An evolving gallery of photos and thoughts related to healing, our bodies, and our lives—
On the left is a structure that involves some rods attached merely by string. Intuitively, it seems like the structure should fall apart, but the forces on the strings keep it in perfect dynamic tension. Many people have proposed that the body works like this.
Below that is a model of a spine someone made where, instead of the “vertebra” applying compressive force one on top of the other, they exist in a similar dynamic tension without even touching.
Often, when people are dealing with back pain, what they are looking for is a sense of safety in the spine—somewhere to plop all this exhausting weight. But the body doesn’t have a secret safe spot to plop the weight. It is alive, in constant change. We have to discover this, in our own bodies. That invitation is the true direction of body work.
Yu Yong Nian, a great teacher of Zhan Zhuang—the art of internal energy cultivation through static postures.
When I look at this picture I can’t help but smile. Rolfing talks about the ‘Line’, which expresses through the body in an organized structure and creates an effortless alignment. You can see it so clearly in Yu.
He is aging, but he is not diminishing. How rare is it to see graying, wrinkling men, whose life still shines clearly from their body? It’s not that he’s so strong that he can carry this posture at this age—he knows how to exist in his body without effort. He’s in touch with that which doesn’t diminish. How beautiful.
Hip pain can come from so many places—see how the obturator nerve (which feeds the adductor muscle compartment) has two small branches that go directly to the head of the femur (thigh bone). When this nerve gets restricted as it passes through the pelvis, it can often result in hip pain. Be careful with trying to stretch out the hip in these cases, as you might end up irritating the nerve more!
“One of my greatest teachers was an old man I met on the river one day. I was way up country fishing and there was this incredible storm. He got in his car and headed back to town to his home. I didn't have anywhere else to go, so I asked him if I could come in his house. The storm came and his house trailer was rocking on its foundation. The electric wires were down in the road, and there were sparks all over the place. There were ambulances and cars coming from everywhere.
I sat there with this old man at the table, and he never moved. We just sat there. Inside this trailer was a hovering stillness. It was incredible. We were just sitting in this trailer with all this chaos going on. After 20 minutes, everything calmed down. He looked at me and said, "I never could understand why people would rush around to make an emergency out of life." Then he just sat there. Twenty minutes later, he got up and started cooking a meal.”
James Jealous, D.O. and teacher of Cranial Osteopathy