Tuesday, Feb. 28: Healthy Backs, 2

HOW TO HAVE A HEALTHY BACK, 2: The Middle of the Back
Sit on a chair. Sense your relation to gravity and to your breathing. Repeat the last essay’s suggestions: rock forward on the pelvis and push out the belly, rock back on the pelvis and pull in the belly.

Now do this from the point of view of the middle of you. As you rock back on the pelvis, think of the middle of your back and think of bringing it backward. As you rock forward, think of the middle of your front, say around the bottom of your breast bone, and bring that forward.

Think of bringing the middle of your torso easily backward and forward, very gently as the belly fills and contracts.

Experiment, as before, with two ways of breathing while you do this. In one mode, breathe in while the belly comes forward and breathe out when the belly comes back. In the other, breathe in when the back comes back, filling the back of the ribs and the chest with air, and breathe out as the belly and the breast bone come forward.

This might seem exactly the same as what was mentioned before, except it has a slight shift: putting your attention on the middle of your back coming back and putting attention on the bottom of your sternum coming forward. This middle of our self is usually lost and foreign to us, and if we get familiar with it, tomorrow we can begin to do something wonderful with this center that while continue to improve our backs.

Remember: going slow is against our habits, and paying attention is against our habit. If you want to stay the same, do some “exercises” in the calisthenics mode. If you want to learn and have a chance to change, try this: slow and with attention to yourself. Really: you are worth it.