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Align the Body

Balance is achieved only through correct body alignment. The feet, the legs, the trunk, the head are all important in creating and maintaining a balanced position. They are the vehicles of body force. Keeping the feet in proper relation to each other, as well as to the body, helps to maintain correct body alignment. Bruce Lee (1975)

Postural muscles, structurally adapted to resist prolonged gravitational stress, generally resist fatigue. When overly stressed, however the same postural muscles become irritable, tight shortened.

Chaitow, Bradley et al. (2002)

We do not recognise to what extent the intellectual, the emotional and moving (body) functions are mutually dependent, although, at the same time, we can be aware of how much our moods and our emotional states depend on our movements and postures. If a man assumes a posture that corresponds, in him, to the feeling of grief or dejection, then within a short time he will actually feel grief or dejection. Fear, indifference, aversion and so on may be created by artificial changes of posture. Gurdjieff (1976: 156)

The second exercise for Internal Meditation develops sensitivity to our verticality and its relationship with gravity. Our verticality is something that has evolved over a long time and is a fundamentally different situation to when our spine is in the horizontal position. You need to build awareness to your verticality so that in times of stress you can remain upright and because your verticality has a huge effect on your physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. When you awoke this morning your spine was horizontal to the ground where it had been participating in restorative, healing and rejuvenating functions. Then you hauled yourself into the upright position and your spine became vertical; from then on, you have been engaged in an act of balance. From a physiological point of view there are some profound changes that occur when your spine becomes vertical, for instance, your blood pressure changes, the breath mechanism is affected, and the movement of fluids around the body occurs in a dramatically different way. Our vertical spine has also had a profound effect on the evolution of our brain, especially the development of speech, but although this is a fascinating area of study I will not deal with it in any great depth at this point. However, it does help to have an appreciation of the differences between a horizontal and vertical spine.

For the most part our uprightness feels permanent, and we take it completely for granted. However, a closer inspection reveals that our ability to stand upright is anything but permanent – if our balance is disturbed then our spine will return to the horizontal position, in other words we will fall over. All processes of homeostasis take a continual input of energy and monitoring of balance to maintain them. Again, we wish to try to be ‘open’ to the physical reality of what is – in other words, how nature has built us – and not to use our imagination to construct an image; your verticality exists, you just need to build a deeper connection to it.

FIGURE 8

At the bottom half of our body sits a triangle. The base of the triangle is along the floor between the two feet. The two sides of the triangle are the legs, coming up at an angle to meet together at the pelvis; at exactly the point where they meet, we find the centre (Tan T'ien). On top of this triangle sits the spine, which is divided into three balanced sections: the lumbar, thoracic and cervical regions. Finally, perching on top of the spine, precisely where the primary organs of balance (the inner ear) are, is the head. These three areas: the triangular base, the spine and the head make up our basic alignment to gravity. Our arms, though important, are not essential for us to be upright. If you can build an ‘inner’ sensitivity to this basic shape of your alignment then your uprightness in times of stress, fear or panic will stand a much better chance of being maintained. This inner sense of alignment also plays a huge part in the overall maintenance of your health by continually monitoring and checking that the core of your body – the musculoskeletal system, which is the framework which all the other systems relate to – is as balanced as nature intended.

The Triangular Base

The triangular base is important because unless you are standing on one leg and hopping about, this base is always present and is what you use to move about with. Whenever you stand up the triangular base allows you to do so. The brain takes information from the left and right pressure sensitivity in the legs and maintains some form of triangle. The Basic Stance forms an equilateral triangle but generally people tend to stand with an imbalanced base, distributing their weight unequally between one leg or the other.

The feet are an incredible piece of engineering – the average footstep takes a large amount of pressure (approx. 8psi) with every step – and for this reason they must be aligned in the parallel position, as in the Basic Stance, in order to function as nature intended. The vast majority of people in the Western world walk with misaligned feet; one or both of the feet are usually splayed out at uneven angles (this can be verified by looking at wear patterns on the bottom of your shoes). The foot uses a powerful system of muscles and ligaments to cope with the pressure exerted upon it; if the feet are aligned correctly then this system forms a strong arch (which is in fact another triangle between heel, arch and ball) in the foot, however, as soon as the feet start to splay this arch is weakened. If the arch begins to ‘fall’ your gait will be affected and this will lead to many other health problems. Every person is either right- or leftside dominant, usually corresponding to whether they are right- or left-handed – people who are right-side dominant will tend to splay the right foot out more; by meditating on the alignment of the body, we remove this fundamental imbalance.

Left- or Right-Side Dominant?

We take for granted the fact that everyone is either right-handed or left-handed, but how far do we see the significance of this in our life? For instance, if you are right-handed then a high percentage of every movement you make will be initiated on the right-hand side; this means that the flow of energy through the nervous system will have a propensity to move to that side more than to the left. This also affects, amongst other things, our sight, hearing, breathing and coordination. In terms of musculoskeletal alignment, right-sided dominance means you are continually putting more weight down the right side of the body than the left. When our feet hit the ground as we walk, pressure waves are sent up each side of the body; when we are right-side dominant, the pressure wave will be greater on the right-hand side.

You can demonstrate this to yourself by buying a pair of foam earplugs from your local chemist, inserting them and walking around bare foot whilst listening to the sound of your feet on the ground – you will be able to hear a louder impact on the right side. Place your hand on top of your head as you walk and you should be able to feel the vibration from the foot reaching the top of your head, and next time you are with a young child place your hand lightly on top of their head when they are walking and you will feel the pressure wave going up through them. This simple exercise demonstrates the fact that a significant amount of pressure travels through the body on every step. The feet, being at the ‘bottom’ of the body, endure most of this pressure; if we have not been taught to walk correctly (most of us do not give a second thought to how we walk) the common tendency will be for the feet to start to splay. This is further compounded by the fact that for a large amount of time we walk on a very thin hard skin that man has deemed necessary to cover the earth with: concrete. This continual contact with a very hard substance increases the shockwaves through the body and forces the feet to splay, unfortunately slowly destroying the feet. If the feet begin to work inefficiently then the force going through the skeleton increases and, particularly as we get older, causes all sorts of musculoskeletal problems such as osteoarthritis, slipped and herniated discs in the back, neck problems, cartilage and ligament problems in the knee, and so on.

Skeletal Compensation

If the feet are not aligned correctly then the upper part of the body will compensate in some way, which will eventually create misalignment and curvature of the spine. This compensation of the body is a governing principle in osteopathy, the Alexander Technique (a now famous method of body therapy which aims to bring the body back into its natural state in accordance with nature) and pretty well every form of therapeutic bodywork. It is caused by the body trying to rebalance itself at the musculoskeletal level so, for instance, if the pelvis is tilted too far forwards then the cervical region of the spine will bend to compensate, or if the right foot is splayed out then the left hip changes its position. The original Kung Fu and T’ai Chi forms were designed to align the body equally by practising identical moves on the left and right sides of the body, bringing it back into a state of harmony (a word which in its origins actually means a ‘joining or joint in proportion’ and is where we get the word ‘arm’ from).