Less Blah Blah, More Grope!

Last week, we felt up our legs to find where they start. Now, it's time to get even more intimate with our skeleton.

Reach down and feel yourself between your hamstrings and your butt. There, you'll find two pointy bits called the 'sit bones.' Locate them, massage the sinewy connections around them, feel where the bones are and where they are not. Sit on a hard surface and feel, if you can, the weight of your upper body settling down onto them.

Having a feel for sit bones without some sort of outside contact doesn't come quickly. Luckily, an understanding of their placement and direction can already be of great help. We can imagine them down there. And, though imagination can cut us off from reality, it can also help us connect with it in new ways. Imagine, but be open to new sensations.

Leg and Hip Exercise #1

1) Lie on your back, with your feet flat on the floor, knees pointing up. With each breath, feel your feet settling onto the floor, more. Continue the process by concentrating on the hip area, then the shoulder blades and head.

2) Imagine a line running through your body. It goes out beyond your head, in one direction, and beyond your sit bones, in the other. Notice where your legs articulate in the the hip socket and that they are not part of this line. In a way, we can say that our head and torso are living one story and our legs, another.

3) Now, imagine that your knees are suspended by strings, that your upper and lower legs merely hang downwards. Notice that, by moving your knees slightly towards each other, you can relax the muscles on the the outside of the legs. Feel how, on the inside, between thigh bone and pubis, you can also relax. Imagine two little streams running, there, that gently erode tension and open up space. Forget about muscles and get the sensation of bones. Bones give the underlying logic to our efforts.

This is one of the 'nothing to it' exercises that changes everything. By clarifying directions, we can release unnecessary tension. That, in turn, allows the body to reorganize itself more efficiently. Lying down with legs bent, knees pointing up, becomes almost effortless; and that little bit of effort gives the body a big chance to breathe.

Lying down like that or standing up, we tend to push outwards with our legs. We think of the sturdiness of a wide stance -- football players, sumos, wrestlers and cowboys might come to mind. But, that sturdiness is often born purely out of muscular force and not out of skeletal logic. Skeletal logic requires a play between outside and in. It permits sturdiness and mobility. (And, while, from the outside, it may not appear as tough, it's free in a way that is sexy enough.)

[Next week: Walking Exercise #1]