal alignment you are feeling really good and your miracle body can do whatever you ask it to.  If you're reading this, you probably carry a bunch of tension places it's not required:  places that are tight.  When the muscles stabilizing a joint are not fit for duty (too loose or too tight) the joint they're meant to serve becomes compromised and over time its capacity to move in the manner it was designed becomes impaired. Oweee.  Hello tightness, heat, friction, swelling, arthritis. 

For me, and for many others this process of relinquishing joint wellness remained a mystery and I'd thought there was nothing I could do about my knees but sit down and shut up.  Decades of poor relative positioning of my upper and lower leg had put my knees in an awkward and finally painful position.  Enter Restorative Exercise, the Alignment Markers for Optimal Body Function and I'm re-writing the story of my knees.  The reversal of my fortunes has been astoundingly rapid and I started the process in my 60s!  If you're still breathing, you can do it, too.


I'm a Pilates instructor too, and a well-conditioned core really DOES make everything better, but concentration on correct relative positioning of one's parts has brought my picture of wellness into living color.  My body tells me through muscle tension what's right (feels good) and what's wrong (doesn't feel so good).  It's simple.  Perhaps simpler for me as I have a mobilized ribcage already and maybe you don't.   

Going barefoot makes my knees (and the rest of me too) happy and putting on the high heels for a glamorous appearance somewhere feels just so stupid, now.  Who'da thunk it?  Getting the alignment picture and how it's going to help you stay healthy for the rest of your days is the most important part and you can start right now:


Katy Bowman has set everything you need to know down in black and white.  Much of what I've been doing is presented in her book,

Every Woman's Guide to Foot Pain Relief: The New Science of Healthy Feet

(& it works the same for guys, too)  You can also spend some time on her website and enter into the conversation via her blog: KatySays which you'll find at  alignedandwell.com.   You can talk to me, but, hey, she wrote the book!  You may feel the need of a personal tour guide and that's where I (and other Alignment Specialists) come in.  bodywisdomstudio.net  We're here to lend a helping hand and our numbers are swelling.  There's probably one of us practicing near you.


You might be saying, "Well, it's my _____ that hurts, not my feet." But, think about the blocks.  If the block on the very bottom isn't solid, you're not going to stack very many blocks:  they're going down.  This is where "the rubber meets the road," and feet have the greatest affect on your ability to hold your body as the designer intended, along with the ability to move through life that way.


Object to the high cost of healthcare?  Have no need: understand these concepts.  Aside from avoiding toxic exposures in our environment and from the food we ingest, our miracle self-healing machine:  our bodies, if aligned in the manner intended, will heal magically and serve us faithfully until we're done with it.   :o)
 

Have joint pain?

Today's newsletter/email of the day from a good doctor talks to me about exercise, joint pain and the supplements he'll sell me to help with my joint pain.  Yet joint pain is a thing of the past when one is able to align body segments as the designer intended.  When you stack your body up so you're perpendicular to gravity (stand up straight), you don't need to grip any one muscle:  they're all  "live" and ready for your next move.

Happy muscles are those which are capable of both generating force AND stretching.  To be capable of this they need to hold themselves at a happy 'medium.'  There is a "goldilocks" place for your bones (and the muscles which support them) and if you habitually hold yourself in a manner counter to that, you get muscles which must become either too loose or too tight.  Muscles work antagonistically, meaning that when muscles on one side flex, the ones on the other side stretch...so you can see it's pretty simple to assume a position which compromises the way your joints feel over time.  Tight hamstrings, anyone?  Tension in your neck and shoulders?

My joint pain has been in my knees, indicating (which I nonetheless ignored) that there was muscular weaknesses around the joint:  but instead of listening to the cues my genius body was sending me, I did nothing.  Unable to wait for me to come to my senses, my body adapted to the weakness by tightening up and I pretty much relinquished most of the functionality of that knee. Which, by the way, had an effect on all of me.

Enter Restorative Exercise, my great awakening. The more upright I become, the nearer I get to having straight legs, the better my knees feel.  I believe that strengthening my hamstrings was a big part of the equation but you could also say it is a matter of lengthening my quads & adductors and they'd both be right. The prescription is:  whatever you need to do to align yourself to oppose the force of gravity with ease.

It's a complex issue, as whatever part of you that's out of whack affects everything else.  When one muscle's too tight, it's not as if everything else can just 'let that be.'  For you to get on with your day, every other muscle has to make an accommodation for the tight/weak muscle you're not addressing.

I recently injured the fourth toe on my left foot swinging a door open onto it after a yoga class.  (Man!  that smarted. )  :o(  Even putting my five finger shoes on was tricky & what does my neck and shoulders have to do with the end of my toe??? The response to this little event was whole body - every step could be felt right up through my shoulders and neck:  how could I avoid hurting this toe more?  My entire body seemingly had to tense up to make it happen: to favor that toe.

Maybe you have some sexy looking shoes that produce a similar effect.  Trust me, the shoes don't make you look so sexy when you're all hunched over, (maybe you just have to wear your shoulders a little higher and a bit forward for now) but you know you're headed in that direction if you feel it in your knees when you descend a staircase.... (can I get an Amen?)

Time to straighten up and locomote right.

Restorative Exercise to attain optimal alignment:  it's the right thing to do.  Or the upright thing to do.  What the Designer intended.  Don't find those declarations compelling?  It feels really good too.  :o)

Oh yeah: as if saying goodbye to joint pain weren't enough, being in proper alignment (and moving through life that way) helps all your cells function optimally, too:  your blood moves smooth and easy (tight muscles = poor circulation), which brings the good stuff in and carries away that which is no longer useful.  Which is why a massage feels so good on tight muscles:  a little blood flow brings in the good stuff and releases the bad.  Ahhhh.

You could arrange yourself so you feel as if you just got a massage all the time.  That's my personal goal.

You are a wonder

And so am I.  The human "machine" is so amazing: and it's designed to take care of itself.  Given a chance it creates a beautiful now for you to enjoy and does this over and over and over.  You're constantly recycling yourself:  taking cells offline, throwing them out, and replacing them with brand new ones:  perfect copies of the old ones and they go right to work doing just what they're supposed to.  AND YOU'RE NOT EVEN AWARE OF IT.  Your body just does it.

So what?  Well, what this means is it is never too late to create your happy body.  Since you're always building the new one, you can remove impediments one by one until one day you'll be in a pain-free body: ready, willing, and able to do what ever you feel like.  Even if you're someone who has trouble getting your shoes tied, you are replacing your cells at exactly the same rate as the cover girl on Mademoiselle (do they still print Mademoiselle?) magazine.  So you can make significant changes to how much fun you have while occupying the amazing body you've created.

Your body is designed to "right" itself.  Cut your hand, some blood will dry there to form a scab, covering the hole you just made.  It does that automatically.  If someone opens the window and you get chilly, you'll get goose bumps and your hair will stand up to help trap air around your body to help maintain its temperature: an insta-sweater, if you will.  The "operations manager" of your body has been on the job for as long as you've been breathing.  It works flawlessly and coordinates an extremely complex system.  And you don't even have to think about it:  it just happens.

You are the CEO of this glorious configuration you know as your body.  Your major concerns might be:

1. Fuel:  Your body can get by on just about anything at all (also miraculous) but is happiest when its nutritional needs are met amply.  I won't talk about nutrition. Once you're 'in touch' with your body, it's going to TELL you what it likes to eat if you're listening.

2. Rest:  You can likewise get by on too little sleep, but consistently getting enough rest is a major component of establishing conscious awareness of how you're doing physically, so you can "hear" your body's communication when it tells you "I'm hungry" or "I'm tired."  Many of us confuse these messages and eat when we're tired (or in response to other stimuli).   Sometimes you're tired, not hungry, and you CAN know the difference.  Your body is talking to you,  are you listening?

3. Activity:  The difference between youthful vigor and where you are right now is how you move and how much you move your body; habits you have developed.  To move or not to move; this is the question.  Your body can get by with very little movement (did you see Wall-E?) but is happier when it's moving and happiest when it's moving a lot.  If you have pain in your body:  your body is talking to you, are you listening?  If you get yourself moving in the designer-specified manner, you'll be using your body in a manner which optimizes it's functionality.  Moving will become less and less painful and more and more fun.

Knees hurt?  Pharma would rather sell you a pill.  The doctor/specialist would rather replace your parts; to them surgery is cool.  I'm here to suggest that you are supremely well-equipped to fix/maintain yourself all by yourself.  There are a few things to learn but they all make good, common sense and you can absolutely understand and do them.  Yes, you can.

I know you can because are a wonder.   (Even the idiot on the freeway who cut me off yesterday is a wonder).

Life's more fun when your body works right

How can I know, you may ask.  And you'd be right to ask.  This blog is primarily what I've learned about the care and feeding of your miracle fun machine, and what you can do to straighten up and fly right.

My teacher, Katy Bowman, is a pioneer in education about the body and how it works best; because there is a 'Goldilocks' place that you can hold your body in, and when you're there, you've gotten out of your own way and your body (your very own miracle fun machine) will do as you direct it and pretty much take care of itself until the day you drop dead.  You're growing up but you don't have to grow old if you hold yourself per the designer's instructions. 

If you're an A-type, you'll want to go to her webpage, http://www.alignedandwell.com.

I will be drawing material from this source often, as well as from the greater alignment community (an exclusive club of really smart men and women who've seen the light).  You (and I, too) don't need to exercise EVER, we have only to assume a natural, upright stance and move as the designer intended:  naturally.  I typed that sentence pretty easily, but it'll probably take you a bit of doing to get yourself stacked up in this naturally healthy manner:  where you don't have grip anything, and all your muscles are free to do what they're supposed to do, which is to be ready for your next move....