The Liberated Core
Over the years, while studying biomechanics, kinesiology, developmental movement, dance, yoga, pilates, and a plethora of fitness programs, I've noticed that in both language and action the body is approached in much the same way any commodity is.
That is to say, differentiated and isolated into individual units -- separate from and without effect on one another.
A commodity is a good or service that can be traded or acquired. With respect to the body - it’s the pathologies of individual body parts that are traded in for health … or at least less pain.
Do any of these phrases sound familiar?
I've got a bad ________(body part)
I have problems with my _________ (body part)
I need to fix my posture/alignment/technique/etc
How many times have you associated parts of yourself with a negative story? How often do you feel the urge to fix the so-called problems you see or feel?
You might read this and think: "I love my body. I don't commodify it!"
And I would applaud you. But you would certainly not be of the majority. For the many many of us who have grown up with the mechanistic language around fixing, shaping, controlling the body, it's challenging to detach from this way of thinking.
In order to dissect those commodity stories we hold about ourselves, we need to acknowledge them.
Take a moment to reflect ~
Reflection: Body Stories
Write down any 3 specific body parts. The more specific, the better (like, your left earlobe, your belly button, your right middle toe)
Take a deep breath and invite your feelings about each part to rise.
Then, write down any stories, sensations, feelings, memories, associations for each of those body parts.
Hold onto your answers for now. They will reveal more for you in the second reflection meditation at the end of this article.
From gym class to fitness centers, even in yoga and pilates classes, we are so often taught about the parts of our bodies and how to move them independent of one another. We call this mobility. We're taught that creating muscle tone that clenches the skeleton is stability. These reductionist views create a vision of the moving body that is overly simplistic and inherently flawed.
I call this the Body Domination Story.
If you dig into this story, it begins with the assumption of your body as out of alignment, disconnected, and weak. It tells the tale of your inability to make positive changes without the help of an expert. When you do have those experts secured, then you have to push and suffer and deny yourself in order to get that perfected form. To have the form you want, you have to dominate the body with your willpower.
The domination of our bodies is inherently never satisfied. So we fight our bodies until we're burned out, collapsing into apathy and atrophy, before we're roused by more talk of the perfect body. Then, we get back on the wagon and start the whole process again.
What I am acknowledging is the rampant dismemberment of the body for the sake of a belief in the body as a machine -- a commodity to be improved upon by outside forces.
I’ve discovered in years of somatic-based applications that this story is not the way to shedding the pain, the pounds or in finding self-love.
Fixing is not a language the body understands. Rather, as a bio-intelligent organism that is always working toward equilibrium, a union of elements that navigates its environments to establish the best state of being it can with the nourishment provided, the body speaks through movement and heals through conscious attention.
Liz Koch calls this the bio-intelligent perspective:
“It is not individual parts but a unified matrix of life that provides an in-depth understanding of being human. Organisms are not perceived as isolated or compartmentalized segments; rather, they are studied as living, complex, and interconnected systems in flux.” (Koch, Stalking Wild Psoas, North Atlantic Books, 2019)
I call this reframe the Body Liberation Story.
Reclaim Your Self
The Body Liberation Story holds that the body is the outward expression of both the ways we relate to ourselves (ie, reflection, embodiment, awareness), and the ways we relate to the world (ie, what we consume, how we sleep/work/play/create).
The Body Liberation Story centers the body as the wisdom holder and you as the expert.
Your instructor or practitioner, then, is merely your guide -- a witness who can hold space in support of you becoming reacquainted with your wholeness.
In my time as a Pilates instructor, I've had many folks come to me with an interest in strengthening their cores. I became adept at interpreting the Body domination Story woven in between their words.
So I started asking myself and them:
why do you want to strengthen your core?
what and where do you think your core is?
what does it mean to be core-strong?
what does it mean to be whole-body-strong?
What’s the difference between strength and integration?
I found the Body Domination Story present within my own and my clients' answers. It guided our assumptions of how and what core work is. Some common ideas of core strength included a gripped abdomen; a locked-down booty; squeezing hips; no breath.
This gave me clarity around the ways so many of us understand strength. Strength (stability) and flexibility (mobility) seem to be at two ends of a binary spectrum in our Body Domination Story.
Through my inquiry, I came to recognize that the secret to understanding core power is not in dominating the core, but in liberating it.
When you liberate your core, you listen to what it has to say and how it wants to participate.
When you liberate your core, you come to engage with the mystery residing there. More than just muscles and bones, your core is a network of intelligence woven from the deepest parts of you to the farthest reaches of your form.
When you liberate your core, you follow its intelligence toward easeful and organic movement that doesn’t strain, pain, or injure.
When you liberate your core, you free up deep-seeded movement patterns that lock you down or suppress your full range of motion.
Strong Holds
Strength is so often coveted in our Body Domination Story. So let’s break down the concept of strength - the stories it holds.
Strength, in our culture, has to do with force and effort (more on this next month), muscular prowess, tension and firmness. It refers to high-toned musculature.
High tone, in our culture, is valued over low tone. But with all the excitement over high tone, our musculature becomes overworked and under-nourished.
When our muscles dominate the rest of the moving body, we lose range of motion because our muscles are tightly bound to our joints. Our energy goes toward holding and clenching, and often stirs up the fight or flight responses of the nervous system.
In a liberated body, however, strength arises when muscles, bones, organs and connective tissues are all free to explore their full range of motion, the spaces they were designed to inhabit.
A liberated body brings a new kind of strength that offers
Less pain -- chronic and psychosomatic
More range of motion throughout the body
Sustainable power that regenerates rather than dissipates strength
A rebalance of the nervous system for emotional well being
A felt sense of safety in the body that will boost the immune system
A sense of fluidity and ease in your movement, your perspectives, and your relationships
Unconditional self-love and compassion for others
A Test of Resilience
In my practice, I often use the word resilience to describe the quality or state I want my clients to achieve in their movement and in their lives.
When you’re resilient, you are responsive. You are present to the needs of the moment, and you balance those with your own needs or boundaries.
When you're resilient, you have greater capacity to withstand adversity, be it a long line at the grocery store, a challenging workout, a family emergency, chronic pain or illness.
My beloved mentor, Rachelle Garcia Seliga, defines resilience as “looking at reality as it is, and seeing how we can adapt in order to thrive.”
Unlike a muscle-dominated movement practice, I ask my clients to find the balanced layers of their bodies, to meet them where they are in the moment. To be curious, inquisitive, about what the body wants to share.
photo by Frances Denny @francesfdenny
I draw my students’ attention to the high and low tones of their movement range, so that - just like the cycles of the seasons or the flow of the ocean tides - the body is able to contract in and expand outward, to move into high intensity and resolve into low intensity, and back again.
These cycles create resilience — a kind of strength that is defined not only by power, control, force, but also by ease, pleasure and nourishment — and all of it in relationship to the moment, to your reality.
It is both/and: soft and firm; round and linear; strong and easeful; autonomous yet integrated.
At any given moment, our bodies are all of these things. It's just a matter of reading the story your body is telling.
Your core is only as strong as it is resilient.
Core strength applied to a liberated body is the ability to travel to your fullest potential in all directions and back again. To know your core truths even when expanding into unknown territory.
So if your core is strong, bravo. But is it resilient, responsive, lithe and awake?
photo by Frederik Trovatten.com @trovatten
Does it flow in and out with your breath? Can you sense the way your movement begins and ends deep within you?
Wanna know how to liberate your core? Begin with this brief meditation.
BEFORE YOU START: Remember the Body Stories reflection from above? Have that handy as you dive into this.
Meditation: Reveal Your Core Truths
After you’ve tried this meditation, let me know in the comments how it goes for you.
What was revealed?
What was liberated?
What can this community support you with?
Are you ready to liberate your body?
My FREE Master Class - shares the basic anatomy of the deep core and how to liberate from stagnancy!
