Physical Structure and Shape Influence How Energy Flows
People are often surprised at how much time I spend on alignment in a course that is primarily about energy. They came to learn about the energy body and I ask them to focus on their feet and their ankles.
The reason is simple, shape determines flow. This is true in any system. It is easy to see it in a river, a machine, and an electrical circuit; and it's also true in animals and human beings. Refining our body alignment is not a warm-up for the energy work, it is part of the energy work. The structure of a system determines how energy flows through it. If we want to be able to ground, root, breathe properly, live without pain, integrate and embody the guidance we receive from creator, and effectively lead and redirect energy, we have to refine our structural alignment.
The Five Bows
One of the foundational structural principles is called the body bows. There are five of them: the two leg bows, the two arm bows, and the spine bow.
As the name suggests, the objective is to shape the body into a gentle curve, a bow rather than a straight rigid line, because that shape allows the most efficient flow of energy through the spine and the limbs. A straight column is not neutral. It is locked. A bow can flex and as it shifts, it transfers energy.
The back bow forms the structural connection between the arms and the legs. The legs are the foundation, the arms are the expression. The legs come first. If we want to release energy downward, it exits through the legs, ankles and feet into the earth. If our feet are disconnected, we lose our grounding, are unable to release into the earth and the energy backs up and stagnates. This then blocks us from effectively summoning energy up from the earth, the energy we need to take physical action in the world.
"The Entire Structure Is Given Its Foundation by How Our Feet Engage the Ground."
Standing on a Dome
Which brings us to the feet, where I probably spend more time than any student expects.
Your foot is not a flat plate. The calcaneus and the tarsal and metatarsal bones form a dome. When you center your weight in the ankle crease, just in front of the distal tibia, you are placing your weight at the apex of that dome and your entire structure is able to rest on the support. The architecture does the work, you don't have to compensate for an imbalanced foundation by tightening muscles higher up to prevent yourself from falling over.
When your weight sits at the apex, your feet distribute your structural weight evenly to the perimeter and transfer it into the ground. You can hold yourself up with considerably less effort. When your weight is off center, muscles above have to compensate by tensing to keep your structure in line. Imagine a building in the shape of a dome with a large antenna on top, you would place the antenna in the middle, not off center. If it was off center you would need ropes and pulleys or other supports to prevent it from falling over. Those ropes and pulleys are our muscles, and when we use them to hold ourselves erect, we create internal tension.
When we align our legs over our feet, all our compensation patterns begin to reveal themselves. At first we may sway forward or back, but eventually we find the balance, and once we find the balance we can relax, because we no longer need the muscles to hold us up - our bones and ligaments are doing the job they are supposed to do.
There are thirteen points on the foot. Try to stand with equal weight on each of them and your weight balanced at your ankle crease. It sounds trivially simple. Try it for two minutes and report back.
Why This Is Where I Start
Everything stacks. How the lower legs align on top of the feet determines how the knees sit, and the femurs above them and how the pelvis rides on the femurs, which determines what the sacrum and spine have to do and then how the head is balanced on top. Does it tilt forward or back? How do the shoulder blades float on the ribs and how do your arms hang by your side? If your system is beset with tension, the only way to direct and express energy is with sufficient force to overcome the tension that is constricting the system.
At the top of that stack is your connection from the crown to Creator. At the bottom of it are your roots into Mother Earth.
You cannot ground well through a foot that is not organized. You cannot run a clean central channel through a spine that is compensating. The energetic and the structural are intimately connected.
The Practical Version
Stand up. Feet parallel, hip width apart. Sink your weight. Let your shoulders and arms hang, balance your head on top of your spine. Feel all thirteen points of your feet, distribute the weight evenly and breathe. Long, slow, smooth, continuous breaths, in and out the same length with no holding. Try it and let me know how it goes.
That is one of the foundations of practice, it's not what most people expect but it is incredibly simple and incredibly powerful. One of my students told me "I have taken hundreds of yoga and meditation classes, I lead guided meditations, and I have never experienced anything as powerful as this." And that is just the start. If you would like to learn more, join Cultivating the Energy Body and start a practice that will serve you for your entire life if you give it 15 minutes a day.