Use your feet to detect body-stiffness
Are you standing well-balanced?
“Yes”
Is your weight equally distributed between your heels and the balls of your feet?
“Yes”
But how do you know that you’re standing well-balanced?
Maybe your weight should be more on the balls of your feet?
… or more on your heels?
Let’s find out.
Think of your foot as a lever
The leverage of a foot depends on how far the weight-bearing points are from the pivot.
Your ankle is the pivot.
The heel and ball of the foot are the two weight-bearing points.
Those are the parts of your foot that actually press into the floor as you stand.
The distance forward from the ankle to the ball of the foot is approximately four times the distance back from the ankle to the heel.
Do you remember the mechanics of levers from your school days? Then you’ll know that that means the weight on your heel is going to be four times the weight on the ball of the foot.
“But that can’t be right”
“If I let there be that much weight on my heel, it makes me fall backwards. I stiffen more when trying to do that than when I’ve got my weight equally distributed between the front and back of my foot.”
Very true, you do stiffen
… and the reason you stiffen is because you’re not used to balancing like that.
You feel like you’re going to fall backwards
… so you stiffen to save yourself.
Just exactly as you would if you were trying to balance on top of a low, narrow wall.
You won’t stop stiffening until you’ve learned to balance there.
Once you do learn to balance, you won’t stiffen any more
… and only then will you begin to realise just how much you’ve been stiffening all along — even when you thought you were in balance.
Don’t take my word for it …
Let’s do an experiment
Let’s make a model of the foot-lever.
Imagine pushing down on a pencil suspended between two erasers.
Like this:
- The pencil is your foot.
- The eraser at the end of the pencil is the ground under your heel.
- The eraser near the tip of the pencil is the ground under the ball of your foot.
- The finger pushing down on the pencil is your leg bone. It’s resting on the foot at your ankle.
Notice the distance to the ball of the foot is much greater than the distance to the heel.
As you push down with your finger, which part of the pencil is heavier to lift?
The ball of the foot?
… or the heel?
Get a pencil and try it.
Lift each end in turn. See how much more weight there is on the heel.
Your foot, then, is your balance-meter
Until you get used to standing in balance:–
You feel in balance when you aren’t
… and you feel off-balance when you aren’t.
You needed a reliable measuring tool and, now you’ve learned to read it correctly, your foot is it.
The big question is: are you going to trust it?
… or are you going to stay as stiff as you are?
This article is included under the following categories:‒
Personal Coaching by Philip Pawley
If you want to get the best kind of help, come to me for an introductory lesson in Liverpool.
If you’re too far away, then the next best thing is to get personal lessons and advice from me online at Repoise.com, my on-line school. (Both far-away and local pupils use Repoise).
In more detail:–
If you’re in Liverpool (or can get to Liverpool)
- There’s nothing better than individual lessons. My practice is at 37 Hope Street, Liverpool L1. Ring me on 0151 708 6172 to book an initial consultation and first lesson. (Leave your number so I can get back to you).
-
If you’re short of funds, you can still have first class training from me — though it will require a little more work on your part.
The thing to do is have an individual, in-person lesson just once a month. That will entitle you to also get regular on-line lessons from me through Repoise. That way, you have the best of both worlds: in-person lessons and very regular, even daily, on-line Personal Coaching by Philip Pawley from me. That’s a real bargain because Repoise costs the equivalent of three lessons a year to everyone else.
Ring me on 0151 708 6172 if you want to arrange this.
- I occasionally run group lessons. If you’re interested in these, go here for details.
If you’re further away and can’t get to Liverpool
- There’s still nothing better than individual lessons. Here’s where you can find a teacher near you in the UK or elsewhere
- I suggest you also get direct day-to-day guidance from me by joining Repoise.
If you’re having plain Alexander Technique lessons from someone else, you still need to discover the Smiling Back Method of the Alexander Technique. You’ll get a lot more out of your lessons when you do.
37 Hope Street, Liverpool, Merseyside L1 9EA, England
Telephone: +44 151 708 6172 Mobile: +44 7872 905 154
Copyright © 2007-2012 Philip Pawley
SmilingBackMethod.com
