Days 9-14 The Spine and Breath

One of my simple pleasures at the end of the day is to bend my knees as if I were sitting on a chair and fold forward from the hips, letting my head pull toward the earth on one end with my tailbone on the other. My spine releases like a string of pearls, I feel the lengthening happening through the thoracic spine primarily and then my head becomes heavy and all my overworked neck muscles breathe a huge sigh of grateful relief. By the direction of the release through the thoracic spine I suspect it is the erector spinae relaxing though there's a lot going on back there so I'm not sure.

I started my Structural Integration series this weekend with a practitioner Dan Schmidt who in addition to Structural Integration also does Feldenkrais, Cranial and Somatic work - yummy embodied stuff. We started by finding ways for me to breathe better, yay! My homework included four practices that are also part of my Dancemeditation work so some deeper explorations will come into play. These are all practices that allow my legs to help my breathing (a foreign concept from the outside - how do legs help breathing? see the ankle bone's connected to the knee bone - it all works together). With each of these practices the more 'lazily' they are done the better as this lets the outer layer of muscles release and engage the deeper layer of muscles for support. 1) on stomach with knees bent so feet reach toward the ceiling letting my legs fall side to side; 2 & 3) on each side with legs at 90 degrees gently rock the legs on top of one another, 4) on back with knees bent feet on the floor rock the knees side to side. I have also added a piece of the Dancemeditation rocking series, on my back pressing the feet into the floor and rocking, releases all the way up into the skull.

When I did my first pass with Mary Bond's book I had some difficulty feeling the breath in my back, now I feel the gentle opening all the way around. I notice there is still a heavy weight on my heart that the breath must circle as it enters. Possibly there is still too much pain protected in the area to allow the soothing breath in yet. An ongoing process.

I sense some deep fundamental shifts happening - it is exciting and frightening. Each opening takes some time to adjust. Over the last week I felt elated, sad, like I was losing my mind, grounded, disoriented... sometimes all within the same day. I keep coming back to breath, practice and inquiry - my trifecta of awareness.