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- Understanding the Pelvis
“Yoga teachers need to cue, and yogis need to have a clear focus as they practice,” says author Eric Franklin, who has been sharing imagery techniques in his teaching for more than 30 years. “Many cues sound anatomical but are actually personal opinions that have become commonplace to the point that people think they are general truths. Imagery and cues are supposed to improve our practice, but sometimes they actually have the opposite effect.”
In the first part of the book, Franklin and coauthor Alison Wesley dispel the misconceptions surrounding the biomechanics of the pelvis, using an evidence-based scientific perspective to teach how the pelvic bones move. In the second part, readers will apply that knowledge through the practice of 26 asanas (exercises) that are designed to improve pelvic function and yoga technique. The asanas are accompanied by 66 full-color illustrations that clearly show proper technique and bring the exercises to life. Franklin uses his famed Franklin Method, which combines movement, imagery, and touch, to help practitioners learn—or relearn, if necessary—correct techniques to maximize pelvic function.
Understanding the Pelvis offers a concise, clear, and authoritative treatise on the functioning of the pelvis in yoga. Through this book, instructors and practitioners will be able to do the following:
- Improve their own yoga practice and, in the case of instructors, the practice of those they teach
- Understand how proper pelvic movement can improve performance
- See how the pelvic muscles and joints work together and how the pelvis interacts with surrounding muscle groups
- Comprehend the function and movement of the pelvis and pelvic floor
Through this book, teachers will be able to provide more anatomically accurate cues, and they will learn to use mental imagery effectively to inform movement. “Imagery activates brain areas that overlap with the areas activated during the physical execution of the movement,” Franklin says. “Imagery has a training effect on the brain, just as movement does on the body.” It is the marriage of correct anatomical functioning and the practice of mental imagery that makes the Franklin Method so powerful.
Understanding the Pelvis: A Functional Approach to Yoga will help instructors and practitioners—including athletes, dancers, and other artists—safely and effectively use the pelvis in yoga. The ability to correctly use anatomical cues and guide yogis through their movements will provide instructors with a new level of confidence and expertise in their workshops and classes, and it will give practitioners the knowledge they need to avoid injury and fully enjoy the benefits of yoga.
The Sacrum
The Pelvic Halves
The Hip Joint
Bone Rhythms
The Spine
The Poses
Eric Franklin is director and founder of the Institute for Franklin Method in Wetzikon, Switzerland. He has more than 35 years of experience as a dancer and choreographer, and he has shared imagery techniques in his teaching since 1986.
Franklin has taught extensively throughout the United States and Europe at the Juilliard School in New York, Royal Ballet School in London, Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen, Dance Academy of Rome, and Institute for Psychomotor Therapy in Zurich. He was also a guest lecturer at the University of Vienna. He has provided training to Olympic and world-champion athletes and professional dance troupes such as Cirque du Soleil and the Forum de Dance in Monte Carlo. Franklin earned a BFA degree from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and a BS degree from the University of Zurich. He has been on the faculty of the American Dance Festival since 1991.
Franklin is coauthor of the best-selling book Breakdance, which received a New York City Public Library Prize in 1984, and author of Hundert Ideen für Beweglichkeit and Dance Imagery for Technique and Performance (both books about imagery in dance and movement). He is a member of the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science.
Franklin lives near Zurich, Switzerland.
Alison Wesley is a certified yoga instructor (E-RYT 500) and certified Franklin Method educator. In 2008, she founded her own company, Working With Yoga. She conducts private yoga workshops and onsite training at corporate offices in the Portland, Oregon, area. She incorporates the Franklin Method into all of her instruction and practice.
Pelvic Anatomy and Function - Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Figure 23 Chair pose: (a) lateral view, with bone rhythms and (b) the pelvic floor muscles stretching in response to the bone rhythms.
What's the purpose of this movement, and why is this purpose not readily apparent? When you bend and stretch your legs, you may tend to see that your knees move forward and your pelvis moves down; you might miss the counterrotations that are happening at the same time.
There are two fundamental reasons why the bone rhythms are important. Compared to quadrupeds who move around with their knees flexed, humans walk with fairly straight knees. In humans, the pelvis coasts over the stance leg as if it were a beam. This reaction in the pelvis is reminiscent of pole vaulting, or of a gondola in Venice being propelled by a long oar. Bone rhythms allow the leg to switch back and forth efficiently from being a rigid strut to a more flexible absorptive configuration. This saves a lot of energy.
If your knees were bent and the heels lifted, as in a dog, you would need to engage your quadriceps and hamstrings a lot more than you do. The advantage of being a quadruped is that it has four cylinders (legs) to power its movement. On the other hand, humans have much more endurance, which has great evolutionary advantages. Animals do not run marathons.
Another advantage of counterrotation is force absorption and force generation. Efficient movement means a high energy-to-output ratio. The human musculoskeletal system engages all three dimensions to improve efficiency. When you bend your knees as you land from a jump, your leg bones aren't just moving forward; they're also counterrotating to improve force absorption in all dimensions (figure 24). Imagine yourself on skis speeding down a slope; if you suddenly needed to stop, you would improve force absorption by swinging your skis into a curve. Nevertheless your knees would appear to stay aligned over the second toe because the tibial plateau is moving in exact opposition to the femur condyles.
Figure 24 Posterior view of chair pose with bone rhythms.
The traditional approach to teaching alignment is to focus on bony landmarks and their relationship to each other. Once the landmarks, such as the knees, are in the right position, over the second toe, we are aligned. While this idea is helpful, it does not reflect the nature of human movement, because these landmarks move relative to each other as you bend and stretch your legs. The knee oscillates over the second toe. The more you bend your knee, the farther the knee is aligned medially to the second toe; when you stretch your knee, the alignment moves more laterally.
Alignment and force absorption are compatible, as long as you're practicing the concept of moving stability. The line of gravity through the leg remains stable even as bony landmarks are shifting. Trying to maintain the configuration of bony points in a fixed position can actually block movement rather than enhance it.
The challenge of moving toward dynamic alignment is often psychological. If you've been taught the static, positional model of alignment, it might be challenging at first to grasp the concept of moving stability.
But it can't be denied that the use of three-dimensional force absorption and production best supports the dynamic nature of human alignment, creating optimal efficiency in movement. Once you embody this theory, you will observe rapid progress in your yoga practice.
In fine-tuned motor control, sacral nutation and pelvic movement initiate simultaneously, while the innominate bone moves relatively in opposition to both these bones. This is the key to a free hip joint and dynamic pelvic movement.
In hip extension the opposite motions take place: the sacrum counternutates, the femurs rotate internally, and the innominate bone nutates relative to the sacrum.
Tadasana: Mountain Pose
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection.
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection. It is the aim of yoga, after all, to cultivate stillness. But is stillness merely the absence of motion or is it a constant, subtle balancing act?
Mountains are crawling with life: the slow and imperceptible growing of trees and greenery, the current and flow of rivers and streams, the movement of animals, birds, and insects.
Let your mountain move. Acknowledge the movement of all of this life and the beautiful wisdom of the body to allow you to sway. In the Franklin Method we call it postural sway; it's one way to keep your body from getting tired when you have to stand for a long period of time, by distributing and redistributing forces and weight to different muscles and areas of the body.
Imagine that your mountain pose is strong and stable because of its ability to adapt. Allowing for three-dimensional, relaxed breathing, this is a sort of home base to return to again and again. Experience this healthy posture as a movement rather than as a set of bony points that need to remain in the exact same relationship. Imagine your strength as being free and ready to move in any direction. Find stillness inside movement.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- “Lengthen your tail” or “tuck your tail” seems like a quick fix for an overarched low back or an anteriorly rotated pelvis, but it can easily create another issue of a tucked-under position, which is already a challenge with our human standing posture. This common cue can create tension in the pelvic floor and the abdominals, which prevents good breathing. Tucking your tail also creates tight hips because it counternutates the sacrum. Furthermore, if this posture is the starting point for other standing postures, those patterns of tension will translate to other poses as well (like a forward-thrust pelvis in virabhadrasana I, for example).
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- In the Franklin Method we say “get on your femur heads.” What this means is visualizing your femur heads and sensing your weight poised over them. Feel the weight as equal on both femur heads, and not in front or in back of them.
- The purpose of human dynamic posture is to be able to get into motion with ease. Hip flexion should be available to us at any time. In tadasana you should be able to move right into utkatasana pose without having to unlock your hips or your knees. A dynamic version of tadasana forms the baseline for any further movement and is a functional rehearsal for great posture in daily life.
- Rock your body weight forward and back and side to side until you find a natural place of center to rest your weight. Do the same exploration with your pelvis, shifting forward and back and side to side to find the place where you experience being centered.
- Bend the knees slightly to feel the deepening of the hips and imagine the femur heads like buoys that are lifting the pelvis (figure 33).
- Instead of lifting the kneecaps, as is so often taught, keep the knees soft to create a dynamic buoyancy.
- Sense the general flow of energy up the front and down the back (figure 34). Apply this to the pelvis specifically and to the entire body.
Figure 33 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) with the pelvis imagined as supported by buoys and (b) with the legs imagined as strong geysers supporting the hip joint and the pelvis from below.
Figure 34 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) feeling the centeredness and balance of the legs and the spine and (b) feeling energy flow, as in a figure eight, up the front and down the back of the spine.
Ustrasana: Camel Pose
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- The cue to “tuck your tail” is often preceded by the cue to “protect the lower back.” At this point, you understand the very important force absorption aspect of sacral nutation and can see that if the sacrum does the same thing that the pelvic halves do and the entire pelvis moves as one piece, there is no movement or sharing of force throughout the sacroiliac joints, which will create the feeling of tension in the lower back. The problem with tucking the tail is that the tailbone is connected to the sacrum, which is connected to the spine, so if you tuck your tail, you are preventing spinal extension (one of the great benefits of camel pose). The cue engages the pelvic floor, which reflexively engages the rectus abdominis, a spinal flexor. This creates an argument in your body between flexion and extension, which expresses itself in unnecessary tension.
- “Engage your core” or “lift your low belly” creates the same roadblock as the cue to “tuck the tail.” It prevents spinal extension and keeps the pelvic floor and the abdominals from serving their function in the pose, which is to contract eccentrically. As noted previously, this cue is not the path to a proper core engagement.
- The cue to “lift your pelvic floor” is tricky because if this action is overdone, it creates the feel of suction or drawing inward of the abdominals. In a backbend, this creates a jutting forward of the rib cage, which can put a lot of unnecessary force on the lower spinal muscles, creating an even more flexible meeting point between the twelfth thoracic vertebra and the first lumbar vertebra (the thoracolumbar junction). More importantly, it keeps us from actually achieving a backbend while creating more of a hinged posture. Too much lifting and engaging of the pelvic floor can also cause stasis of the blood and the lymphatic vessels because they are being compressed.
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- Cobra is a wonderful preparation for camel pose, because it gives you a palpable sense of the three-dimensional balance in the pelvis. In camel pose, the stakes are a little higher because you are working with gravity.
- “Imagine the pubic bones rolling upward toward your navel at the same time as the tip of your tailbone is sliding down and back toward the wall behind you.” A great metaphor for this cue is to imagine the tip of the tailbone as a laser shining back between your feet at the same time as the hip points are lights pointed toward where the wall meets the ceiling in front of you. As with all asanas, the magic ingredient is in the dynamic alignment of this posture: the strategy the body uses to deal with the forces of getting into the pose (figure 54). Trying to feel these actions once you're already in camel pose won't have the same effect as if you focus on them as you're entering into the pose.
- Camel pose also offers a light and lifted feeling in the ribs. Imagine them fanning open in the front of your body. Imagine the sternum to be stretchy like a rubber band.
- The iliopsoas is our most important hip flexor. In camel pose, it aids stability as well as supporting the spine. This is a subtle image, however, because the superficial and the deep parts of the psoas major are not performing in the same way. Sense the deeper layers of the psoas shortening while the anterior layers of the psoas are lengthening (figure 55). This mimics the general pulley feel of the muscles in the back shortening and the muscles in the front lengthening.
Figure 54 Ustrasana (camel pose) with movement of the pelvis, the spine, and the ribs.
Figure 55 Ustrasana (camel pose) with the anterior psoas major lengthening and the posterior psoas major shortening.
Pelvic Anatomy and Function - Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Figure 23 Chair pose: (a) lateral view, with bone rhythms and (b) the pelvic floor muscles stretching in response to the bone rhythms.
What's the purpose of this movement, and why is this purpose not readily apparent? When you bend and stretch your legs, you may tend to see that your knees move forward and your pelvis moves down; you might miss the counterrotations that are happening at the same time.
There are two fundamental reasons why the bone rhythms are important. Compared to quadrupeds who move around with their knees flexed, humans walk with fairly straight knees. In humans, the pelvis coasts over the stance leg as if it were a beam. This reaction in the pelvis is reminiscent of pole vaulting, or of a gondola in Venice being propelled by a long oar. Bone rhythms allow the leg to switch back and forth efficiently from being a rigid strut to a more flexible absorptive configuration. This saves a lot of energy.
If your knees were bent and the heels lifted, as in a dog, you would need to engage your quadriceps and hamstrings a lot more than you do. The advantage of being a quadruped is that it has four cylinders (legs) to power its movement. On the other hand, humans have much more endurance, which has great evolutionary advantages. Animals do not run marathons.
Another advantage of counterrotation is force absorption and force generation. Efficient movement means a high energy-to-output ratio. The human musculoskeletal system engages all three dimensions to improve efficiency. When you bend your knees as you land from a jump, your leg bones aren't just moving forward; they're also counterrotating to improve force absorption in all dimensions (figure 24). Imagine yourself on skis speeding down a slope; if you suddenly needed to stop, you would improve force absorption by swinging your skis into a curve. Nevertheless your knees would appear to stay aligned over the second toe because the tibial plateau is moving in exact opposition to the femur condyles.
Figure 24 Posterior view of chair pose with bone rhythms.
The traditional approach to teaching alignment is to focus on bony landmarks and their relationship to each other. Once the landmarks, such as the knees, are in the right position, over the second toe, we are aligned. While this idea is helpful, it does not reflect the nature of human movement, because these landmarks move relative to each other as you bend and stretch your legs. The knee oscillates over the second toe. The more you bend your knee, the farther the knee is aligned medially to the second toe; when you stretch your knee, the alignment moves more laterally.
Alignment and force absorption are compatible, as long as you're practicing the concept of moving stability. The line of gravity through the leg remains stable even as bony landmarks are shifting. Trying to maintain the configuration of bony points in a fixed position can actually block movement rather than enhance it.
The challenge of moving toward dynamic alignment is often psychological. If you've been taught the static, positional model of alignment, it might be challenging at first to grasp the concept of moving stability.
But it can't be denied that the use of three-dimensional force absorption and production best supports the dynamic nature of human alignment, creating optimal efficiency in movement. Once you embody this theory, you will observe rapid progress in your yoga practice.
In fine-tuned motor control, sacral nutation and pelvic movement initiate simultaneously, while the innominate bone moves relatively in opposition to both these bones. This is the key to a free hip joint and dynamic pelvic movement.
In hip extension the opposite motions take place: the sacrum counternutates, the femurs rotate internally, and the innominate bone nutates relative to the sacrum.
Tadasana: Mountain Pose
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection.
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection. It is the aim of yoga, after all, to cultivate stillness. But is stillness merely the absence of motion or is it a constant, subtle balancing act?
Mountains are crawling with life: the slow and imperceptible growing of trees and greenery, the current and flow of rivers and streams, the movement of animals, birds, and insects.
Let your mountain move. Acknowledge the movement of all of this life and the beautiful wisdom of the body to allow you to sway. In the Franklin Method we call it postural sway; it's one way to keep your body from getting tired when you have to stand for a long period of time, by distributing and redistributing forces and weight to different muscles and areas of the body.
Imagine that your mountain pose is strong and stable because of its ability to adapt. Allowing for three-dimensional, relaxed breathing, this is a sort of home base to return to again and again. Experience this healthy posture as a movement rather than as a set of bony points that need to remain in the exact same relationship. Imagine your strength as being free and ready to move in any direction. Find stillness inside movement.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- “Lengthen your tail” or “tuck your tail” seems like a quick fix for an overarched low back or an anteriorly rotated pelvis, but it can easily create another issue of a tucked-under position, which is already a challenge with our human standing posture. This common cue can create tension in the pelvic floor and the abdominals, which prevents good breathing. Tucking your tail also creates tight hips because it counternutates the sacrum. Furthermore, if this posture is the starting point for other standing postures, those patterns of tension will translate to other poses as well (like a forward-thrust pelvis in virabhadrasana I, for example).
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- In the Franklin Method we say “get on your femur heads.” What this means is visualizing your femur heads and sensing your weight poised over them. Feel the weight as equal on both femur heads, and not in front or in back of them.
- The purpose of human dynamic posture is to be able to get into motion with ease. Hip flexion should be available to us at any time. In tadasana you should be able to move right into utkatasana pose without having to unlock your hips or your knees. A dynamic version of tadasana forms the baseline for any further movement and is a functional rehearsal for great posture in daily life.
- Rock your body weight forward and back and side to side until you find a natural place of center to rest your weight. Do the same exploration with your pelvis, shifting forward and back and side to side to find the place where you experience being centered.
- Bend the knees slightly to feel the deepening of the hips and imagine the femur heads like buoys that are lifting the pelvis (figure 33).
- Instead of lifting the kneecaps, as is so often taught, keep the knees soft to create a dynamic buoyancy.
- Sense the general flow of energy up the front and down the back (figure 34). Apply this to the pelvis specifically and to the entire body.
Figure 33 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) with the pelvis imagined as supported by buoys and (b) with the legs imagined as strong geysers supporting the hip joint and the pelvis from below.
Figure 34 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) feeling the centeredness and balance of the legs and the spine and (b) feeling energy flow, as in a figure eight, up the front and down the back of the spine.
Ustrasana: Camel Pose
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- The cue to “tuck your tail” is often preceded by the cue to “protect the lower back.” At this point, you understand the very important force absorption aspect of sacral nutation and can see that if the sacrum does the same thing that the pelvic halves do and the entire pelvis moves as one piece, there is no movement or sharing of force throughout the sacroiliac joints, which will create the feeling of tension in the lower back. The problem with tucking the tail is that the tailbone is connected to the sacrum, which is connected to the spine, so if you tuck your tail, you are preventing spinal extension (one of the great benefits of camel pose). The cue engages the pelvic floor, which reflexively engages the rectus abdominis, a spinal flexor. This creates an argument in your body between flexion and extension, which expresses itself in unnecessary tension.
- “Engage your core” or “lift your low belly” creates the same roadblock as the cue to “tuck the tail.” It prevents spinal extension and keeps the pelvic floor and the abdominals from serving their function in the pose, which is to contract eccentrically. As noted previously, this cue is not the path to a proper core engagement.
- The cue to “lift your pelvic floor” is tricky because if this action is overdone, it creates the feel of suction or drawing inward of the abdominals. In a backbend, this creates a jutting forward of the rib cage, which can put a lot of unnecessary force on the lower spinal muscles, creating an even more flexible meeting point between the twelfth thoracic vertebra and the first lumbar vertebra (the thoracolumbar junction). More importantly, it keeps us from actually achieving a backbend while creating more of a hinged posture. Too much lifting and engaging of the pelvic floor can also cause stasis of the blood and the lymphatic vessels because they are being compressed.
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- Cobra is a wonderful preparation for camel pose, because it gives you a palpable sense of the three-dimensional balance in the pelvis. In camel pose, the stakes are a little higher because you are working with gravity.
- “Imagine the pubic bones rolling upward toward your navel at the same time as the tip of your tailbone is sliding down and back toward the wall behind you.” A great metaphor for this cue is to imagine the tip of the tailbone as a laser shining back between your feet at the same time as the hip points are lights pointed toward where the wall meets the ceiling in front of you. As with all asanas, the magic ingredient is in the dynamic alignment of this posture: the strategy the body uses to deal with the forces of getting into the pose (figure 54). Trying to feel these actions once you're already in camel pose won't have the same effect as if you focus on them as you're entering into the pose.
- Camel pose also offers a light and lifted feeling in the ribs. Imagine them fanning open in the front of your body. Imagine the sternum to be stretchy like a rubber band.
- The iliopsoas is our most important hip flexor. In camel pose, it aids stability as well as supporting the spine. This is a subtle image, however, because the superficial and the deep parts of the psoas major are not performing in the same way. Sense the deeper layers of the psoas shortening while the anterior layers of the psoas are lengthening (figure 55). This mimics the general pulley feel of the muscles in the back shortening and the muscles in the front lengthening.
Figure 54 Ustrasana (camel pose) with movement of the pelvis, the spine, and the ribs.
Figure 55 Ustrasana (camel pose) with the anterior psoas major lengthening and the posterior psoas major shortening.
Pelvic Anatomy and Function - Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Figure 23 Chair pose: (a) lateral view, with bone rhythms and (b) the pelvic floor muscles stretching in response to the bone rhythms.
What's the purpose of this movement, and why is this purpose not readily apparent? When you bend and stretch your legs, you may tend to see that your knees move forward and your pelvis moves down; you might miss the counterrotations that are happening at the same time.
There are two fundamental reasons why the bone rhythms are important. Compared to quadrupeds who move around with their knees flexed, humans walk with fairly straight knees. In humans, the pelvis coasts over the stance leg as if it were a beam. This reaction in the pelvis is reminiscent of pole vaulting, or of a gondola in Venice being propelled by a long oar. Bone rhythms allow the leg to switch back and forth efficiently from being a rigid strut to a more flexible absorptive configuration. This saves a lot of energy.
If your knees were bent and the heels lifted, as in a dog, you would need to engage your quadriceps and hamstrings a lot more than you do. The advantage of being a quadruped is that it has four cylinders (legs) to power its movement. On the other hand, humans have much more endurance, which has great evolutionary advantages. Animals do not run marathons.
Another advantage of counterrotation is force absorption and force generation. Efficient movement means a high energy-to-output ratio. The human musculoskeletal system engages all three dimensions to improve efficiency. When you bend your knees as you land from a jump, your leg bones aren't just moving forward; they're also counterrotating to improve force absorption in all dimensions (figure 24). Imagine yourself on skis speeding down a slope; if you suddenly needed to stop, you would improve force absorption by swinging your skis into a curve. Nevertheless your knees would appear to stay aligned over the second toe because the tibial plateau is moving in exact opposition to the femur condyles.
Figure 24 Posterior view of chair pose with bone rhythms.
The traditional approach to teaching alignment is to focus on bony landmarks and their relationship to each other. Once the landmarks, such as the knees, are in the right position, over the second toe, we are aligned. While this idea is helpful, it does not reflect the nature of human movement, because these landmarks move relative to each other as you bend and stretch your legs. The knee oscillates over the second toe. The more you bend your knee, the farther the knee is aligned medially to the second toe; when you stretch your knee, the alignment moves more laterally.
Alignment and force absorption are compatible, as long as you're practicing the concept of moving stability. The line of gravity through the leg remains stable even as bony landmarks are shifting. Trying to maintain the configuration of bony points in a fixed position can actually block movement rather than enhance it.
The challenge of moving toward dynamic alignment is often psychological. If you've been taught the static, positional model of alignment, it might be challenging at first to grasp the concept of moving stability.
But it can't be denied that the use of three-dimensional force absorption and production best supports the dynamic nature of human alignment, creating optimal efficiency in movement. Once you embody this theory, you will observe rapid progress in your yoga practice.
In fine-tuned motor control, sacral nutation and pelvic movement initiate simultaneously, while the innominate bone moves relatively in opposition to both these bones. This is the key to a free hip joint and dynamic pelvic movement.
In hip extension the opposite motions take place: the sacrum counternutates, the femurs rotate internally, and the innominate bone nutates relative to the sacrum.
Tadasana: Mountain Pose
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection.
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection. It is the aim of yoga, after all, to cultivate stillness. But is stillness merely the absence of motion or is it a constant, subtle balancing act?
Mountains are crawling with life: the slow and imperceptible growing of trees and greenery, the current and flow of rivers and streams, the movement of animals, birds, and insects.
Let your mountain move. Acknowledge the movement of all of this life and the beautiful wisdom of the body to allow you to sway. In the Franklin Method we call it postural sway; it's one way to keep your body from getting tired when you have to stand for a long period of time, by distributing and redistributing forces and weight to different muscles and areas of the body.
Imagine that your mountain pose is strong and stable because of its ability to adapt. Allowing for three-dimensional, relaxed breathing, this is a sort of home base to return to again and again. Experience this healthy posture as a movement rather than as a set of bony points that need to remain in the exact same relationship. Imagine your strength as being free and ready to move in any direction. Find stillness inside movement.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- “Lengthen your tail” or “tuck your tail” seems like a quick fix for an overarched low back or an anteriorly rotated pelvis, but it can easily create another issue of a tucked-under position, which is already a challenge with our human standing posture. This common cue can create tension in the pelvic floor and the abdominals, which prevents good breathing. Tucking your tail also creates tight hips because it counternutates the sacrum. Furthermore, if this posture is the starting point for other standing postures, those patterns of tension will translate to other poses as well (like a forward-thrust pelvis in virabhadrasana I, for example).
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- In the Franklin Method we say “get on your femur heads.” What this means is visualizing your femur heads and sensing your weight poised over them. Feel the weight as equal on both femur heads, and not in front or in back of them.
- The purpose of human dynamic posture is to be able to get into motion with ease. Hip flexion should be available to us at any time. In tadasana you should be able to move right into utkatasana pose without having to unlock your hips or your knees. A dynamic version of tadasana forms the baseline for any further movement and is a functional rehearsal for great posture in daily life.
- Rock your body weight forward and back and side to side until you find a natural place of center to rest your weight. Do the same exploration with your pelvis, shifting forward and back and side to side to find the place where you experience being centered.
- Bend the knees slightly to feel the deepening of the hips and imagine the femur heads like buoys that are lifting the pelvis (figure 33).
- Instead of lifting the kneecaps, as is so often taught, keep the knees soft to create a dynamic buoyancy.
- Sense the general flow of energy up the front and down the back (figure 34). Apply this to the pelvis specifically and to the entire body.
Figure 33 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) with the pelvis imagined as supported by buoys and (b) with the legs imagined as strong geysers supporting the hip joint and the pelvis from below.
Figure 34 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) feeling the centeredness and balance of the legs and the spine and (b) feeling energy flow, as in a figure eight, up the front and down the back of the spine.
Ustrasana: Camel Pose
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- The cue to “tuck your tail” is often preceded by the cue to “protect the lower back.” At this point, you understand the very important force absorption aspect of sacral nutation and can see that if the sacrum does the same thing that the pelvic halves do and the entire pelvis moves as one piece, there is no movement or sharing of force throughout the sacroiliac joints, which will create the feeling of tension in the lower back. The problem with tucking the tail is that the tailbone is connected to the sacrum, which is connected to the spine, so if you tuck your tail, you are preventing spinal extension (one of the great benefits of camel pose). The cue engages the pelvic floor, which reflexively engages the rectus abdominis, a spinal flexor. This creates an argument in your body between flexion and extension, which expresses itself in unnecessary tension.
- “Engage your core” or “lift your low belly” creates the same roadblock as the cue to “tuck the tail.” It prevents spinal extension and keeps the pelvic floor and the abdominals from serving their function in the pose, which is to contract eccentrically. As noted previously, this cue is not the path to a proper core engagement.
- The cue to “lift your pelvic floor” is tricky because if this action is overdone, it creates the feel of suction or drawing inward of the abdominals. In a backbend, this creates a jutting forward of the rib cage, which can put a lot of unnecessary force on the lower spinal muscles, creating an even more flexible meeting point between the twelfth thoracic vertebra and the first lumbar vertebra (the thoracolumbar junction). More importantly, it keeps us from actually achieving a backbend while creating more of a hinged posture. Too much lifting and engaging of the pelvic floor can also cause stasis of the blood and the lymphatic vessels because they are being compressed.
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- Cobra is a wonderful preparation for camel pose, because it gives you a palpable sense of the three-dimensional balance in the pelvis. In camel pose, the stakes are a little higher because you are working with gravity.
- “Imagine the pubic bones rolling upward toward your navel at the same time as the tip of your tailbone is sliding down and back toward the wall behind you.” A great metaphor for this cue is to imagine the tip of the tailbone as a laser shining back between your feet at the same time as the hip points are lights pointed toward where the wall meets the ceiling in front of you. As with all asanas, the magic ingredient is in the dynamic alignment of this posture: the strategy the body uses to deal with the forces of getting into the pose (figure 54). Trying to feel these actions once you're already in camel pose won't have the same effect as if you focus on them as you're entering into the pose.
- Camel pose also offers a light and lifted feeling in the ribs. Imagine them fanning open in the front of your body. Imagine the sternum to be stretchy like a rubber band.
- The iliopsoas is our most important hip flexor. In camel pose, it aids stability as well as supporting the spine. This is a subtle image, however, because the superficial and the deep parts of the psoas major are not performing in the same way. Sense the deeper layers of the psoas shortening while the anterior layers of the psoas are lengthening (figure 55). This mimics the general pulley feel of the muscles in the back shortening and the muscles in the front lengthening.
Figure 54 Ustrasana (camel pose) with movement of the pelvis, the spine, and the ribs.
Figure 55 Ustrasana (camel pose) with the anterior psoas major lengthening and the posterior psoas major shortening.
Pelvic Anatomy and Function - Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Figure 23 Chair pose: (a) lateral view, with bone rhythms and (b) the pelvic floor muscles stretching in response to the bone rhythms.
What's the purpose of this movement, and why is this purpose not readily apparent? When you bend and stretch your legs, you may tend to see that your knees move forward and your pelvis moves down; you might miss the counterrotations that are happening at the same time.
There are two fundamental reasons why the bone rhythms are important. Compared to quadrupeds who move around with their knees flexed, humans walk with fairly straight knees. In humans, the pelvis coasts over the stance leg as if it were a beam. This reaction in the pelvis is reminiscent of pole vaulting, or of a gondola in Venice being propelled by a long oar. Bone rhythms allow the leg to switch back and forth efficiently from being a rigid strut to a more flexible absorptive configuration. This saves a lot of energy.
If your knees were bent and the heels lifted, as in a dog, you would need to engage your quadriceps and hamstrings a lot more than you do. The advantage of being a quadruped is that it has four cylinders (legs) to power its movement. On the other hand, humans have much more endurance, which has great evolutionary advantages. Animals do not run marathons.
Another advantage of counterrotation is force absorption and force generation. Efficient movement means a high energy-to-output ratio. The human musculoskeletal system engages all three dimensions to improve efficiency. When you bend your knees as you land from a jump, your leg bones aren't just moving forward; they're also counterrotating to improve force absorption in all dimensions (figure 24). Imagine yourself on skis speeding down a slope; if you suddenly needed to stop, you would improve force absorption by swinging your skis into a curve. Nevertheless your knees would appear to stay aligned over the second toe because the tibial plateau is moving in exact opposition to the femur condyles.
Figure 24 Posterior view of chair pose with bone rhythms.
The traditional approach to teaching alignment is to focus on bony landmarks and their relationship to each other. Once the landmarks, such as the knees, are in the right position, over the second toe, we are aligned. While this idea is helpful, it does not reflect the nature of human movement, because these landmarks move relative to each other as you bend and stretch your legs. The knee oscillates over the second toe. The more you bend your knee, the farther the knee is aligned medially to the second toe; when you stretch your knee, the alignment moves more laterally.
Alignment and force absorption are compatible, as long as you're practicing the concept of moving stability. The line of gravity through the leg remains stable even as bony landmarks are shifting. Trying to maintain the configuration of bony points in a fixed position can actually block movement rather than enhance it.
The challenge of moving toward dynamic alignment is often psychological. If you've been taught the static, positional model of alignment, it might be challenging at first to grasp the concept of moving stability.
But it can't be denied that the use of three-dimensional force absorption and production best supports the dynamic nature of human alignment, creating optimal efficiency in movement. Once you embody this theory, you will observe rapid progress in your yoga practice.
In fine-tuned motor control, sacral nutation and pelvic movement initiate simultaneously, while the innominate bone moves relatively in opposition to both these bones. This is the key to a free hip joint and dynamic pelvic movement.
In hip extension the opposite motions take place: the sacrum counternutates, the femurs rotate internally, and the innominate bone nutates relative to the sacrum.
Tadasana: Mountain Pose
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection.
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection. It is the aim of yoga, after all, to cultivate stillness. But is stillness merely the absence of motion or is it a constant, subtle balancing act?
Mountains are crawling with life: the slow and imperceptible growing of trees and greenery, the current and flow of rivers and streams, the movement of animals, birds, and insects.
Let your mountain move. Acknowledge the movement of all of this life and the beautiful wisdom of the body to allow you to sway. In the Franklin Method we call it postural sway; it's one way to keep your body from getting tired when you have to stand for a long period of time, by distributing and redistributing forces and weight to different muscles and areas of the body.
Imagine that your mountain pose is strong and stable because of its ability to adapt. Allowing for three-dimensional, relaxed breathing, this is a sort of home base to return to again and again. Experience this healthy posture as a movement rather than as a set of bony points that need to remain in the exact same relationship. Imagine your strength as being free and ready to move in any direction. Find stillness inside movement.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- “Lengthen your tail” or “tuck your tail” seems like a quick fix for an overarched low back or an anteriorly rotated pelvis, but it can easily create another issue of a tucked-under position, which is already a challenge with our human standing posture. This common cue can create tension in the pelvic floor and the abdominals, which prevents good breathing. Tucking your tail also creates tight hips because it counternutates the sacrum. Furthermore, if this posture is the starting point for other standing postures, those patterns of tension will translate to other poses as well (like a forward-thrust pelvis in virabhadrasana I, for example).
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- In the Franklin Method we say “get on your femur heads.” What this means is visualizing your femur heads and sensing your weight poised over them. Feel the weight as equal on both femur heads, and not in front or in back of them.
- The purpose of human dynamic posture is to be able to get into motion with ease. Hip flexion should be available to us at any time. In tadasana you should be able to move right into utkatasana pose without having to unlock your hips or your knees. A dynamic version of tadasana forms the baseline for any further movement and is a functional rehearsal for great posture in daily life.
- Rock your body weight forward and back and side to side until you find a natural place of center to rest your weight. Do the same exploration with your pelvis, shifting forward and back and side to side to find the place where you experience being centered.
- Bend the knees slightly to feel the deepening of the hips and imagine the femur heads like buoys that are lifting the pelvis (figure 33).
- Instead of lifting the kneecaps, as is so often taught, keep the knees soft to create a dynamic buoyancy.
- Sense the general flow of energy up the front and down the back (figure 34). Apply this to the pelvis specifically and to the entire body.
Figure 33 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) with the pelvis imagined as supported by buoys and (b) with the legs imagined as strong geysers supporting the hip joint and the pelvis from below.
Figure 34 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) feeling the centeredness and balance of the legs and the spine and (b) feeling energy flow, as in a figure eight, up the front and down the back of the spine.
Ustrasana: Camel Pose
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- The cue to “tuck your tail” is often preceded by the cue to “protect the lower back.” At this point, you understand the very important force absorption aspect of sacral nutation and can see that if the sacrum does the same thing that the pelvic halves do and the entire pelvis moves as one piece, there is no movement or sharing of force throughout the sacroiliac joints, which will create the feeling of tension in the lower back. The problem with tucking the tail is that the tailbone is connected to the sacrum, which is connected to the spine, so if you tuck your tail, you are preventing spinal extension (one of the great benefits of camel pose). The cue engages the pelvic floor, which reflexively engages the rectus abdominis, a spinal flexor. This creates an argument in your body between flexion and extension, which expresses itself in unnecessary tension.
- “Engage your core” or “lift your low belly” creates the same roadblock as the cue to “tuck the tail.” It prevents spinal extension and keeps the pelvic floor and the abdominals from serving their function in the pose, which is to contract eccentrically. As noted previously, this cue is not the path to a proper core engagement.
- The cue to “lift your pelvic floor” is tricky because if this action is overdone, it creates the feel of suction or drawing inward of the abdominals. In a backbend, this creates a jutting forward of the rib cage, which can put a lot of unnecessary force on the lower spinal muscles, creating an even more flexible meeting point between the twelfth thoracic vertebra and the first lumbar vertebra (the thoracolumbar junction). More importantly, it keeps us from actually achieving a backbend while creating more of a hinged posture. Too much lifting and engaging of the pelvic floor can also cause stasis of the blood and the lymphatic vessels because they are being compressed.
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- Cobra is a wonderful preparation for camel pose, because it gives you a palpable sense of the three-dimensional balance in the pelvis. In camel pose, the stakes are a little higher because you are working with gravity.
- “Imagine the pubic bones rolling upward toward your navel at the same time as the tip of your tailbone is sliding down and back toward the wall behind you.” A great metaphor for this cue is to imagine the tip of the tailbone as a laser shining back between your feet at the same time as the hip points are lights pointed toward where the wall meets the ceiling in front of you. As with all asanas, the magic ingredient is in the dynamic alignment of this posture: the strategy the body uses to deal with the forces of getting into the pose (figure 54). Trying to feel these actions once you're already in camel pose won't have the same effect as if you focus on them as you're entering into the pose.
- Camel pose also offers a light and lifted feeling in the ribs. Imagine them fanning open in the front of your body. Imagine the sternum to be stretchy like a rubber band.
- The iliopsoas is our most important hip flexor. In camel pose, it aids stability as well as supporting the spine. This is a subtle image, however, because the superficial and the deep parts of the psoas major are not performing in the same way. Sense the deeper layers of the psoas shortening while the anterior layers of the psoas are lengthening (figure 55). This mimics the general pulley feel of the muscles in the back shortening and the muscles in the front lengthening.
Figure 54 Ustrasana (camel pose) with movement of the pelvis, the spine, and the ribs.
Figure 55 Ustrasana (camel pose) with the anterior psoas major lengthening and the posterior psoas major shortening.
Pelvic Anatomy and Function - Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Figure 23 Chair pose: (a) lateral view, with bone rhythms and (b) the pelvic floor muscles stretching in response to the bone rhythms.
What's the purpose of this movement, and why is this purpose not readily apparent? When you bend and stretch your legs, you may tend to see that your knees move forward and your pelvis moves down; you might miss the counterrotations that are happening at the same time.
There are two fundamental reasons why the bone rhythms are important. Compared to quadrupeds who move around with their knees flexed, humans walk with fairly straight knees. In humans, the pelvis coasts over the stance leg as if it were a beam. This reaction in the pelvis is reminiscent of pole vaulting, or of a gondola in Venice being propelled by a long oar. Bone rhythms allow the leg to switch back and forth efficiently from being a rigid strut to a more flexible absorptive configuration. This saves a lot of energy.
If your knees were bent and the heels lifted, as in a dog, you would need to engage your quadriceps and hamstrings a lot more than you do. The advantage of being a quadruped is that it has four cylinders (legs) to power its movement. On the other hand, humans have much more endurance, which has great evolutionary advantages. Animals do not run marathons.
Another advantage of counterrotation is force absorption and force generation. Efficient movement means a high energy-to-output ratio. The human musculoskeletal system engages all three dimensions to improve efficiency. When you bend your knees as you land from a jump, your leg bones aren't just moving forward; they're also counterrotating to improve force absorption in all dimensions (figure 24). Imagine yourself on skis speeding down a slope; if you suddenly needed to stop, you would improve force absorption by swinging your skis into a curve. Nevertheless your knees would appear to stay aligned over the second toe because the tibial plateau is moving in exact opposition to the femur condyles.
Figure 24 Posterior view of chair pose with bone rhythms.
The traditional approach to teaching alignment is to focus on bony landmarks and their relationship to each other. Once the landmarks, such as the knees, are in the right position, over the second toe, we are aligned. While this idea is helpful, it does not reflect the nature of human movement, because these landmarks move relative to each other as you bend and stretch your legs. The knee oscillates over the second toe. The more you bend your knee, the farther the knee is aligned medially to the second toe; when you stretch your knee, the alignment moves more laterally.
Alignment and force absorption are compatible, as long as you're practicing the concept of moving stability. The line of gravity through the leg remains stable even as bony landmarks are shifting. Trying to maintain the configuration of bony points in a fixed position can actually block movement rather than enhance it.
The challenge of moving toward dynamic alignment is often psychological. If you've been taught the static, positional model of alignment, it might be challenging at first to grasp the concept of moving stability.
But it can't be denied that the use of three-dimensional force absorption and production best supports the dynamic nature of human alignment, creating optimal efficiency in movement. Once you embody this theory, you will observe rapid progress in your yoga practice.
In fine-tuned motor control, sacral nutation and pelvic movement initiate simultaneously, while the innominate bone moves relatively in opposition to both these bones. This is the key to a free hip joint and dynamic pelvic movement.
In hip extension the opposite motions take place: the sacrum counternutates, the femurs rotate internally, and the innominate bone nutates relative to the sacrum.
Tadasana: Mountain Pose
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection.
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection. It is the aim of yoga, after all, to cultivate stillness. But is stillness merely the absence of motion or is it a constant, subtle balancing act?
Mountains are crawling with life: the slow and imperceptible growing of trees and greenery, the current and flow of rivers and streams, the movement of animals, birds, and insects.
Let your mountain move. Acknowledge the movement of all of this life and the beautiful wisdom of the body to allow you to sway. In the Franklin Method we call it postural sway; it's one way to keep your body from getting tired when you have to stand for a long period of time, by distributing and redistributing forces and weight to different muscles and areas of the body.
Imagine that your mountain pose is strong and stable because of its ability to adapt. Allowing for three-dimensional, relaxed breathing, this is a sort of home base to return to again and again. Experience this healthy posture as a movement rather than as a set of bony points that need to remain in the exact same relationship. Imagine your strength as being free and ready to move in any direction. Find stillness inside movement.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- “Lengthen your tail” or “tuck your tail” seems like a quick fix for an overarched low back or an anteriorly rotated pelvis, but it can easily create another issue of a tucked-under position, which is already a challenge with our human standing posture. This common cue can create tension in the pelvic floor and the abdominals, which prevents good breathing. Tucking your tail also creates tight hips because it counternutates the sacrum. Furthermore, if this posture is the starting point for other standing postures, those patterns of tension will translate to other poses as well (like a forward-thrust pelvis in virabhadrasana I, for example).
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- In the Franklin Method we say “get on your femur heads.” What this means is visualizing your femur heads and sensing your weight poised over them. Feel the weight as equal on both femur heads, and not in front or in back of them.
- The purpose of human dynamic posture is to be able to get into motion with ease. Hip flexion should be available to us at any time. In tadasana you should be able to move right into utkatasana pose without having to unlock your hips or your knees. A dynamic version of tadasana forms the baseline for any further movement and is a functional rehearsal for great posture in daily life.
- Rock your body weight forward and back and side to side until you find a natural place of center to rest your weight. Do the same exploration with your pelvis, shifting forward and back and side to side to find the place where you experience being centered.
- Bend the knees slightly to feel the deepening of the hips and imagine the femur heads like buoys that are lifting the pelvis (figure 33).
- Instead of lifting the kneecaps, as is so often taught, keep the knees soft to create a dynamic buoyancy.
- Sense the general flow of energy up the front and down the back (figure 34). Apply this to the pelvis specifically and to the entire body.
Figure 33 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) with the pelvis imagined as supported by buoys and (b) with the legs imagined as strong geysers supporting the hip joint and the pelvis from below.
Figure 34 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) feeling the centeredness and balance of the legs and the spine and (b) feeling energy flow, as in a figure eight, up the front and down the back of the spine.
Ustrasana: Camel Pose
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- The cue to “tuck your tail” is often preceded by the cue to “protect the lower back.” At this point, you understand the very important force absorption aspect of sacral nutation and can see that if the sacrum does the same thing that the pelvic halves do and the entire pelvis moves as one piece, there is no movement or sharing of force throughout the sacroiliac joints, which will create the feeling of tension in the lower back. The problem with tucking the tail is that the tailbone is connected to the sacrum, which is connected to the spine, so if you tuck your tail, you are preventing spinal extension (one of the great benefits of camel pose). The cue engages the pelvic floor, which reflexively engages the rectus abdominis, a spinal flexor. This creates an argument in your body between flexion and extension, which expresses itself in unnecessary tension.
- “Engage your core” or “lift your low belly” creates the same roadblock as the cue to “tuck the tail.” It prevents spinal extension and keeps the pelvic floor and the abdominals from serving their function in the pose, which is to contract eccentrically. As noted previously, this cue is not the path to a proper core engagement.
- The cue to “lift your pelvic floor” is tricky because if this action is overdone, it creates the feel of suction or drawing inward of the abdominals. In a backbend, this creates a jutting forward of the rib cage, which can put a lot of unnecessary force on the lower spinal muscles, creating an even more flexible meeting point between the twelfth thoracic vertebra and the first lumbar vertebra (the thoracolumbar junction). More importantly, it keeps us from actually achieving a backbend while creating more of a hinged posture. Too much lifting and engaging of the pelvic floor can also cause stasis of the blood and the lymphatic vessels because they are being compressed.
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- Cobra is a wonderful preparation for camel pose, because it gives you a palpable sense of the three-dimensional balance in the pelvis. In camel pose, the stakes are a little higher because you are working with gravity.
- “Imagine the pubic bones rolling upward toward your navel at the same time as the tip of your tailbone is sliding down and back toward the wall behind you.” A great metaphor for this cue is to imagine the tip of the tailbone as a laser shining back between your feet at the same time as the hip points are lights pointed toward where the wall meets the ceiling in front of you. As with all asanas, the magic ingredient is in the dynamic alignment of this posture: the strategy the body uses to deal with the forces of getting into the pose (figure 54). Trying to feel these actions once you're already in camel pose won't have the same effect as if you focus on them as you're entering into the pose.
- Camel pose also offers a light and lifted feeling in the ribs. Imagine them fanning open in the front of your body. Imagine the sternum to be stretchy like a rubber band.
- The iliopsoas is our most important hip flexor. In camel pose, it aids stability as well as supporting the spine. This is a subtle image, however, because the superficial and the deep parts of the psoas major are not performing in the same way. Sense the deeper layers of the psoas shortening while the anterior layers of the psoas are lengthening (figure 55). This mimics the general pulley feel of the muscles in the back shortening and the muscles in the front lengthening.
Figure 54 Ustrasana (camel pose) with movement of the pelvis, the spine, and the ribs.
Figure 55 Ustrasana (camel pose) with the anterior psoas major lengthening and the posterior psoas major shortening.
Pelvic Anatomy and Function - Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Figure 23 Chair pose: (a) lateral view, with bone rhythms and (b) the pelvic floor muscles stretching in response to the bone rhythms.
What's the purpose of this movement, and why is this purpose not readily apparent? When you bend and stretch your legs, you may tend to see that your knees move forward and your pelvis moves down; you might miss the counterrotations that are happening at the same time.
There are two fundamental reasons why the bone rhythms are important. Compared to quadrupeds who move around with their knees flexed, humans walk with fairly straight knees. In humans, the pelvis coasts over the stance leg as if it were a beam. This reaction in the pelvis is reminiscent of pole vaulting, or of a gondola in Venice being propelled by a long oar. Bone rhythms allow the leg to switch back and forth efficiently from being a rigid strut to a more flexible absorptive configuration. This saves a lot of energy.
If your knees were bent and the heels lifted, as in a dog, you would need to engage your quadriceps and hamstrings a lot more than you do. The advantage of being a quadruped is that it has four cylinders (legs) to power its movement. On the other hand, humans have much more endurance, which has great evolutionary advantages. Animals do not run marathons.
Another advantage of counterrotation is force absorption and force generation. Efficient movement means a high energy-to-output ratio. The human musculoskeletal system engages all three dimensions to improve efficiency. When you bend your knees as you land from a jump, your leg bones aren't just moving forward; they're also counterrotating to improve force absorption in all dimensions (figure 24). Imagine yourself on skis speeding down a slope; if you suddenly needed to stop, you would improve force absorption by swinging your skis into a curve. Nevertheless your knees would appear to stay aligned over the second toe because the tibial plateau is moving in exact opposition to the femur condyles.
Figure 24 Posterior view of chair pose with bone rhythms.
The traditional approach to teaching alignment is to focus on bony landmarks and their relationship to each other. Once the landmarks, such as the knees, are in the right position, over the second toe, we are aligned. While this idea is helpful, it does not reflect the nature of human movement, because these landmarks move relative to each other as you bend and stretch your legs. The knee oscillates over the second toe. The more you bend your knee, the farther the knee is aligned medially to the second toe; when you stretch your knee, the alignment moves more laterally.
Alignment and force absorption are compatible, as long as you're practicing the concept of moving stability. The line of gravity through the leg remains stable even as bony landmarks are shifting. Trying to maintain the configuration of bony points in a fixed position can actually block movement rather than enhance it.
The challenge of moving toward dynamic alignment is often psychological. If you've been taught the static, positional model of alignment, it might be challenging at first to grasp the concept of moving stability.
But it can't be denied that the use of three-dimensional force absorption and production best supports the dynamic nature of human alignment, creating optimal efficiency in movement. Once you embody this theory, you will observe rapid progress in your yoga practice.
In fine-tuned motor control, sacral nutation and pelvic movement initiate simultaneously, while the innominate bone moves relatively in opposition to both these bones. This is the key to a free hip joint and dynamic pelvic movement.
In hip extension the opposite motions take place: the sacrum counternutates, the femurs rotate internally, and the innominate bone nutates relative to the sacrum.
Tadasana: Mountain Pose
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection.
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection. It is the aim of yoga, after all, to cultivate stillness. But is stillness merely the absence of motion or is it a constant, subtle balancing act?
Mountains are crawling with life: the slow and imperceptible growing of trees and greenery, the current and flow of rivers and streams, the movement of animals, birds, and insects.
Let your mountain move. Acknowledge the movement of all of this life and the beautiful wisdom of the body to allow you to sway. In the Franklin Method we call it postural sway; it's one way to keep your body from getting tired when you have to stand for a long period of time, by distributing and redistributing forces and weight to different muscles and areas of the body.
Imagine that your mountain pose is strong and stable because of its ability to adapt. Allowing for three-dimensional, relaxed breathing, this is a sort of home base to return to again and again. Experience this healthy posture as a movement rather than as a set of bony points that need to remain in the exact same relationship. Imagine your strength as being free and ready to move in any direction. Find stillness inside movement.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- “Lengthen your tail” or “tuck your tail” seems like a quick fix for an overarched low back or an anteriorly rotated pelvis, but it can easily create another issue of a tucked-under position, which is already a challenge with our human standing posture. This common cue can create tension in the pelvic floor and the abdominals, which prevents good breathing. Tucking your tail also creates tight hips because it counternutates the sacrum. Furthermore, if this posture is the starting point for other standing postures, those patterns of tension will translate to other poses as well (like a forward-thrust pelvis in virabhadrasana I, for example).
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- In the Franklin Method we say “get on your femur heads.” What this means is visualizing your femur heads and sensing your weight poised over them. Feel the weight as equal on both femur heads, and not in front or in back of them.
- The purpose of human dynamic posture is to be able to get into motion with ease. Hip flexion should be available to us at any time. In tadasana you should be able to move right into utkatasana pose without having to unlock your hips or your knees. A dynamic version of tadasana forms the baseline for any further movement and is a functional rehearsal for great posture in daily life.
- Rock your body weight forward and back and side to side until you find a natural place of center to rest your weight. Do the same exploration with your pelvis, shifting forward and back and side to side to find the place where you experience being centered.
- Bend the knees slightly to feel the deepening of the hips and imagine the femur heads like buoys that are lifting the pelvis (figure 33).
- Instead of lifting the kneecaps, as is so often taught, keep the knees soft to create a dynamic buoyancy.
- Sense the general flow of energy up the front and down the back (figure 34). Apply this to the pelvis specifically and to the entire body.
Figure 33 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) with the pelvis imagined as supported by buoys and (b) with the legs imagined as strong geysers supporting the hip joint and the pelvis from below.
Figure 34 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) feeling the centeredness and balance of the legs and the spine and (b) feeling energy flow, as in a figure eight, up the front and down the back of the spine.
Ustrasana: Camel Pose
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- The cue to “tuck your tail” is often preceded by the cue to “protect the lower back.” At this point, you understand the very important force absorption aspect of sacral nutation and can see that if the sacrum does the same thing that the pelvic halves do and the entire pelvis moves as one piece, there is no movement or sharing of force throughout the sacroiliac joints, which will create the feeling of tension in the lower back. The problem with tucking the tail is that the tailbone is connected to the sacrum, which is connected to the spine, so if you tuck your tail, you are preventing spinal extension (one of the great benefits of camel pose). The cue engages the pelvic floor, which reflexively engages the rectus abdominis, a spinal flexor. This creates an argument in your body between flexion and extension, which expresses itself in unnecessary tension.
- “Engage your core” or “lift your low belly” creates the same roadblock as the cue to “tuck the tail.” It prevents spinal extension and keeps the pelvic floor and the abdominals from serving their function in the pose, which is to contract eccentrically. As noted previously, this cue is not the path to a proper core engagement.
- The cue to “lift your pelvic floor” is tricky because if this action is overdone, it creates the feel of suction or drawing inward of the abdominals. In a backbend, this creates a jutting forward of the rib cage, which can put a lot of unnecessary force on the lower spinal muscles, creating an even more flexible meeting point between the twelfth thoracic vertebra and the first lumbar vertebra (the thoracolumbar junction). More importantly, it keeps us from actually achieving a backbend while creating more of a hinged posture. Too much lifting and engaging of the pelvic floor can also cause stasis of the blood and the lymphatic vessels because they are being compressed.
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- Cobra is a wonderful preparation for camel pose, because it gives you a palpable sense of the three-dimensional balance in the pelvis. In camel pose, the stakes are a little higher because you are working with gravity.
- “Imagine the pubic bones rolling upward toward your navel at the same time as the tip of your tailbone is sliding down and back toward the wall behind you.” A great metaphor for this cue is to imagine the tip of the tailbone as a laser shining back between your feet at the same time as the hip points are lights pointed toward where the wall meets the ceiling in front of you. As with all asanas, the magic ingredient is in the dynamic alignment of this posture: the strategy the body uses to deal with the forces of getting into the pose (figure 54). Trying to feel these actions once you're already in camel pose won't have the same effect as if you focus on them as you're entering into the pose.
- Camel pose also offers a light and lifted feeling in the ribs. Imagine them fanning open in the front of your body. Imagine the sternum to be stretchy like a rubber band.
- The iliopsoas is our most important hip flexor. In camel pose, it aids stability as well as supporting the spine. This is a subtle image, however, because the superficial and the deep parts of the psoas major are not performing in the same way. Sense the deeper layers of the psoas shortening while the anterior layers of the psoas are lengthening (figure 55). This mimics the general pulley feel of the muscles in the back shortening and the muscles in the front lengthening.
Figure 54 Ustrasana (camel pose) with movement of the pelvis, the spine, and the ribs.
Figure 55 Ustrasana (camel pose) with the anterior psoas major lengthening and the posterior psoas major shortening.
Pelvic Anatomy and Function - Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Figure 23 Chair pose: (a) lateral view, with bone rhythms and (b) the pelvic floor muscles stretching in response to the bone rhythms.
What's the purpose of this movement, and why is this purpose not readily apparent? When you bend and stretch your legs, you may tend to see that your knees move forward and your pelvis moves down; you might miss the counterrotations that are happening at the same time.
There are two fundamental reasons why the bone rhythms are important. Compared to quadrupeds who move around with their knees flexed, humans walk with fairly straight knees. In humans, the pelvis coasts over the stance leg as if it were a beam. This reaction in the pelvis is reminiscent of pole vaulting, or of a gondola in Venice being propelled by a long oar. Bone rhythms allow the leg to switch back and forth efficiently from being a rigid strut to a more flexible absorptive configuration. This saves a lot of energy.
If your knees were bent and the heels lifted, as in a dog, you would need to engage your quadriceps and hamstrings a lot more than you do. The advantage of being a quadruped is that it has four cylinders (legs) to power its movement. On the other hand, humans have much more endurance, which has great evolutionary advantages. Animals do not run marathons.
Another advantage of counterrotation is force absorption and force generation. Efficient movement means a high energy-to-output ratio. The human musculoskeletal system engages all three dimensions to improve efficiency. When you bend your knees as you land from a jump, your leg bones aren't just moving forward; they're also counterrotating to improve force absorption in all dimensions (figure 24). Imagine yourself on skis speeding down a slope; if you suddenly needed to stop, you would improve force absorption by swinging your skis into a curve. Nevertheless your knees would appear to stay aligned over the second toe because the tibial plateau is moving in exact opposition to the femur condyles.
Figure 24 Posterior view of chair pose with bone rhythms.
The traditional approach to teaching alignment is to focus on bony landmarks and their relationship to each other. Once the landmarks, such as the knees, are in the right position, over the second toe, we are aligned. While this idea is helpful, it does not reflect the nature of human movement, because these landmarks move relative to each other as you bend and stretch your legs. The knee oscillates over the second toe. The more you bend your knee, the farther the knee is aligned medially to the second toe; when you stretch your knee, the alignment moves more laterally.
Alignment and force absorption are compatible, as long as you're practicing the concept of moving stability. The line of gravity through the leg remains stable even as bony landmarks are shifting. Trying to maintain the configuration of bony points in a fixed position can actually block movement rather than enhance it.
The challenge of moving toward dynamic alignment is often psychological. If you've been taught the static, positional model of alignment, it might be challenging at first to grasp the concept of moving stability.
But it can't be denied that the use of three-dimensional force absorption and production best supports the dynamic nature of human alignment, creating optimal efficiency in movement. Once you embody this theory, you will observe rapid progress in your yoga practice.
In fine-tuned motor control, sacral nutation and pelvic movement initiate simultaneously, while the innominate bone moves relatively in opposition to both these bones. This is the key to a free hip joint and dynamic pelvic movement.
In hip extension the opposite motions take place: the sacrum counternutates, the femurs rotate internally, and the innominate bone nutates relative to the sacrum.
Tadasana: Mountain Pose
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection.
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection. It is the aim of yoga, after all, to cultivate stillness. But is stillness merely the absence of motion or is it a constant, subtle balancing act?
Mountains are crawling with life: the slow and imperceptible growing of trees and greenery, the current and flow of rivers and streams, the movement of animals, birds, and insects.
Let your mountain move. Acknowledge the movement of all of this life and the beautiful wisdom of the body to allow you to sway. In the Franklin Method we call it postural sway; it's one way to keep your body from getting tired when you have to stand for a long period of time, by distributing and redistributing forces and weight to different muscles and areas of the body.
Imagine that your mountain pose is strong and stable because of its ability to adapt. Allowing for three-dimensional, relaxed breathing, this is a sort of home base to return to again and again. Experience this healthy posture as a movement rather than as a set of bony points that need to remain in the exact same relationship. Imagine your strength as being free and ready to move in any direction. Find stillness inside movement.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- “Lengthen your tail” or “tuck your tail” seems like a quick fix for an overarched low back or an anteriorly rotated pelvis, but it can easily create another issue of a tucked-under position, which is already a challenge with our human standing posture. This common cue can create tension in the pelvic floor and the abdominals, which prevents good breathing. Tucking your tail also creates tight hips because it counternutates the sacrum. Furthermore, if this posture is the starting point for other standing postures, those patterns of tension will translate to other poses as well (like a forward-thrust pelvis in virabhadrasana I, for example).
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- In the Franklin Method we say “get on your femur heads.” What this means is visualizing your femur heads and sensing your weight poised over them. Feel the weight as equal on both femur heads, and not in front or in back of them.
- The purpose of human dynamic posture is to be able to get into motion with ease. Hip flexion should be available to us at any time. In tadasana you should be able to move right into utkatasana pose without having to unlock your hips or your knees. A dynamic version of tadasana forms the baseline for any further movement and is a functional rehearsal for great posture in daily life.
- Rock your body weight forward and back and side to side until you find a natural place of center to rest your weight. Do the same exploration with your pelvis, shifting forward and back and side to side to find the place where you experience being centered.
- Bend the knees slightly to feel the deepening of the hips and imagine the femur heads like buoys that are lifting the pelvis (figure 33).
- Instead of lifting the kneecaps, as is so often taught, keep the knees soft to create a dynamic buoyancy.
- Sense the general flow of energy up the front and down the back (figure 34). Apply this to the pelvis specifically and to the entire body.
Figure 33 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) with the pelvis imagined as supported by buoys and (b) with the legs imagined as strong geysers supporting the hip joint and the pelvis from below.
Figure 34 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) feeling the centeredness and balance of the legs and the spine and (b) feeling energy flow, as in a figure eight, up the front and down the back of the spine.
Ustrasana: Camel Pose
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- The cue to “tuck your tail” is often preceded by the cue to “protect the lower back.” At this point, you understand the very important force absorption aspect of sacral nutation and can see that if the sacrum does the same thing that the pelvic halves do and the entire pelvis moves as one piece, there is no movement or sharing of force throughout the sacroiliac joints, which will create the feeling of tension in the lower back. The problem with tucking the tail is that the tailbone is connected to the sacrum, which is connected to the spine, so if you tuck your tail, you are preventing spinal extension (one of the great benefits of camel pose). The cue engages the pelvic floor, which reflexively engages the rectus abdominis, a spinal flexor. This creates an argument in your body between flexion and extension, which expresses itself in unnecessary tension.
- “Engage your core” or “lift your low belly” creates the same roadblock as the cue to “tuck the tail.” It prevents spinal extension and keeps the pelvic floor and the abdominals from serving their function in the pose, which is to contract eccentrically. As noted previously, this cue is not the path to a proper core engagement.
- The cue to “lift your pelvic floor” is tricky because if this action is overdone, it creates the feel of suction or drawing inward of the abdominals. In a backbend, this creates a jutting forward of the rib cage, which can put a lot of unnecessary force on the lower spinal muscles, creating an even more flexible meeting point between the twelfth thoracic vertebra and the first lumbar vertebra (the thoracolumbar junction). More importantly, it keeps us from actually achieving a backbend while creating more of a hinged posture. Too much lifting and engaging of the pelvic floor can also cause stasis of the blood and the lymphatic vessels because they are being compressed.
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- Cobra is a wonderful preparation for camel pose, because it gives you a palpable sense of the three-dimensional balance in the pelvis. In camel pose, the stakes are a little higher because you are working with gravity.
- “Imagine the pubic bones rolling upward toward your navel at the same time as the tip of your tailbone is sliding down and back toward the wall behind you.” A great metaphor for this cue is to imagine the tip of the tailbone as a laser shining back between your feet at the same time as the hip points are lights pointed toward where the wall meets the ceiling in front of you. As with all asanas, the magic ingredient is in the dynamic alignment of this posture: the strategy the body uses to deal with the forces of getting into the pose (figure 54). Trying to feel these actions once you're already in camel pose won't have the same effect as if you focus on them as you're entering into the pose.
- Camel pose also offers a light and lifted feeling in the ribs. Imagine them fanning open in the front of your body. Imagine the sternum to be stretchy like a rubber band.
- The iliopsoas is our most important hip flexor. In camel pose, it aids stability as well as supporting the spine. This is a subtle image, however, because the superficial and the deep parts of the psoas major are not performing in the same way. Sense the deeper layers of the psoas shortening while the anterior layers of the psoas are lengthening (figure 55). This mimics the general pulley feel of the muscles in the back shortening and the muscles in the front lengthening.
Figure 54 Ustrasana (camel pose) with movement of the pelvis, the spine, and the ribs.
Figure 55 Ustrasana (camel pose) with the anterior psoas major lengthening and the posterior psoas major shortening.
Pelvic Anatomy and Function - Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Figure 23 Chair pose: (a) lateral view, with bone rhythms and (b) the pelvic floor muscles stretching in response to the bone rhythms.
What's the purpose of this movement, and why is this purpose not readily apparent? When you bend and stretch your legs, you may tend to see that your knees move forward and your pelvis moves down; you might miss the counterrotations that are happening at the same time.
There are two fundamental reasons why the bone rhythms are important. Compared to quadrupeds who move around with their knees flexed, humans walk with fairly straight knees. In humans, the pelvis coasts over the stance leg as if it were a beam. This reaction in the pelvis is reminiscent of pole vaulting, or of a gondola in Venice being propelled by a long oar. Bone rhythms allow the leg to switch back and forth efficiently from being a rigid strut to a more flexible absorptive configuration. This saves a lot of energy.
If your knees were bent and the heels lifted, as in a dog, you would need to engage your quadriceps and hamstrings a lot more than you do. The advantage of being a quadruped is that it has four cylinders (legs) to power its movement. On the other hand, humans have much more endurance, which has great evolutionary advantages. Animals do not run marathons.
Another advantage of counterrotation is force absorption and force generation. Efficient movement means a high energy-to-output ratio. The human musculoskeletal system engages all three dimensions to improve efficiency. When you bend your knees as you land from a jump, your leg bones aren't just moving forward; they're also counterrotating to improve force absorption in all dimensions (figure 24). Imagine yourself on skis speeding down a slope; if you suddenly needed to stop, you would improve force absorption by swinging your skis into a curve. Nevertheless your knees would appear to stay aligned over the second toe because the tibial plateau is moving in exact opposition to the femur condyles.
Figure 24 Posterior view of chair pose with bone rhythms.
The traditional approach to teaching alignment is to focus on bony landmarks and their relationship to each other. Once the landmarks, such as the knees, are in the right position, over the second toe, we are aligned. While this idea is helpful, it does not reflect the nature of human movement, because these landmarks move relative to each other as you bend and stretch your legs. The knee oscillates over the second toe. The more you bend your knee, the farther the knee is aligned medially to the second toe; when you stretch your knee, the alignment moves more laterally.
Alignment and force absorption are compatible, as long as you're practicing the concept of moving stability. The line of gravity through the leg remains stable even as bony landmarks are shifting. Trying to maintain the configuration of bony points in a fixed position can actually block movement rather than enhance it.
The challenge of moving toward dynamic alignment is often psychological. If you've been taught the static, positional model of alignment, it might be challenging at first to grasp the concept of moving stability.
But it can't be denied that the use of three-dimensional force absorption and production best supports the dynamic nature of human alignment, creating optimal efficiency in movement. Once you embody this theory, you will observe rapid progress in your yoga practice.
In fine-tuned motor control, sacral nutation and pelvic movement initiate simultaneously, while the innominate bone moves relatively in opposition to both these bones. This is the key to a free hip joint and dynamic pelvic movement.
In hip extension the opposite motions take place: the sacrum counternutates, the femurs rotate internally, and the innominate bone nutates relative to the sacrum.
Tadasana: Mountain Pose
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection.
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection. It is the aim of yoga, after all, to cultivate stillness. But is stillness merely the absence of motion or is it a constant, subtle balancing act?
Mountains are crawling with life: the slow and imperceptible growing of trees and greenery, the current and flow of rivers and streams, the movement of animals, birds, and insects.
Let your mountain move. Acknowledge the movement of all of this life and the beautiful wisdom of the body to allow you to sway. In the Franklin Method we call it postural sway; it's one way to keep your body from getting tired when you have to stand for a long period of time, by distributing and redistributing forces and weight to different muscles and areas of the body.
Imagine that your mountain pose is strong and stable because of its ability to adapt. Allowing for three-dimensional, relaxed breathing, this is a sort of home base to return to again and again. Experience this healthy posture as a movement rather than as a set of bony points that need to remain in the exact same relationship. Imagine your strength as being free and ready to move in any direction. Find stillness inside movement.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- “Lengthen your tail” or “tuck your tail” seems like a quick fix for an overarched low back or an anteriorly rotated pelvis, but it can easily create another issue of a tucked-under position, which is already a challenge with our human standing posture. This common cue can create tension in the pelvic floor and the abdominals, which prevents good breathing. Tucking your tail also creates tight hips because it counternutates the sacrum. Furthermore, if this posture is the starting point for other standing postures, those patterns of tension will translate to other poses as well (like a forward-thrust pelvis in virabhadrasana I, for example).
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- In the Franklin Method we say “get on your femur heads.” What this means is visualizing your femur heads and sensing your weight poised over them. Feel the weight as equal on both femur heads, and not in front or in back of them.
- The purpose of human dynamic posture is to be able to get into motion with ease. Hip flexion should be available to us at any time. In tadasana you should be able to move right into utkatasana pose without having to unlock your hips or your knees. A dynamic version of tadasana forms the baseline for any further movement and is a functional rehearsal for great posture in daily life.
- Rock your body weight forward and back and side to side until you find a natural place of center to rest your weight. Do the same exploration with your pelvis, shifting forward and back and side to side to find the place where you experience being centered.
- Bend the knees slightly to feel the deepening of the hips and imagine the femur heads like buoys that are lifting the pelvis (figure 33).
- Instead of lifting the kneecaps, as is so often taught, keep the knees soft to create a dynamic buoyancy.
- Sense the general flow of energy up the front and down the back (figure 34). Apply this to the pelvis specifically and to the entire body.
Figure 33 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) with the pelvis imagined as supported by buoys and (b) with the legs imagined as strong geysers supporting the hip joint and the pelvis from below.
Figure 34 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) feeling the centeredness and balance of the legs and the spine and (b) feeling energy flow, as in a figure eight, up the front and down the back of the spine.
Ustrasana: Camel Pose
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- The cue to “tuck your tail” is often preceded by the cue to “protect the lower back.” At this point, you understand the very important force absorption aspect of sacral nutation and can see that if the sacrum does the same thing that the pelvic halves do and the entire pelvis moves as one piece, there is no movement or sharing of force throughout the sacroiliac joints, which will create the feeling of tension in the lower back. The problem with tucking the tail is that the tailbone is connected to the sacrum, which is connected to the spine, so if you tuck your tail, you are preventing spinal extension (one of the great benefits of camel pose). The cue engages the pelvic floor, which reflexively engages the rectus abdominis, a spinal flexor. This creates an argument in your body between flexion and extension, which expresses itself in unnecessary tension.
- “Engage your core” or “lift your low belly” creates the same roadblock as the cue to “tuck the tail.” It prevents spinal extension and keeps the pelvic floor and the abdominals from serving their function in the pose, which is to contract eccentrically. As noted previously, this cue is not the path to a proper core engagement.
- The cue to “lift your pelvic floor” is tricky because if this action is overdone, it creates the feel of suction or drawing inward of the abdominals. In a backbend, this creates a jutting forward of the rib cage, which can put a lot of unnecessary force on the lower spinal muscles, creating an even more flexible meeting point between the twelfth thoracic vertebra and the first lumbar vertebra (the thoracolumbar junction). More importantly, it keeps us from actually achieving a backbend while creating more of a hinged posture. Too much lifting and engaging of the pelvic floor can also cause stasis of the blood and the lymphatic vessels because they are being compressed.
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- Cobra is a wonderful preparation for camel pose, because it gives you a palpable sense of the three-dimensional balance in the pelvis. In camel pose, the stakes are a little higher because you are working with gravity.
- “Imagine the pubic bones rolling upward toward your navel at the same time as the tip of your tailbone is sliding down and back toward the wall behind you.” A great metaphor for this cue is to imagine the tip of the tailbone as a laser shining back between your feet at the same time as the hip points are lights pointed toward where the wall meets the ceiling in front of you. As with all asanas, the magic ingredient is in the dynamic alignment of this posture: the strategy the body uses to deal with the forces of getting into the pose (figure 54). Trying to feel these actions once you're already in camel pose won't have the same effect as if you focus on them as you're entering into the pose.
- Camel pose also offers a light and lifted feeling in the ribs. Imagine them fanning open in the front of your body. Imagine the sternum to be stretchy like a rubber band.
- The iliopsoas is our most important hip flexor. In camel pose, it aids stability as well as supporting the spine. This is a subtle image, however, because the superficial and the deep parts of the psoas major are not performing in the same way. Sense the deeper layers of the psoas shortening while the anterior layers of the psoas are lengthening (figure 55). This mimics the general pulley feel of the muscles in the back shortening and the muscles in the front lengthening.
Figure 54 Ustrasana (camel pose) with movement of the pelvis, the spine, and the ribs.
Figure 55 Ustrasana (camel pose) with the anterior psoas major lengthening and the posterior psoas major shortening.
Pelvic Anatomy and Function - Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Bone Rhythms
The counterrotation of the bones continues all down the leg and through the foot. In the Franklin Method we call the natural and safe way bones move the bone rhythms (figure 23).
Figure 23 Chair pose: (a) lateral view, with bone rhythms and (b) the pelvic floor muscles stretching in response to the bone rhythms.
What's the purpose of this movement, and why is this purpose not readily apparent? When you bend and stretch your legs, you may tend to see that your knees move forward and your pelvis moves down; you might miss the counterrotations that are happening at the same time.
There are two fundamental reasons why the bone rhythms are important. Compared to quadrupeds who move around with their knees flexed, humans walk with fairly straight knees. In humans, the pelvis coasts over the stance leg as if it were a beam. This reaction in the pelvis is reminiscent of pole vaulting, or of a gondola in Venice being propelled by a long oar. Bone rhythms allow the leg to switch back and forth efficiently from being a rigid strut to a more flexible absorptive configuration. This saves a lot of energy.
If your knees were bent and the heels lifted, as in a dog, you would need to engage your quadriceps and hamstrings a lot more than you do. The advantage of being a quadruped is that it has four cylinders (legs) to power its movement. On the other hand, humans have much more endurance, which has great evolutionary advantages. Animals do not run marathons.
Another advantage of counterrotation is force absorption and force generation. Efficient movement means a high energy-to-output ratio. The human musculoskeletal system engages all three dimensions to improve efficiency. When you bend your knees as you land from a jump, your leg bones aren't just moving forward; they're also counterrotating to improve force absorption in all dimensions (figure 24). Imagine yourself on skis speeding down a slope; if you suddenly needed to stop, you would improve force absorption by swinging your skis into a curve. Nevertheless your knees would appear to stay aligned over the second toe because the tibial plateau is moving in exact opposition to the femur condyles.
Figure 24 Posterior view of chair pose with bone rhythms.
The traditional approach to teaching alignment is to focus on bony landmarks and their relationship to each other. Once the landmarks, such as the knees, are in the right position, over the second toe, we are aligned. While this idea is helpful, it does not reflect the nature of human movement, because these landmarks move relative to each other as you bend and stretch your legs. The knee oscillates over the second toe. The more you bend your knee, the farther the knee is aligned medially to the second toe; when you stretch your knee, the alignment moves more laterally.
Alignment and force absorption are compatible, as long as you're practicing the concept of moving stability. The line of gravity through the leg remains stable even as bony landmarks are shifting. Trying to maintain the configuration of bony points in a fixed position can actually block movement rather than enhance it.
The challenge of moving toward dynamic alignment is often psychological. If you've been taught the static, positional model of alignment, it might be challenging at first to grasp the concept of moving stability.
But it can't be denied that the use of three-dimensional force absorption and production best supports the dynamic nature of human alignment, creating optimal efficiency in movement. Once you embody this theory, you will observe rapid progress in your yoga practice.
In fine-tuned motor control, sacral nutation and pelvic movement initiate simultaneously, while the innominate bone moves relatively in opposition to both these bones. This is the key to a free hip joint and dynamic pelvic movement.
In hip extension the opposite motions take place: the sacrum counternutates, the femurs rotate internally, and the innominate bone nutates relative to the sacrum.
Tadasana: Mountain Pose
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection.
One age-old image of mountain pose is as a posture of stillness. That stillness often equates with strength and connection. It is the aim of yoga, after all, to cultivate stillness. But is stillness merely the absence of motion or is it a constant, subtle balancing act?
Mountains are crawling with life: the slow and imperceptible growing of trees and greenery, the current and flow of rivers and streams, the movement of animals, birds, and insects.
Let your mountain move. Acknowledge the movement of all of this life and the beautiful wisdom of the body to allow you to sway. In the Franklin Method we call it postural sway; it's one way to keep your body from getting tired when you have to stand for a long period of time, by distributing and redistributing forces and weight to different muscles and areas of the body.
Imagine that your mountain pose is strong and stable because of its ability to adapt. Allowing for three-dimensional, relaxed breathing, this is a sort of home base to return to again and again. Experience this healthy posture as a movement rather than as a set of bony points that need to remain in the exact same relationship. Imagine your strength as being free and ready to move in any direction. Find stillness inside movement.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- “Lengthen your tail” or “tuck your tail” seems like a quick fix for an overarched low back or an anteriorly rotated pelvis, but it can easily create another issue of a tucked-under position, which is already a challenge with our human standing posture. This common cue can create tension in the pelvic floor and the abdominals, which prevents good breathing. Tucking your tail also creates tight hips because it counternutates the sacrum. Furthermore, if this posture is the starting point for other standing postures, those patterns of tension will translate to other poses as well (like a forward-thrust pelvis in virabhadrasana I, for example).
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- In the Franklin Method we say “get on your femur heads.” What this means is visualizing your femur heads and sensing your weight poised over them. Feel the weight as equal on both femur heads, and not in front or in back of them.
- The purpose of human dynamic posture is to be able to get into motion with ease. Hip flexion should be available to us at any time. In tadasana you should be able to move right into utkatasana pose without having to unlock your hips or your knees. A dynamic version of tadasana forms the baseline for any further movement and is a functional rehearsal for great posture in daily life.
- Rock your body weight forward and back and side to side until you find a natural place of center to rest your weight. Do the same exploration with your pelvis, shifting forward and back and side to side to find the place where you experience being centered.
- Bend the knees slightly to feel the deepening of the hips and imagine the femur heads like buoys that are lifting the pelvis (figure 33).
- Instead of lifting the kneecaps, as is so often taught, keep the knees soft to create a dynamic buoyancy.
- Sense the general flow of energy up the front and down the back (figure 34). Apply this to the pelvis specifically and to the entire body.
Figure 33 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) with the pelvis imagined as supported by buoys and (b) with the legs imagined as strong geysers supporting the hip joint and the pelvis from below.
Figure 34 Tadasana (mountain pose): (a) feeling the centeredness and balance of the legs and the spine and (b) feeling energy flow, as in a figure eight, up the front and down the back of the spine.
Ustrasana: Camel Pose
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
In this precious backward bend, there is a balance between the muscles of the back creating spinal extension and the muscles of the front like the quadriceps and the abdominals (the rectus abdominis and the oblique abdominals) resisting and decelerating that extension.
Common cues associated with the pelvis and what might go wrong:
- The cue to “tuck your tail” is often preceded by the cue to “protect the lower back.” At this point, you understand the very important force absorption aspect of sacral nutation and can see that if the sacrum does the same thing that the pelvic halves do and the entire pelvis moves as one piece, there is no movement or sharing of force throughout the sacroiliac joints, which will create the feeling of tension in the lower back. The problem with tucking the tail is that the tailbone is connected to the sacrum, which is connected to the spine, so if you tuck your tail, you are preventing spinal extension (one of the great benefits of camel pose). The cue engages the pelvic floor, which reflexively engages the rectus abdominis, a spinal flexor. This creates an argument in your body between flexion and extension, which expresses itself in unnecessary tension.
- “Engage your core” or “lift your low belly” creates the same roadblock as the cue to “tuck the tail.” It prevents spinal extension and keeps the pelvic floor and the abdominals from serving their function in the pose, which is to contract eccentrically. As noted previously, this cue is not the path to a proper core engagement.
- The cue to “lift your pelvic floor” is tricky because if this action is overdone, it creates the feel of suction or drawing inward of the abdominals. In a backbend, this creates a jutting forward of the rib cage, which can put a lot of unnecessary force on the lower spinal muscles, creating an even more flexible meeting point between the twelfth thoracic vertebra and the first lumbar vertebra (the thoracolumbar junction). More importantly, it keeps us from actually achieving a backbend while creating more of a hinged posture. Too much lifting and engaging of the pelvic floor can also cause stasis of the blood and the lymphatic vessels because they are being compressed.
Possible images, cues, and ways in:
- Cobra is a wonderful preparation for camel pose, because it gives you a palpable sense of the three-dimensional balance in the pelvis. In camel pose, the stakes are a little higher because you are working with gravity.
- “Imagine the pubic bones rolling upward toward your navel at the same time as the tip of your tailbone is sliding down and back toward the wall behind you.” A great metaphor for this cue is to imagine the tip of the tailbone as a laser shining back between your feet at the same time as the hip points are lights pointed toward where the wall meets the ceiling in front of you. As with all asanas, the magic ingredient is in the dynamic alignment of this posture: the strategy the body uses to deal with the forces of getting into the pose (figure 54). Trying to feel these actions once you're already in camel pose won't have the same effect as if you focus on them as you're entering into the pose.
- Camel pose also offers a light and lifted feeling in the ribs. Imagine them fanning open in the front of your body. Imagine the sternum to be stretchy like a rubber band.
- The iliopsoas is our most important hip flexor. In camel pose, it aids stability as well as supporting the spine. This is a subtle image, however, because the superficial and the deep parts of the psoas major are not performing in the same way. Sense the deeper layers of the psoas shortening while the anterior layers of the psoas are lengthening (figure 55). This mimics the general pulley feel of the muscles in the back shortening and the muscles in the front lengthening.
Figure 54 Ustrasana (camel pose) with movement of the pelvis, the spine, and the ribs.
Figure 55 Ustrasana (camel pose) with the anterior psoas major lengthening and the posterior psoas major shortening.
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