Centering Down; Pelvis to Skull
One of the wonderful physical benefits of Yoga postures is that they offer yoga practitioner’s a dynamic balance of strength and mobility around the muscles and joints of the pelvis and hips. From a broader perspective, doing Yoga Asana cultivates a wholistic, mindful body that fosters a unified postural and spatial awareness. In addition, early on in the practice we learn that the pelvis is the foundation for the spine and that the saying, “You can't build a great building on a weak foundation” makes good sense. This focus of orienting from the pelvis up within the practice has the potential of helping to sustain and maintain a healthy postural alignment from pelvis to skull, which in turn facilitates a better spine to brain and nervous system functioning.
Sometimes in a yoga practice we will focus on a specific body part or area but usually in relation to the whole. We miss Yoga’s integrative power if without the wholistic intention of restoring an overall enhanced energy flow, as well as body and nervous system balance.
A problem with many postural correction instructions is that they address peripheral and symptomatic rather than foundational or deeper issues. For instance, Forward Head Posture postural advice for example from physio therapists, often focuses on the muscles that need strengthening or releasing in order to put the head over the spine; such as opening the front of the chest and strengthening the upper back. Although these issues may need addressing, the missing link is that structurally and functionally, what happens above is coordinating with what is happening below! In other words, if the alignment of the pelvis and it’s impact on the sequential curves or rotations of the spine is not addressed then any request or focus on the upper structures of the rib cage, shoulders and skull will be superficial until the base and whole of the inter-related structures are seen and addressed clearly.
Central to embodying a sense of balance and facilitating improved balance through the pelvis is to know and experience your Psoas muscles. These important and bilateral muscles are the deepest layer of the abdominal muscles. Their general geographic location from the inner top of the thigh bone, travelling up lengthwise through the front of the pelvic bones and along the front of the lumbar spine and have attachments all the way up to the respiratory diaphragm! The Psoas muscles are part of the Iliopsoas muscle complex but when I am teaching, I usually pull them into one Psoas group. Functionally, when the pelvis is in a posterior tilt the Psoas muscles lengthen and when in an anterior tilt forward they shorten. While walking, with every step we take we are either lengthening or shortening these muscles. In other words because of their deep, central and vertical location, they are like guy-wires stabilizing the pelvis through the body’s movements and through gravity’s forces.
Along with considering the Psoas muscles as the deepest layer of the abdominal muscles, aren’t they also the deepest hip flexor muscles? Due to their location the Psoas muscles have a significant influence on the relationship between the lower body and upper body and between the pelvis and the spine. Which of course has a ripple out affect into and through the entire body, mind continuum. Once we can locate our right psoas and our left psoas, we can inquire about how each feels and how they each my be unique.
There is much to be said about the different ways that the pelvis affects posture and a much more in-depth article could be written about this as well as how the pelvis alignment impacts the function of what is beneath it. The best way to really understand the affects of pelvic alignment and balance is by doing a regular yoga practice for a period of time and experiencing what the affects are. In a following blog I will give a sequence of specific yoga poses that help to promote and sustain both stability and freedom in and around the hips and pelvis.
Enjoy your yoga journey!
–Amy