BodymindResources.com

Class 2 Lab

     Begin with your assessment. How do you feel within gravity. How relaxed are your feet. Do you feel heavy? Where is the majority of your weight? Is it more on the balls or the heels of your feet? A balanced body within gravity has its weight on both the balls and heels equally. Remember that when your body is balanced within gravity, there is a feeling of weightlessness and a feeling of "being on the edge of your seat". You are not heavy and stuck to the earth. You feel free and ready to move in any direction. You are not stuck in any direction up, down, forwards, backwards or otherwise. You are in a neutral place and ready to move on an instant's notice!

                                     
 
In order to achieve this pin point alignment within gravity, your spine must become relatively straight and you must let go of your holding patterns. There is a way that you can feel your way through this. Let's try it right now!

     Stand with your toes pointing forward and your feet directly under your hips. Allow your ribcage to be open taking large natural breaths and let your arms hang at your sides. Now comes the hard part. Allow a feeling to exist as though something is lifting you up from the crown of your head. It's as if something is grabbing your hair on the back of your head and gently using it to influence you upward. Give in to this lift letting go of any area on your body that may want to fight it. As you are feeling this, making sure to be balanced between the balls and heels of your feet, give a very subtle, very slight push off into the floor. You should notice that your knees are slightly unlocked. Stay in this state of physical being and feel what it is all about. This is the Art of Letting Go. You are lengthening your spine from both ends. With every breath you are freer and freer. You may feel nothing right now, but you will as we begin to put your body back together. Be patient.

Lower Leg Posterior Stretch          (wear shoes with rubber grips for this stretch)

Find a ledge (like a step, or the curb of a street, or a heavy cinder block) and stand facing it. Step up so that your toes are on the ledge, but your heels are hanging off. Now allow your heels to drop down past the ledge while your toes remain where they are. Feel the stretch in your calves. Allow your weight to shift from both legs over to just one leg to get a better stretch. If you can do this for five minutes straight on each side, you will have seriously lengthened out your posterior lower legs.

Down Face Dog

Make sure your feet are facing straight forward and are a hip's width apart.  Now come forward and land on your hands. Straighten out your knees and stick your backside up in the air.  Make sure your heels are touching the ground or as close as possible. Hold this stretch for a count of 30.

Sole Stretch ( for bottoms of feet)

Kneel and sit back on your feet. Now prop your toes up underneath you as shown in the photograph. Sit back on your toes, but be careful! For most people this can be a very intense stretch. Go slowly. You can place your hands on the floor to carefully control the amount of pressure your toes can handle. Find the maximum stretch that you can comfortably tolerate and stay there for five minutes. When you come out of this stretch you MUST come out very slowly. Failure to come out slowly will often result in pain and spasm. Be kind to yourselves.

With the exception of the calves, most of the lower legs and feet cannot be very well released without manual palpation. These are very intricate little muscles that are so fine tuned and work so hard that years of abuse has rendered them stuck to each other. Your task is to take what you learned last week from practicing palpation on your forearm and apply it to your lower legs and feet. You're to begin exploring these areas. I have tracked down drawings of these muscles so you can actually see what it is you are touching. If you can't really feel anything at first, don't worry. That doesn't mean it isn't working. It just means you can't feel it. That is how it is in the beginning. You will begin to feel. I want you to stare at the drawings of musculature of the bottoms of the feet and begin exploring the area on yourself. You will probably feel the sticky hardened ground substance under your fingers. Explore that too and watch as it begins to melt at your touch! You will be clearing up scores of reflexology points improving the health of your entire body. Then work on your lower leg. This may be harder. One area we didn't even touch with stretch is your anterior compartment. View the drawings and explore that area thoroughly. Learn the feel of melting connective tissue. Allow the hardened tissue to become soft. Don't leave the area until you've made it soft. That's the only real trick to palpation. Anything hard, make it soft. Go in layer by layer. Don't be afraid to go deep when the time comes. Don't allow yourself to be in pain, however. If you are feeling great pain, then you should stay out of the area until you can get to a therapist with more experience. Mild discomfort is ok. DO NOT WORK OVER, NEAR, OR BENEATH VARICOSE VEINS WITHOUT A DOCTORS CONSENT!!!   

This musculature cannot function as a unit of independent muscles until you unglue them. To do this you must calmly practice your palpation. Please make this a habitual practice. It will serve you well. Spend at least 20 minutes a day doing this. Get really good at it and come to me with your questions. Have fun!!!

Email Me