Somatic Mechanic

Curiosity and Pilates

If you want to significantly improve your movement skills, you must cultivate curiosity!   Without curiosity, Pilates or TRX or weight-lifting becomes just a routine to get done and behind you.  "What's next?  How many reps?  How much resistance?  Am I done?"  What a waste of time and brain-power! 

Being curious about your chosen exercise method will keep it fresh -- each workout is unique and with its own flavors.  What are you interested in today?  Are you curious about why your right hip has been clicking when you do Frogs on the Reformer?  How about that sore spot on your calf, or why do your toes cramp each time you point your foot?  Curiosity about why and when these things happen will lead you to exploration, discovery and ultimately mastery of new skills.

Here's how it goes:

CURIOSITY results in EXPLORATION

EXPLORATION results in DISCOVERY

DISCOVERY results in PLEASURE

PLEASURE results in REPETITION

REPETITION results in MASTERY

MASTERY results in NEW SKILLS

NEW SKILLS results in CONFIDENCE

CONFIDENCE results in SELF-ESTEEM

SELF-ESTEEM results in SENSE OF SECURITY

SECURITY results in MORE EXPLORATION

This chart is actually from an authority on brain development in children, but I think it holds true for adult Pilates students as well.  All of these elements are things that we Pilates instructors want for our students.  I want my students to discover the joy of freedom in the hip joint, in the range of motion of their shoulder, the sensation of the lungs turning in and out while they arch & curl. These concepts and sensations are what they take with them when they leave the studio.  And they do leave the studio, you know.  They are only with us for about an hour at a time, and sometimes they even (gasp) move away. When they do leave (or for that matter, when I go to Maui on vacation) it is still my intention that they are developing and mastering new skills through exploration, pleasure and confidence.  The fuel for that is curiosity and it can be fostered by the instructor.  

It doesn't take much.  If you are teaching a group session, just a sprinkling of an idea or an image that is revisited throughout the session can provide a depth and richness to the workout without annoying or confusing those students who are just beginning their journey and highly dependent on the instructor's guidance.  When you are one-on-one with a client you can develop a truly personalized path toward finding the joy in all movement, not just in the Pilates studio. 

Relax your brainstem

If you have not experienced a Franklin Method workshop, you may think it strange to hear you can get amazing results for neck tension by imagining relaxing your brainstem.  What?  Your brainstem?!  Yep, that's where what's left of your reptilian brain lives.  It regulates stuff like blood pressure, respiration, consciousness and your sleep cycle and is located here:

 A skillful teacher of ideokinesis can help you take an image and apply it to your body to achieve release, power, flexibility, or strength.  Perhaps even all four!  One of my favorites is Eric's image of the brain, the brain stem, and the projecting spinal cord.  Imagine your spinal cord is soft and dangling from your brain stem.  What would that feel like?   Close your eyes, and imagine the spinal cord is long, soft, and floating like the tentacles from a jelly.  Watch the video and see how the jelly's tentacles are passively floating through the ocean currents.  Now go back into your own body and imagine your spinal cord floating passively in the cerebrospinal fluid. Do you feel the back of your neck relax and soften like warm butter?  Mmmmm!

This video was taken at the Monterey Bay Aquarium near where I live.  Normally jellies like to swim downward so the tentacles point up, but that didn't fit my image of the brain and the dangling spinal cord so I turned my camera upside-down.  Take THAT you jellies!

Basics - Bringing New Understanding to the Director’s Cut - NYTimes.com

And now, just in time for Oscar junkies, comes a new statistical mincing of the movies that may someday yield an award category of its own: best fit between a movie’s tempo and the natural rhythms of the brain.

via www.nytimes.com

 

I've been described as a "sparkle-brain" in the past; it's not a compliment nor an insult insofar as I can tell. It just means that my thought processes are like fireworks or sparkles, with each burst of thought related to the previous burst (though sometimes only I can see the relationship - I drive my husband crazy.)

  This article in the NYTimes describes these natural rhythms of the brain in terms of movie structure, and if you are a teacher it's something that deserves attention. Your students thoughts and attentional behavior will wax and wane naturally and if you decide to stick with one exercise or one idea for an entire class you're still going to have to vary your lesson somehow or you will bore them to death. Teaching a great class is a lot like directing a great movie, and this article explains why that is so.

Mindfulness and mood

 Nice article from Livescience describing the mechanism of awareness and mood states.  As Eric Franklin, author of "Inner Focus Outer Strength" says, "without awareness you have no choice".  Instead you'll only get what you always got before.  This mindfulness is the basis of ideokinesis and of improvement of motor skills.  So if you want to be a better dancer, Pilates or Gyrotonic student, or tennis player, mindfulness and awareness is the key.  

Meditation exercises could boost mental toughness in soldiers readying for war, keeping them from becoming overly emotional, according to new research.  --from LiveScience.com

Get awesome lips without surgery or sticky lip gloss

 

So my 9-year old son and I are standing in line at the grocery store and I'm zoning out, thinking about making dinner and getting him started on his Cub Scout project.  My boy is looking at the magazines at the checkout stands and says, "Mom, that lady's lips are weird."  It cracked me up because I didn't know which celebrity he was looking at, but I was already agreeing with him. Yep, most of them are definitely weird.  

Turns out he was looking at a "plastic surgery gone wrong" issue, and the photos on the cover were amusing yet horrifying.  I was explaining that some people use surgery to look pretty and sometimes end up having to talk weird with great big lips.  So I was imitating how someone with lips-gone-wild would talk.  And I had an interesting experience:  I found out just how much tension I was holding in my mouth and lips.  And I also learned how tension in mouth-and-lips translates into neck tension.  Hm!

Here's how you do it:

Imagine you have these lips

Wow - that's a whole lotta lippa.  How would your mouth feel if you had that much lip?  Close your eyes, and imagine your lips as being inflated like these. I don't necessarily want you to stick your lips out into a pout, just relax your muscles and let your mental imagery guide the sensation.  Would these lips be projected outward, tense, squeezed?  Maybe yeah, if they were overstuffed like sausages.  So let out some of that inflation, until your lips feel like the next photo.  In your imagination, release the imaginary valve that will deflate your lips until you have Brigitte's lips:

Ok, too much lipstick.  And that's still kind of an over-filled lip.  Do your lips feel relaxed?  Do you like how they feel?  And, by the way, I don't mean "feel" like reach up with your fingers and touch your lips, I want you to use your internal sensations of how tense your lips feel.  This is called proprioception; it's your ability to sense yourself (such as your body's position, posture, and muscle tension).   In my own imagination, Brigitte's lip feels a little ... umm... turgid.  And I still feel a bit of tension in my puckering-up muscles.

How 'bout Jessica Alba's lips?  Yep, they look pretty good.  Ok, so in your imagination, deflate your lips a little bit more until they are at Jessica's plumpness.  Now smile.  Now pout.  Now open your jaw slowly, and close it.  Can you feel the relaxation across your cheeks and even in the back of your neck?

If you're a guy, you can aim for this:

Oh Lordy lordy lordy.  What a mouth.  (Y'know, I had a very interesting experiencing googling on Rudolf Nureyev and looking at the resulting images.  VERY interesting.  And that is ALL I am going to say about that.  Lordy lordy lordy.)

Okay, so let's keep going, deflating our lips (this sounds very strange, I know) beyond what we like.  Close your eyes, inhale and as you exhale, imagine your lips deflating more until you've got this:

 
(Mary Pickford.)  Do you notice the new tension in your face?  Open your jaw and close it.  Smile. Frown.  Which is easier with this amount of tension?  Smiling or frowning?  For me, it's easier to frown.   That's not good!  Okay, close your eyes and inhale, then exhale and deflate your lips until you get this: 

Hee hee hee!!!  I know, it's not a very nice photo.  But what's interesting about this is that her lips are actually fairly plump.  It's the tension in her face that is making her lips look really thin.  When I look at this photo, I actually feel the tension in my own face.  It's one of the skills of being a teacher of movement, when your student moves, you can anticipate how she feels as she's making the movement.  If I see your shoulders hunched up, I know how your neck is feeling and if I let my attention lock onto that for too long, I'll actually feel it in my own neck.

Last time now, inhale and exhale, deflating your lips until you've got this:

Do you recognize her? She's Margaret Hamilton, she played the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz.  She had the perfect lips for that role: thin and tense.  Okay, now that your lips are that thin, do you like the kinesthetic sense of it?  No?  Me neither.  Check your cheeks and neck.  Tense and icky, huh.

Some people say that we deserve the face we have after 40.  I think that's a little harsh, but I like the sentiment.  Our facial posture, just like our spine posture, can change.  We don't have to have injections or buy expensive lip plumping gloss or hire a private makeup artist or inherit the perfect genetics.  You can maximize your natural features through mental imagery and by altering the way you hold your face.

These lips below are gorgeous, and yet not obviously plastic (surgery):

 

Audrey Hepburn

 
 
 Marilyn without makeup and with....

 
the Marquise de Pompadour...

If you would like to maximize your natural lips, hold them softly.  Don't tense your neck, cheeks, and lip muscles.  It's unnecessary and probably leads to you looking like the Wicked Witch of the West.  (Did I ever promise I wouldn't exaggerate?)  Beyond looking like the Wicked Witch, how do you think a tense face contributes to your mood?

Imagine if your lips were like tubes of toothpaste, all that tension would squeeze out the paste!  And then your lips would look like shriveled up empty Crest tubes.  Do you want that for YOUR lips?  Of course not.

Next time you are in an argument with someone, look at their lips.  Are they tense, tight, and thin?  Do you want that for yourself?  Notice your own mouth and lip tension.  Do you spend the majority of your time with tight, tense lips?  No amount of lip-plumping gloss is going to overcome that, no matter what Maybelline writes on their packaging.  Next time you notice someone else's beautiful plump lips (celebrity or girl-next-door) I want you to practice softening and releasing the fullness of your own.  (Yowza!)

 

Dog Walking Increases Exercise Adherence and Enjoyment

The NYTimes has an article today about a study that compared the consistency of older adults who walked with dogs or with other humans.  Cute article.  The researchers found the dog walkers enjoyed their walk more, made less excuses, and increased their balance and walking speed.  Why would this be?  The walking distance was the same, the weather was the same... the difference lies in the motivation and the enjoyment had in walking a doggie companion.  This brings up all kinds of issues interesting to exercise psychology and health:  

-why would someone feel more responsibility to a dog's health than to their own?

-why are dogs more enjoyable companions than humans?

-should a national health care policy allow people to deduct the care of their dogs because they contribute to the owner's health?

I wonder if Pilates clients would also be more consistent if we had trained dogs to work out with.  Like circus dogs or agility dogs or something like that.  That brings up some great ideas for choreography!

It appears that dog walking is always taken seriously, certainly by the dog, if not by the human.  But it's not something you can excuse yourself by saying, "Ooo it's too hot today/too cold today/I'm tired/I'm too busy".  It's serious business.  I've often wondered about the dog shows occasionally broadcast on television, where dog trainers trot with their dogs around the ring while the judges watch. The trainers wear sensible shoes and very serious skirts or suits.  See?  Dog walking is movement married to serious business!

  

 So, another reason to love a dog.

Overcoming Cerebral Palsy - NYTimes.com

Gregg Mozgala, a 31-year-old actor with cerebral palsy, had 12 years of physical therapy while he was growing up. But in the last eight months, a determined choreographer with an unconventional résumé has done what all those therapists could not: She has dramatically changed the way Mr. Mozgala walks.

via www.nytimes.com

This fellow has cerebral palsy:

 Now usually, people who have cerebral palsy stand with their knees bent and turned inward and their back really arched.  Granted, there is variation in the severity of the disease, but make no mistake, it is a very serious disease orthopedically.  Walking is difficult because the joints are held stiffly and the center of gravity cannot swing gently and elastically around a small range of motion.  Instead the body "lurches" from side to side.  Every step is a proposition in how to fall down.

  Now dance therapy, movement therapy, and somatic education are not infant disciplines.  Lulu Sweigard, who wrote Human Movement Potential was born in 1895.  Mabel Tod wrote The Thinking Body in 1937.  However, western physical therapy has been focused on what the experts can do for (and to) the patient, the result is the somatic disciplines have flown under the radar for nearly a hundred years.  In these disciplines, the expert is the subject, and they explore their physical self instead of passively receiving information from the outside.

This article is evidence of one young man's experience with a somatic discipline.  The description makes me think of Emilie Conrad's Continuum training.... I certainly don't know if the choreographer in question uses Continuum but I was reminded of Conrad's work.  Very powerful, primal.... so much about our bodies happens beneath our conscious "radar" but is accessible through curious exploration.  I'm so glad this young man found his Achilles tendon (see article) as I'm sure it will inform his movement for the rest of his life.  And I am so glad that the NYTimes has published this article -- what a public service to their readers.  Article here.

The link between exercise and more brainpower - The Globe and Mail

 Geoff Howe for the Globe and Mail

"Executive functions include the ability to focus and avoid distractions, to subdue inappropriate impulses and to mentally manipulate the information needed to solve a problem or complete a task. Together, they have been described as the CEO of the brain, responsible for taking the steps and marshalling the resources needed to reach a goal. Some studies have found they are a better indicator of how young children will fare in school than IQ.

For years, many scientists believed that executive functions were inherited and largely immutable, at least without medication. Now, however, there is growing evidence that certain activities may boost that kind of brain power."

Article here.

No Pain, No Gain: Mastering A Skill Makes Us Stressed In The Moment, Happy Long Term

ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2009) — No pain, no gain applies to happiness, too, according to new research published online in the Journal of Happiness Studies. People who work hard at improving a skill or ability, such as mastering a math problem or learning to drive, may experience stress in the moment, but experience greater happiness on a daily basis and longer term, the study suggests.

via www.sciencedaily.com

Here is yet another motivation for taking up Pilates or some other movement modality. Not only do our students get the physiological benefits of movement and fitness, but their psychology gets a work out too.

Phantom limbs can contort into impossible configurations : Neurophilosophy

Phantom limbs can contort into impossible configurations

Category: Neuroscience
Posted on: October 28, 2009 1:37 PM, by Mo

FOLLOWING the surgical removal of a body part, amputees often report sensations which seem to originate from the missing limb. This is thought to occur because the brain's model of the body (referred to as the body image) still contains a representation of the limb, and this leads to the experience that the missing limb is still attached to their body. Occasionally, amputees say that they cannot move their phantom limbs - they are perceived to be frozen in space, apparently because they cannot be seen.

Yet, research shows that the body image is malleable and easily manipulated. And according to new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, phantom limbs can be altered by internal brain mechanisms alone. The study shows that some amputees can make their phantom limbs defy the anatomical constraints of the physical body, using visual imagery to make them perform movements which could not possibly be performed by a real limb.

via scienceblogs.com

This would be the difficult way to get my leg up as high as I want it in ballet class.