The human body possesses a natural gift for balance, harmony and fluidity of movement. Potency it and you will see how your relationship with your body changes!
We are a miracle in motion. Sometimes we look in distant countries, in times to come or past, the wonders that help us cope with everyday problems, but the miracle happens in the closest place, right now, in our body.
Forty-five liters of water, two hundred and eleven bones, a hundred organs, four hundred and fifty pairs of muscles, more than eight hundred kinds of tissues, approximately one hundred thousand genes, which cover, in adulthood, 4.5 square meters of skin, sixty billion cells in total, agree to produce the three million substances that exist in the universe of the body, to move and move us.
Allowing us to think, listen, feel, look, like, crawl, walk, run, talk, read, live or be who we are. Our body organizes itself admirably, it learns diligently to adapt to the most difficult adventures that life brings us. He has an innate intelligence that we can help.
BODY AWARENESS: THE ART OF BEING CONSCIOUS WITHOUT JUDGING
Feeling the body and its vital optimism, giving it support and taking care of it allows the cells to do their job efficiently, helps their intelligence and to see life from the most positive side. But how did we get to that goal?
When we are children, we realize if someone loves us or not, even if we do not know why: we are not aware of it.
As adults, we know that we are climbing a ladder instead of walking down a street, we notice the steps, even if we do not know how many rungs the ladder has; To know it and be aware of them we should count them.
Awareness is a form of awareness that looks, observes, contrasts, is surprised, non-judgmental and allows us to be aware while we are moving. Look within, but also see the changes in the environment.
According to Moshe Feldenkrais, it is the most positive way to reach the body, because by the mere fact of realizing we perceive obsolete body habits, which do not respond to our current needs, and we can adapt and adapt better to the changing environment.
With this type of awareness, bodily intelligence grows and offers us a fuller life.
QUESTIONS TO IMPROVE BODY SELF-PERCEPTION
We will begin by perceiving the body in everyday life. For example, when we are in line at the supermarket or waiting for the train, we can try to bring attention from the contact of the feet with the ground:
- How do the soles of the feet touch the ground? Do they lean more on the ankle or tip, on the inside or outside? Is the support different in each of them?
- Is the body weight equally distributed in both feet?
- Are your knees straight, tense, or slightly bent?
- Do we have the hip tilted to one side, forward or backward?
- Is the spine stretched? Does it tend forward or curve backward?
- Do we have relaxed or tense shoulders? Are they up towards the neck?
- What area of the body would we like to feel more relaxed?
- Where does the breath go: to the chest, belly, or back?
- Has our mood changed since we observed the body?
- Where do we look when we do this exercise? What happens if we change the position of the eyes?
If we specify and refine this perception, we will observe three fundamental principles of bodily intelligence:
- The body is an organism and, as such, organizes the mind, mood, feelings, sensations, thoughts and the relationship with the Earth: weight.
- It is always in the process of adaptation, to the environment, to new feelings, perceptions or to the flow of the mind.
- If we listen to the body it changes, and so does the relationship with it and with the environment, in an endless give and take.
We learned a language among the thousands spoken on the planet. The mouth and throat adapted to that first language, so it costs more to have a good accent with another.
The body shows its intelligence with a series of habits learned to adapt to the environment.
Let’s look at everyday movements:
- With what foot do we begin to climb the stairs?
- On which side do we chew food?
- Where do we look when we walk, to the ground, to the sky, ahead?
- Can we walk without difficulty for an hour?
- Do we know how to whistle? Jump rope?
- Do we like to read lying down or sitting?
- Do we know how to move our ears without touching them? What about the scalp?…
From there, we can make small changes, learn new moves and choose the ones that cost less effort.
Next, we let the nervous system send the perceptions to the brain and the brain orders them. Then we enjoyed the movement and didn’t think about it anymore.
We can’t always control the body and it’s better that way. Awareness has a limit.
It is preferable to dedicate some time to the body and another to enjoy it; Otherwise, we will end up being aware of our walk instead of walking. Let yourself be surprised by the intelligence of the body.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE GAZE
When we drive and someone alerts us to a landscape that is on our right side, without realizing it, we turn the steering wheel a little to that side. It is important to know what we want to do, how and the direction of the gaze to be able to do it.
The sight coordinates the movements of the body and in turn is linked to the movements of the neck muscles.
We can experience it with this exercise that allows us to expand the spectrum of movements: We turn the head to the right or left and the eyes in the opposite direction, then we turn it again but looking towards the same direction where we turn. We will move our heads more and better.
Realizing where we look channels and lengthens our movements.
THE RIGHT RELAXATION
Absolute relaxation, like absolute silence, does not exist.
If we relaxed the jaw completely, we would always go with our mouths open. The head, not being centered with the gravitational line, would hang forward if we did not have the proper tension in the neck. Nor could we breathe because we need the muscular tension of the rib cage and diaphragm.
Relaxing consists of applying the right tension for each thing, not more, and having the ability to put tension or decrease it when required.
The tension is minimized when we are lying down. The best way to regulate it is to feel the body, its contact with the ground and perceive how it is placed, from head to toe. Finally, listen to the breath and visualize it in the lungs, especially in the back, under the armpits and under the collarbones.
LEARNING FROM THE BODY
If we try to introduce changes in the body after observing ourselves, we will get multiple answers and solutions that allow us to choose those that adapt more fluidly and intelligently to the environment at that moment.
The changes must be small and their realization as slow as possible to be able to realize the number of elements involved in a movement.
Let’s pass the weight from one foot to the other, or to the tips and heels, or stand on tiptoe, or leave the body on one foot and notice how the rest of the body parts that are chained with the feet change until they reach the head. We modify them if necessary.
Let’s pay attention to the breath. Let’s involve the environment: if it is sunny or cloudy, if it is in the morning or at dusk, the smell of the air, the taste of the mouth.
We will discover that both the body and the thought, emotions and perception itself have been accommodated to a new situation.
Finally, let’s observe how the body organizes itself and shows us the way to make moving easier.
The easier the movement, the more graceful and light we will feel, the better the contact with the body, the signals it sends us and the increase in possibilities to tune into the environment.
HOW TO FREE YOURSELF FROM OUTDATED HABITS
The habits of movement established in the body are difficult to perceive on our own. If help is not sought, the most common thing is to persevere in the error.
Body or therapeutic techniques, which start from conscious gymnastics, unlock habits that otherwise persist in daily work and do not allow breathing to release the diaphragm.
Among the techniques developed in the West I want to highlight Reichian therapy, bioenergetics, Middendorf breathing therapy, the Feldenkrais method, the Alexander technique, eutony, bodymind centering and the cos-art method that comes from the Aberasturi method.
Movement alone helps body intelligence improve. Exercises that require strength activate the cardiovascular system or tone us. Running, jumping, playing tennis, or swimming help maintain and apply the flexibility, tone, and strength required at any given time.
But the most intelligent movement is the one that requires perception and concentration, first, and then imagination to provide the body with images that are located in the pelvis to begin with, and encourage us to enter another way of perceiving and perceiving ourselves.
They are meditation and meditative arts: yoga, chikung, tai chi, aikido… Through these millenary techniques we remember our union with light, with the present. When you enter the door of the now you enter an unknown place where, as the poet said, nothing is known but all science transcends.
TO KNOW MORE:
- Self-awareness by movement; Moshe Feldenkrais. Ed. Paidós
- Rolfing; Ida Rolf. Ed. Uranus
EXERCISES THAT STIMULATE BODY INTELLIGENCE
RELEASE THE DORSAL AREA
- Standing, grasp each shoulder with the opposite hand.
- Pulling down the shoulders, without separating the hands and accompanying them with the upper part of the trunk, initiates a movement in which the elbows point towards the feet and then follow the direction of the ceiling.
- When the elbows go down, look at the floor and when they go up, look at the ceiling. Rest.
UNLOCK NECK AND SHOULDER BLADES
- Stretch your right arm up in contact with your ear and the side of your head. Try rubbing like this, up and down, about ten times gently on the side of the head. To do this you must move the shoulder and shoulder blades.
- Relax your arm and compare how your right shoulder and shoulder blade have changed from your left.
- Switch sides.
BROADENING THE MOVEMENT
- Standing, without moving your feet, turn right and left to look behind you.
- Then perform the same movement but without turning the hip; He continues the backward turns without moving his chest, then without turning his head, and finally looks back with only his eyes.
- If you make the first turn again, you will notice that it is easier and that you turn more.
HARMONY WHEN WALKING
- Looking forward, take a step with your left foot, placing the weight of the body between the two feet.
- With your palms up or down, extend your right arm forward to shoulder height and bend your left until your hand is at chest height; Stretch it toward your right arm. Look to the left.
- Invert legs and arms.
- Continue step by step alternating arms until you gradually reach walking.
UNBLOCK YOUR BACK
- Lie on your back, with the soles of your feet on the floor and your knees bent.
- Drop your legs and hips to the right side and raise them again about ten times.
- For a minute observe the relationship of the back to the ground.
- Then drop your legs and hips to the right, but next to your head, another ten times.
- Return to the starting position and feel the change that has occurred in your back.
- Switch sides.
RELEASE THE RIB CAGE
- Start as in the previous exercise, but this time, dropping your legs and hips to the left about ten times.
- Feel the back and its relationship with the ground (does it lean better somewhere?).
- In the second phase do not let your head roll to the left, along with the hips and legs but to the opposite side: to the right.
- Finally, drop legs and hips to the left, the head rolls to the right and with the right hand try to get as close as possible to the heel of the right foot, about ten times.
- Perform the exercise on the other side.
MAKE THE SPINE MORE FLEXIBLE
- Stretch on the right side, with a cushion under your head. The thighs form a right angle to the body and calves. Arms outstretched, with the left palm on the right.
- Slide your left hand over your right five times, without bending your arm. Then slide it to the inside of the right elbow, and again exceed the palm.
- Prolongs the movement through the chest; Slide your hand to the inside of your left shoulder and return. The movement is fluid, slow and continuous.
- Rest on your back and feel the changes. Do it on the other side.
STRETCH ARM AND SHOULDER
- Lie on your back, with the soles of your feet on the floor and your knees bent.
- Drop your hip, leg, and head weight to the left side, and place your left hand and arm at or above shoulder height.
- When you drop your legs, hips and head to the right, let your left arm, stretched out, follow the movement.
- Then, as if someone were pulling on the fingers of your left hand, place your body on your back and return to the starting position.
- After doing it about ten times, rest, perceive the body from head to toe and repeat the exercise to the other side.
SIX KEYS TO WORKING ON THE DISCOVERY OF ONE’S OWN BODY FROM MOVEMENT
- The body is slightly asymmetrical, so the movements are and are perceived differently on each side.
- Accompany, observe and learn from the body, do not try to change it. It is important to know how it is and is, not how we would like it to be.
- Slowly start the movement; You’ll find out where it starts, what parts of the body are involved, and the changes that occur.
- Start with small movements. The larger, the more elements participate and the more difficult it is to distinguish them.
- Breathing is a movement, such as swallowing, blinking, producing saliva, secreting gastric juices, or thinking. The static is alien to the body.
- The easiest, most generous and intelligent movement is the one that requires the least effort.