Core support in action

Have you ever noticed that when folks are freaking out, they try to think themselves into calm? Our brain is the most excitable part of our body, so this strategy doesn’t work most of the time. Core support comes from our body, and from the ground.

Calming down is a bottom up kind of thing. Conditions for your poor brain need to be right. When your body perceives support your brain can chill out. So, stop trying to calm yourself down and let the floor do it for you.

For example, check out this recent video from Prentis Hemphill. It encourages folks who are protesting in the streets to use touch and breath for calming themselves. Once you are calm, you can help others when tensions get heightened and folks feel overwhelmed.

Hugging yourself, touching your heart…these simple practices quickly anchor your body in the present when there’s lots going on around you.

The only thing that makes you feel safer is actually getting down on the floor face down.

This week’s video guides you in how to do that safely without hurting your back, mobilizing your whole torso and strengthening your arms along the way. You learn to rotate more in your hip joints and less in your lumbar spine.

Once you land on the earth, take some time and attend to breathing and the sensation of your body contacting the ground.

Resting face down, with all your soft vulnerable parts protected and your strong bony back body facing upwards calms every cell in your body.

It also allows all your muscles, from head to toe, to release into their full length.

In developmental movement language we call this “prone”. The movement and intention toward the ground is called “primary.” Our S-curved spine has both primary and secondary curves that facilitate movement in both directions (down and in, or up and out), clearly illustrated here. We don’t ever want to flatten those curves out, we just want to lengthen them so they aren’t compressed and immobile.

Please note you are more than your nervous system. Whole body contact helps us to expand our sense of wholeness.

Yes, I’m fascinated with your nervous system and sense organs, and I teach about them often. That’s because the nervous system is such an easy pathway into the vast, complex biology of your movable body with all of its brilliant perfectly regulated cells.

Each cell in your body is always tuning towards homeostasis as best it can.

Give it the support it needs, and it will send the loveliest messages of calm to your nervous system and brain.

This is all unoriginal. It’s inspired by the Dart Procedures, which are a foundational part of my teaching. Initially, these practices helped me and my students with pain relief and rebuilding strength after injuries.

Later, I started to notice that they also helped me rebalance my nervous system, my emotional state, and other mysterious parts of my being.

They gave me a sense of my own wholeness, integrity, and strength.

That’s why I’m doing this series on core support. People are searching for it for a reason, and it’s way more than just “protecting your lower back.”

Core support enables you to receive support fully, and to rest. It also enables you to stand up for yourself, your wellbeing, and your principles.

This week is video #2 of that series, so to get the most go back and watch video #1, link below.

1) Activating core strength: Video HERE.

Learn to to activate core strength sitting, using flexion, extension, and rotational movement in a chair and then weight bearing on your arms.

2) Safely lowering yourself to the ground: This week’s video HERE.

Stay tuned for strengthening your back as well as your “front” and how to get up from the floor easily and safely in two different ways!