Quick Spinal Release - Part Two

Quick Spinal Release Part Two
Breathing & Spinal Elongation

Practice Suggestions: Begin with Calling through the Horizon Practices. (See last week’s video post – Part One)

 To find Neutral Position in Standing please see standing practices in chapter 9 of Awakening Somatic Intelligence. (Amazon.com)

Instructions: Leave the mouth closed with the jaw relaxed. Imagine for a moment that you had a bellows extending from the floor of your pelvis to the base of your skull.

Exhalation: Now empty the bellows without tensing the muscles of your back, especially activating the pelvic diaphragm at the floor of the pelvis. Do not strain to push all the air out using pressure—just let the bellows empty as fully as possible without straining.

Inhalation: Then slowly relax and feel how the bellows fills up with air on its own- without straining to suck air in through your nostrils. Gradually relax the diaphragms and any muscular tension that you find to receive the breath more fully. Repeat several times- emptying the bellows and letting the breath come to you without effort.

Now place your hands over your kidneys at the base of your rib cage in back. As you exhale follow the movement of the bellows closing with your hands, empting out from your sides at the level of your kidneys. Again, when you come to be empty, relax and slowly let the breath come to you. Do this several times until you feel your lungs empty smoothly and gently from the base all the way to the top.

Now combine both the vertical and horizontal flows to feel yourself rhythmically emptying from all directions and filling out into all directions effortlessly. Allow the exhalation to be more active and the inhalation to be more passive.

How can you assess your practice?

Do you feel more freedom and aliveness?

e.g. is your breathing fuller or deeper?

Does more of your structure move with your breath?

Do you feel more relaxed and more alert at the same time?

Is your mind quieting down?

Quick Spinal Release: Standing

This is an extension of the spinal elongation that utilizes the flexing of the knees to amplify the omnidirectional wave going through the spine. We will anchor the wave through the arms as well.

Quick reference: take a moment to bend your knees slightly as you regularly would to have as a baseline for later comparison. As always, make sure you do not strain yourself. Do not overdo. (Bigger is not better!)

Notice: where does your weight fall in your foot? How much weight is in your knees? Does your body go down when you bend and up when you straighten your knees?

Instructions:

From a neutral standing position, imagine that you are being held up from a string attached to the top of your head that does not let your head go down as your knees bend. Your spine will elongate to make the extra space needed to bend the knees.

Exhaling—initiate the emptying from the pelvic floor (see instruction on restoring natural deep breathing.) As the sacrum anchors, slowly soften the knees so they bend naturally, but only slightly.

By anchoring, I mean, extending your presence beyond your structure as you sense gravity pull you toward the center of the earth. Sense the anchors as portals, opening you, to an immediately apprehendable felt/sense of your connection to both heaven and earth, and all that is.

Notice that your weight does not go into your knees- but transfers through them- and goes down through your heels. Inhaling- relax everything completely and sense the breath coming to you as your relax your diaphragms—let the bellows open on its own—as you rest with your knees slightly bent.

Exhaling

Now slowly extend (straighten) your knees while you sense the force of gravity anchoring you. Even though these instructions are given sequentially ultimately you will practice them all at once. Initially, you can try one quick spinal release (through a sequence of two exhalations and two inhalations which constitutes one knee bend as you are both bending and extending the knee on one exhalation each.) Focus on each of the anchors to ground them.

1.     Anchoring of your sacrum—amplifying the wave up the spine. The anchoring of the sacrum will pull the lower couple of lumbar vertebrae downward, while the upper two lumbar vertebrae will ride the wave releasing the spine upwards. Thus, the center of the omnidirectional wave occurs around the waistline. Anchor the base of your skull (occiput and jaw)—amplifying the wave up through the head. Rather than the head bobbing like one ball over the spine, finding the subtle anchor of the skull, engenders movement throughout the cranium. Thus the 22 bones of the face and skull can gently open like the petals of a lotus flower.

2.     Anchor through your heels—amplifying the wave through the legs and the base of the spine. This enables us as bipeds to enjoy a connection to the ground through our spine, similar to quadrupeds. All 28 bones of the foot elongate and root into the ground like a tree. The heel sends a large taproot, while the other bones grow a finer lace of roots, deeper and deeper into the earth.

Inhaling—relax everything completely and sense the breath coming to you as you relax your diaphragms—let the bellows open on their own.

Now sense the omnidirectional wave through the spine as a whole, while you repeat the quick spinal release. While the primary wave moves vertically, from the waist down and from the waist up, you can sense the convergence of these waves moving omnidirectionally through all parts.

How Can You Assess Your Practice?

At this point, you may feel your spine elongating in both the bending and extending of your knees.

Do you feel more freedom and aliveness? Generally when our knees are bent our lower back relaxes and extends. With this practice, we learn how to elongate our spine, so that even in an extended knee position—the lower back remains open.

Note: This is essentially the same as the Quick Spinal Release from supine position that appeared in the bedtime practices. The difference is the change in your relationship to the gravitation field from lying to standing.

The practice vivifies the reciprocal relationship between your knees and your lower back. If your lower back remains open- the knees cannot lock no matter how much you extend them. Conversely, if you compress your lower back, your knees will lock or bare weight. This is why anchoring down from your sacrum is so important. It holds your lower back open.

This series' was excerpted from the book, Awakening Somatic Intelligence by Dr. Risa Kaparo. (North Atlantic Books, 2012).

Videos were filmed by Richard Quinn  http://richardquinn.com/