Disclaimer: I apologize if this post seems sexist or genderist or.... My intent isn't to discriminate towards men, but to honestly report what I've been thinking about/researching and initiate a dialogue on that. Meridith and I have been saying how great it has been to explore and research handstand balancing with another woman. It's different than working with men. And here are my thoughts about why....
Here it is in its crudest form: Women need to arch slightly in order to find their centers of balance.
On Friday, I finally found my balance point. I think I was able to balance for about 20 seconds or so on my own. When I was balancing, the way I felt "aligned", required me to lift my head and arch my spine slightly, so that I felt as though I was "behind" my hands. My shoulders were over my hands, my elbows were behind my hands and my feet were over my fingertips.
I don't know how to explain it more clearly, but my point is that I think women need a slight arch. Meridith and I hypothesized that this may be to compensate for our lower centers of gravity. I think our "middle" is lower than the "middle" in men. Now, I didn't feel as though I was taking any of the arch into my lower back. I actually felt aligned when I did the handstand. I felt grounded and able to control my balance. Meridith said she peeked at me in the mirror and said I looked aligned. (Meridith, maybe you can speak more to that...).
So I'm going to keep researching and post any updates I find. If anyone else has any thoughts, please comment.
The lifting of the head seems spot-on to me. I always want to do that intuitively, but always resist. Also, when I do the one-foot-on-the-wall-one-foot-straight it seems to invite a slight arch. Curiouser and curiouser...
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in how you are defining "arch" in the back. There is indeed a secondary curve natural in the lumbar spine, if you have been trying to take that out of the handstand then "inviting an arch" may allow the arch that is meant to be there. The woman in Cockroach was compensating for shoulder strength with low back flexion- obviously that is one way to do it. My question is does she know she is doing it? Is it a choice? What does it cost her? Is it worth it?
ReplyDeleteSneakers, talk to us about low back arch as it relates to Tai Chi. I have always felt that martially Philip taught to drop the tail and in so doing removed some of the natural curve in the low back. How does Lumbar work in Tai Chi relate to what you are proposing?
JoeKr
I've been thinking about this all day. I think that, indeed, I have been trying to take out the natural arch in my spine. I just did the thing where I lay on my back with my arms above my head and find the lift/extension that becomes the handstand and there was quite an arch in my spine that hasn't regularly been there in my handstand.
ReplyDeleteI haven't quite come to a clear articulation of the relation between the lumbar in Tai Chi and what I'm proposing in handstands. In Tai Chi, as I understand it, you are to release the tailbone down such that you can "sit down" on your legs. For me, the sensation is that of creating space in my hip joints, so that I feel the connection of the top of my legs into my pelvis and allow my legs to move freely in my hip joints, releasing the knees, ankles etc. My lumbar curve is still there - it just feels longer, lengthened.
Now, if I think about this upside down - I'll try to explain this as clearly as I can without pointing to actual points in my body - if my hands are my feet, my arms are my legs, and my shoulder joints are my hip joints, then I would be aiming to find release in my armpits. I just tried this in downward dog - I lifted and walked my center closer to my hands, brought the weight over my hands, and dropped more weight into my hands by lifting my head slightly and allowing my sternum to become more weighted. I, essentially, "sat down" on my arms. But I maintained the lift. In fact, I tried lifting more and actually felt more "aligned" when I added more lift out of this new place. I hesitate to say this next thing because it sounds static and without movement, which isn't true, but the clearest way I can describe it right now is that I felt like I "locked" into place. I say "locked" because I felt secure in that place, like it was a place I was meant to be.
I just tried an actual handstand against the wall from this place. When I found that specific place with my head lifted slightly, my sternum dropped slightly, and in which I was "sitting down" on my arms, my legs almost lifted themselves away from the wall and I found my balance point for a few seconds without trying.
So the closest connection I can make right now of this work and Tai Chi is that it is possible to "sit down" on the arms in a handstand as you do on the legs in Tai Chi by allowing the sternum to drop in the handstand in the same way the tailbone drops in Tai Chi. And this "sitting down" aligns you such that you become one unit (or "locked" into place, as I described above) and be controlled/supported/balanced from the ground up.
Phew! Please keep the thoughts/questions coming!
P.S. I just got back from my first Push Hands lesson with Tim Randles. It was amazing...and hard. A great practice and a great complement to the Tai Chi form. The major new thing I experienced today was the freedom I could find to roll the joints in the upper torso and actually roll, twist and turn the entire torso (this includes back bending and forward bending!) by grounding in my feet and legs, and if I softened enough, I could make parts of myself "disappear" when he pushed on me. Of course, this happened only once, so I got pushed around a lot, but Tim's a big teddy bear, so we just laughed. And his son was dancing around us and pulling on Tim's legs, trying to help me win. Good times!