The Spine

The spine is the master control. Without the spine, the vessel doesn’t work.

Rather than summarise anatomy and reinforce the importance of the spine, this guide contains practical ideas on how to introduce spinal work into your practice.

Segmentation of the Spine

When you think of the movements of the trunk - what can you do?

  • Flexion / Extension - forward bend down, arch up and back.

  • Lateral Flexion - side bend to the left and right

  • Rotation - twist around to the left and right

When you perform these movements your spine is moving.

The spine is made up of a series of joints which are stacked up, one on top of each other, in a column. Sometimes, we may find it hard to move certain sections of the spine, in each type of the above movements.

Segmentation of the spine means drawing attention to each of the sections of the spine, and learning how to control to move them.

Tension is our messenger

The way we can communicate with our body, is via tension - muscular contraction. This provides a higher definition image of what’s happening to your body in space. You can try this with your hand. Close your eyes and relax your hand. Now tense your hand as hard as possible. Observe the mapping of your hand - relaxed versus tensed. When we put input into our hand, our image of what’s happening there becomes clearer. We can do the same with our spine.

We start with segmentation of the spine as it draws the map for our practice.


Video - Neck Isolation, Thoracic Isolation, Lumbar Isolation - Flexion/Extension, then Lateral Flexion, Then Rotation

Seated back to wall Neck circles, Back Prone Neck Circles, Standing Wall Neck Circles


dots -> lines -> circles -> waves -> free shapes

  • Local Segmentation // Building Awareness

  • Global Articulations - different positions - standing, squat, hanging, in dynamic gait. Connected Patterns, Disconnected Patterns

  • Load Exploration - arms as levers , external objects, loaded arching, rotation, side flexion. bracing versus relaxation for load management, stability


Standing

Squat - windmill rotation, flexion to extension

Hanging