Body Mind & Spine Alignment

High Heel Healing

This is a recap of the                                             High Heel Recovery Clinic recently offered at Backbone and Wingspan

which incorporated stability ball exercises, and balance point movements.

Bodily wisdom of the sacrum being the keystone to spinal support  and enlightening information about the intricacies of the sole of the foot were also given.

 

Are you struggling in the midst of an abusive relationship with your strappy stilettos?

The High Heel Recovery Clinic is not about abstinence!

We want to give you the tools to keep looking fabulous..... just without all the pain! 

When I posted a notice on the Backbone and Wingspan Facebook page

about the studio's first High Heel Recovery Clinic in April, one woman responded,

"They're not trying to get us to stop wearing them, are they?"

I answered, "Absolutely not!"

Our intent is to give you imagery, exercises, and movement experiences that you can recreate while you are walking or standing in your shoes that better support your body so that your weight doesn't all fall forward into the ball of your foot, but can balanced across the entire foot surface.

 

I started out the clinic by having people look at the soles of their own feet (some sole searching) to identify the three parts of the foot which are the ball, the arch, and the heel.

I related that the heel is three-dimensional - that feeling and imagining your heel as a sphere - like the ball pictured here - has the potential to grant you a much more spring-like support and shock absorption than imagining your heel as flat.

Another teacher then took the floor (so to speak), - taking the floor -literally- is part of what can come across to anyone who experiences pain in terms of walking or standing; to "take the floor" is imagining not feeling separate from the surface upon which you are standing, but letting the floor, whether it be the kitchen floor or the dance floor - come up to meet those searching soles seemingly separated from the earth underneath by your fabulous, but sometimes treacherous high heels -

We imparted some wisdom concerning a key part of the spine - the sacrum.

The sacrum is the keystone of the spine

(which if you think of your body as needing the kind of support that an architectural structure would need)

the weight of the spine and ribs and head, rather than having to be hiked up, can be instead suspended on the sacrum in a similar way in which the keystone arch of a building could be imagined as the legs coming up into the pelvis and at the center of the pelvic support is the weight-bearing, but able-to-shift sacrum.

We identified the location of the sacrum by showing on one of the teacher's bodies, (who teaches a form of Pilates at Backbone and Wingspan which has a lot of back-strengthening elements) that the two dimpled areas at the top of the pelvis (one person I worked with recently said, "Oh yeah, I've seen those on my boyfriend's back - those dimples are so cute...") that in between those two dimpled areas is the sacrum, that keystone to spinal support.

I include above three images of the sacrum to show its size, its relationship to the tailbone, and its location as being between the two pelvic bones. I show the plaster cast of the sacrum that we have in the studio next to the black release balls to illustrate that the sacrum is not flat.

 

 

 

Participants were then taught the

High Heel Workout

 

 

 

 

in which exercises were performed on a stability ball, (first with the body laying down and eventually coming to kneeling).

Hamstring-strengthening, low-back-releasing, and spinal-stretching movements bring the body to a state of empowered ease.

 

Teachers related more imagery to the high heelers (which included feeling the ribs like fish gills) moving the clinic attendees to experience the breath as being integral to the support of the body, and how when the ribs expand with the breath that it gives the body access to the deep wrap of the abdominals.

                               

Backbone and Wingspan teachers

then got the attendees back into their high heels, taking their experience to the next level with techniques which allowed them to feel their weight differently in their shoes and to put into practical use the subtle strengthening they received in the stability ball work.

 

We brought home to the high heelers the experience of what was promised in our press release and promotional flyers:

showing you innovative ways to strike that challenging balance between a comfortable shoe experience and a fabulous fashion expression.

 

 

 

  If you are interested in future

High Heel Recovery Clinics

please call 212-647-8878.

For a PDF version of the

Heel-to-Hamstring /

Suspension Bridge /

Stability Ball Exercise,

email Tim:  

  tim@backboneandwingspan.com

Also visit my website:

www.backboneandwingspan.com

and sign up for free informative guides

to better body understanding including:

High Heel Healing: Tips for Footwear Comfort

 

Tim Driscoll

Backbone and Wingspan®

Founder and owner

and author of Pilates Iconoclast

 

is located on the Upper East Side at

Mind Your Body Pilates

1370 Lexington Avenue @ 90th Street

 

and at Studio Contour in Bedford Hills

 

Tim can be reached at

212-647-8878

 

Call him today for info or to find our about

his special intro rates for new clients!

 

 

 

 

 

Read Some Great Press and

 

 

 

 

See the Website: Backbone and Wingspan  

and sign up for free guides including

High Heel Healing: Tips for Fashion Footwear Comfort

 

Backbone and Wingspan LLC

 

Email: tim@backboneandwingspan.com

The Advent of Spring : Spring Loading the Sacrum

 



Whether you are like this woman who has a stash of spring sling-backs hidden
under her bed...........





 








Or if the weather has simply inspired you to want to get out and move more,
experiencing Universal Principles of Movement through the spring support
(not resistance) of the Pilates reformer, can engage the sense of suspension, and the shock-absorber-like resilience of your own body's spring-like mechanisms.






The Achilles tendons can be
imagined as little spring-loaded  mechanisms
     
to take the spring feeling that you can connect to through


the footwork on the
                         Pilates reformer

and transfer that sensation
of spring to the sacrum.


If you like, review the video of the previous Pilates Iconoclast weblog post entitled
"The Spring in Your Step Could Be The Achilles." The video at the end of this post will build on that utilization of the springs on the Pilates reformer to create that feeling of buoyancy and spring through the sacrum and beyond.





Just like the little        springs inside
battery-powered
things like this
remote control,



 
the battery must load on to the spring in order for the other end to connect to its receptacle in order to receive the charge.








For anyone needing to know exactly what a sacrum is,
here is one for you to peruse...... actually,
this is a plaster cast
of a sacrum, aligned
with my actual
sacroiliac joints.

Most people are well aware of the
dimpled areas that reflect the sacroiliac joints,
but have little knowledge or functional awareness
of the massive stability that the sacrum
in between those joints encompasses.

Also note the tiny tail bone at the end of the sacrum here.
If you like, review the "Footing" Pilates Iconoclast weblog post
for the connection between the tailbone and the heels.


It is more apparent
on a physical level
that if the Achilles
are crunched, and not
uncoiling in a way as
to assist the lengthening
of the sacrum,
  the sacrum will be
crunched as well.

       

                                       Many people, when arching                                        the spine, don't ground down
                                       through the feet, and thus
                                       crunch both the Achilles and
                                       smash the sacrum up into
                                       the lower spine.
 
In my Pilates studio,

we use sandbags on

the feet to give a

feeling of groundedness

And hands or fists laid on the feet can also assist in uncoiling the Achilles






Extension (what most people know as arching) of the spine is crucial to postural support, and general health of the spine. Proper, functionally supportive extension of the spine must involve the feet.

Although the following video accompanying this Pilates Iconoclast post involves the Pilates reformer, I am including it here to give an inkling of how the springiness of the Achilles enabled partly through the springs connected to the Pilates apparatus moves from the feet to the sacrum to the lumbar spine and on into the ribs.

Spring is here! 

 

 

The foot work on the Pilates reformer isn't merely for the feet - or even just for the feet and legs. When Backbone and Wingspan Universal Principles of Movement are applied to the Pilates exercises, and the client is given instruction with keen imagery and guided with sensitive hands-on, the springs (which are usually thought of and utilized as resistance) on the Pilates reformer become resilience tools to convey to the muscular and skeletal and joint system the body's own capacity for resilience.

 

(more)

Tim Driscoll, Backbone and Wingspan®

Backbone and Wingspan founder and owner

and author of Pilates Iconoclast

is located on the Upper East Side at

Mind Your Body Pilates

1370 Lexington Avenue @ 90th Street

and at Studio Contour in Bedford Hills

 

 

Tim can be reached at

212-647-8878

Call him today for info or to find our about

his special intro rates for new clients!

 

 

Read Some Great Press and

 

 

 

 

See the Website: Backbone and Wingspan

Backbone and Wingspan LLC

 

Email: tim@backboneandwingspan.com

The Spring in Your Step Could Be The Achilles

In teaching movement through the use of Pilates equipment, springs attached to the underside of the reformer can be perceived and utilized, not as resistance, as is widely asserted:

People using the Pilates reformers are usually told to push the carriage out away from the springs, then to resist the springs with the movement of the carriage on the way in.

Instead, the springs can be utilized as sensory support and information - the feeling of the body being connected to a carriage connected to an uncoiling spring has the potential to tap a person into his or her own inherent buoyancy or springiness.

This is particularly relevant when teaching someone how to use the heel on the Pilates reformer foot bar to access the springiness of the Achilles tendon. The heel must be drawn down away from the ankle, not hiked up into the Achilles and then shoved down and under the bar, but drawn down with gravity away from the ankle so that whether the person is lowering or raising the heel, the Achilles can remain in a state of constant uncoiling. 

This action of drawing the heel away from the ankle is especially relevant in working with women who wear high heels to teach them that the heel of the stiletto shoe doesn't have to shove their own physical heel up into the Achilles, jamming the tendon and tightening the calf.

 

As is evident in the following accompanying video to this Pilates Iconoclast blog post,      the teacher assists the student in levering her heel down towards the floor whether the heel is lowering or raising.

In the next Pilates Iconoclast weblog post, more on the Achilles:     using these tendons as spring loading mechanisms to transfer that springy feeling all the way up into your sacrum !

The Pilates reformer is ingeniously designed and the foot bar is particularly useful to release tight calf muscles and to incorporate the sensation of springiness in the Achilles tendons. It is important that the heels be drawn down towards the floor during both the lowering and raising of the heels to teach the calves and the Achilles that when the feet are involved in a walking stride, particularly in high heels, that the calves can connect down into the Achilles tendons and extend a gentle and sustainable springy feeling to the step.

You can notice that the instructor here doesn't pull the heels of the client forward and up for the release - he helps her to lever the heel down towards the floor away from the ankle to create space in the ankle joint, and then she can continue to lever the heel away from the ankle even when she raises the heel, so that when she takes that experience out on to the street, her body can recall the sensory experience of space, release, and spring, and the calves will have less of a tendency to tighten up again.

Space in the ankle joint means a spring to your step!(more)