“The foot is a miracle of architecture” ~ Leonardo DaVinci
This past Sunday I had the pleasure of attending a workshop over at Loka Yoga in Oakland, run by the wonderful Alice Jouneau. The workshop focused entirely on the foot, primarily how to move through life without pain in the feet.
Often times it is assumed that getting older must be accompanied by a tendency toward stiffness and achiness in the joints. But with Alice’s assistance, I feel pretty excited about the future of life with my feet.
I’ll be honest with you: they’ve been really hurting me lately.
That’s why I begged her to let me into the workshop after it had already been closed. My feet have been very sore, and particularly when i get up from having been sitting, for a few years now, and usually alternating locations from one foot to the other or from one part of the foot to another.
For me I have pain around the lateral metatarsals alternating on both feet. Someone jumped on my left foot one time while dancing, both of us were barefoot, and this person jumped on me while skipping around a room -- quite accidentally of course! But it left a lasting impression on my nervous system, on my muscles, and on my bones there.
I had it x-rayed, and no visible breakage had occurred, so that’s good. But it just sometimes aches a great deal and so what I’ve come to realize is that -- these injuries, these incidents, these moments in time in which our bodies are demanded to respond to pain - to recover - to heal -- these “moments” in the body, if you will, become lasting teachers on how to make a come-back! They become the intersections of time, history, and awareness, and they seem to know a great deal about us.
Pain points in the body are chalk-full of information about how we respond to pain, how we can choose to ignore pain, how we exacerbate pain, how we manage pain, how we adapt.
I find it to be the case often times in my work that people will say to me, “Oh my right shoulder is killing me”, but then when we get into working together we find that actually the LEFT side was the one that was holding more tension. In those times I wonder if the pain signals are meant to be some sort of an echo calling to the other side of the body to wake up, across the canyon of bone and nerve and blood and memory all the way over to the other side of a person’s torso where everything is trained in the opposite direction, and calling, “wake up! wake up!”
The pain sings the song of imbalance. It tells the story of discord, it harkens the way. It tells us exactly what is happening. We just need to understand how to respond!
A lot of pain in the body is caused exclusively from imbalance in the habits of posture and use. When we can correct the habits the pain almost always goes away.
To learn how to feel better, how to allow the pain to guide us into healthier habits of usage, we must pay attention. We must adhere to the message we are being given, that there is an imbalance somewhere that must be addressed. Whatever it is, just trust that it can be corrected. Get interested in that area. Go to a yoga class, to a physical therapist, to a massage therapist, and get input on how to respond to the pain. Do what they tell you, trial and error, find the ones that work best for you, start feeling less pain, celebrate the joy of proper movement with alignment and balance, and move forward through time without the hindrance of pain!!!!
In Alice Juneau’s workshop, I finally got the kind of information that has this kind of lasting impact. How to properly walk and bear weight on one’s feet is surely one of the most basic ways to avoid pain in the body.
The feet are carrying us through time and they really do have the miraculous architecture Leonardo DaVinci proclaimed!!!
Understanding the flexibility inherent to the structure of the foot, how much movement is available within the body of the foot that most people have lost over years and years of inactivity.
Try this exercise: close your eyes and slowly begin to pick up and put down each of your toes one by one without moving any other toes.
There are a few people out there who can do this right away and bravo!!! if you’re one of them.
MOST PEOPLE won’t be able to do this and that’s ok. It’s just a wonderful thing to know that your feet have as much dexterity as your hands do, and when you begin articulating more of their capacity, and when you activate their potential, they start to feel better. The workshop was 2 days ago and I’m already having more success with this exercise......just think after 50 more years!
The beauty of the workshop was that I felt an awakening within the many, many joints within the foot, I felt the space returning, and since then have also been practicing conscious walking, applying the lessons I learned from the workshop, and giving more attention to the way in which I am using my feet.
Also, as always happens, whenever I have a new awakening of awareness within my own body, it shows up in my work as a massage therapist where suddenly I have more insights into how to help other folks with their bodies! So now I’m extra interested in working with people’s feet .
Amazing! Feet are just simply amazing. There are 26 bones in there!! Get interested in them. They will thank you for it......
www.lokayogaoakland.com
www.lokayogaoakland.com
Thank you, Jen. I think I've not paid as much attention to my feet as to other parts of my body. Maybe because my feet don't actually hurt anywhere, thankfully. But what they do do is when I lie down at some point in the day, or at night, they throb. Might have something to do with the shoes I wear - but I do try to change shoes during the course of the day.
ReplyDeleteThat's great that you're not having pain in your feet but throbbing when at rest or when they are elevated is not a good sign. It sounds like there is too much blood there which could for sure be related to shoes. As often as possible, try to walk barefeet. I think it's hard to do this when the floors are cold, and so do it where it's possible. You may also benefit from lying with your legs up the wall (lie with your hips all the way up against the wall, and then rest your back on the floor and lift your legs up to rest them against the wall).
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