Finding Your Posture From the Bottom or From the Top

I  spend a little time finding my posture  most days.  My usual method is to start from the ground up.  I start with my feet, feeling weight under all 4 corners of the foot:  under the big and little toes and the outside and inside of the heel.  From there I usually squeeze the balls of my feet and heels toward one another isometrically, waking up the arch of my foot.  With the arch of my foot doming up, I find my pelvic floor and engage.  Now I have two arcs doming up, my foot arch and my pelvic floor. I line them up. Now I go to my solar plexus, the top of my diaphragm and add that to the mix.  The final dome is the roof of my mouth, or the top of my spine.  When I have all my domes lined up and lifting I am usually in a solid posture:  strong, active, connected and vibrant with energy reaching up through the crown of my head and supported by my legs and feet.  I learned this technique from Wendy Leblanc-Arbuckle.

Today I tried a different technique.  I closed my eyes imagined myself suspended from the ceiling.  My body drifted around for a little while.  I thought about my organs and where they were in my body.  My body stilled and I found myself in alignment.  It felt completely different than the first technique, much floatier, more spacious and quite effortless.

I like both techniques and can see how on any given day I might prefer one to the other.  It's great stuff to play with and find out which technique works best for you, or if you are like me you might find them both useful.

Giving 100%

You know how when you are really committed to something you want to give it your all and more?  Most people think that if it is worth doing it is worth over-doing.  My position is slightly different.

I ask all my clients to effort only as much as 70% in their sessions, even less if they can.  Why?  I want them to have the energetic room to sense their bodies, to be able to feel what is going on.

Think about it.  If you are putting every ounce of your energy and attention into efforting, there is no room left to feel what you are actually doing.

Personally, I have found that by putting less energy into trying so hard to perfect my movement experience and instead going inside, being present, and feeling what I am doing, my ability to move forward in my practice has grown exponentially.

This also usually means, not moving quite so fast, which can be a hard one for a lot of people.