INHIBIT FALSE JOINTS

Through the Alexander Technique, I learned the importance of an accurate body map. This is a way of saying; I know where my joints are and know how my body was built to move. Surprisingly, many people do not use their bodies as they are meant to function because they do not have an accurate body map. Over years of misuse, we lose a sense of our body mechanics and run the machine into the ground by stiffening where we are meant to bend, and bending at “false joints.”

For example, when I am not conscious about how I use my body, I do not let my head bend and swivel from the atlanto-occipital joint, the place at the very top of the spine on which my skull rests. Instead, I tighten at that joint and bend my neck from joints further down my back. My body was not built to bend chronically at this point, to replace the more efficiently used joint. An inaccurate body map results from an ongoing pattern of misuse. The result, if I do not re-program myself back to more efficient use of my body, will be a dowager's hump.

Another common false joint results from a confusion about bending from the waist. We are built to bend in the hip joints and the knees. When the hip joints stiffen, the lower vertebrae flex instead. These delicate joints of the spine are used to compensate for the big, sturdy joints of the hips. Chronic bending of the lower back instead of the hip joints is a false joint that will result in back pain. While practicing CobraBalance, we try to bring awareness to how we are using our bodies and inhibit the use of false joints.