Swing it low.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you'll know that I'm really into using visualization in my dance practice. I practice more in my head and in small increments than I do in the studio. (I don't recommend that for everyone, but I need to work with the time that I have!)

Several of my students have asked me about identifying and isolating the lower abdominals. For various reasons, the lower abdominals are very hard for many people isolate. Maybe it's because, as women, we're often told to "suck it in" and that our female parts are a source of shame or pain. Many women mentally and emotionally separate themselves from their lower abdominals, and any attention they pay the oft-neglected muscles is usually negative.

Regardless of why someone might have trouble accessing the lower abdominals, being able to access and isolate them is imperative in bellydance for clean pelvic locks, undulations, interior hip squares and circles, and plain old good posture.

Here are some tricks to help you connect your brain with your lower abs. Remember - your brain controls your body. Yes, that's sort of a "well, DUH" statement, but it's amazing how out of control our body feels when learning a new movement.

A bit about the abdominal muscles.

The rectus abdominis muscles are actually eight separate muscles. Their primary function is to protect the inner organs and to pull the torso forward. The human body is not normally expected to isolate the upper set of rectus abdominis from the lower set, so naturally, doing so is pretty difficult.

• Start small. I can't emphasize this one enough, and it doesn't apply only to lower abdominal contractions. When trying to isolate a muscle or muscle group, make your first attempts tiny. With lower abdominals, put one hand on your upper abdominals. Contract the lower ones a little bit, making sure you feel no movement in the upper abdominals. Then, contract the lower ones even more. The second you feel your upper abdominals engaging, release everything, reset, and try again. The more you do this, the larger and more distinct your lower abdominal isolation will become. But you have to start small.
  
  
• Aim low. The lower set of the rectus abdominis are also the longest. When I ask my students to isolate their lower abdominals, I ask them to think about contracting right above the public bone. The lower in the muscle you aim your mental focus, the more separated from the other muscles that movement will become.
  
  
• Visualize. As you can see in the illustration above, I've added a small red dot. Focus your mental energy in one specific point in your lower abs, right above the pubic bone. The smaller your point of focus, the more you will be able to isolate the muscle. One of my students came up with an absolutely brilliant visual to help with lower ab isolations. She said that it's like there's a string attached to the little red dot, and it's pulling your lower abdominals backward, towards your lower back. I also like to tell students that it's like pulling your low belly into your low intestines. It's a gross image, but gross images stick in people's heads.
  
  

I hope this helps some of you identify and isolate your lower abdominals.... it may not come quickly. It's taken me years to be able to separate my upper abdominals from my lower abdominals, and I'm just now feeling like I can isolate them really well. If you work on this just a little bit every day, you'll have clean lower abdominal isolations in no time.

Inked!

This is really only tangentially related to the overall subject of the blog, but...

I got new ink!






I've been thinking about this design for over a year. It's an adaptation of the Rush Starman (see below), which first appeared on the back of their album 2112.

The original Starman symbolizes "the abstract man against the masses. The red star symbolizes any collectivist mentality" [Neil Peart, Creem, 1982]. I identified so much with that symbolism and the sentiment behind it. I have felt like an individual fighting the masses... My experiences in elementary school and junior high (see the section on the "No Demon")--particularly being told that I shouldn't try to be the best in school because it was threatening the other students--have been a fundamental building block in my worldview and personal philosophies.


I became really enamored with the image, but I wanted to change it a bit if I were to put it on my body. I took the man out of the original because I feel like the abstract man. The placement of the star on my upper back (vice any other part of my body) is to remind me that the pressure is always there, behind me, and that I must stay true to my convictions regardless of what pressures I face, particularly in my art. I also chose to have it on my upper back because the muscles there are the source of strong dance posture, particularly in tribal style. I feel powerful when I contract my back muscles and stand tall, and that posture conveys a sense of control and confidence.

My entire life I've striven to remain an individual, to not compromise myself in the face of peer pressure, trends, and conformity.

And to give credit where credit is very much due... my tattoo artist is Susan Behney-Doyle at Jinx Proof in Washington, DC. She's amazing, and she made my star a reality.

Cool psoas experiment!

The psoas major and psoas minor are incredibly vital to maintaining healthy posture both in daily life and while belly dancing. Unfortunately, you can't really touch or feel your psoas muscles with your hands, as they are deep within the torso. The psoas muscles originate from the spine, right at the bottom of the rib cage, and come forward where they attach to the inside of the legs, which is the only part of the psoas that we can actually feel with our fingers (without dissecting ourselves, and that would be dangerous and a little messy).

The psoas muscles are hard to identify within the body. It's a lot easier to find and flex your bicep than it is to flex your psoas. Yet, the psoas muscles are very much involved in maintaining dance posture and home position. The tuck of the pelvis is achieved not only by contracting the lower abdominals but also the psoas muscles. But I was obsessed with answering this question: If when doing standing torso undulations, using the lower abdominals to achieve the bottom part of the undulation but without letting the pelvis rock back and forth, what keeps the pelvis still? The psoas! Now... how on earth do I know if they're actually engaged?

After taking a workshop on anatomy for bellydancers with Sarah J. Locke, I became obsessed with being able to to identify when my psoas muscles were working and when they weren't. And after nearly a year of becoming hyperaware of what my torso was doing, I finally came up with something that worked for me.

So, I experimented, and I came up with this little exercise:

Try this: Stand up, and get into dance posture: Feet parallel and close together, knees bent, pelvis tucked (glutes loose) using the lower abdominals, and chest lifted. Now slowly release the lower abdominals but keep your pelvis tucked and completely still. Hold it there. You should feel deep within your torso and on the inside of your legs where they attach to the pelvis, the psoas muscles, working away to keep your tuck as you release your abdominals. It may take a few tries to get the feeling, but it totally works. It's also a great way to isometrically strengthen your psoas. If you hold it long enough, you'll really feel those psoas muscles working away!

Maybe you're not as much as a geek as I am, but I thought this was pretty cool!

Loving your body: The Physical

I swear I'll get to the music posts... but for now, something a little different: taking care of your body.

This week, for the first time ever, I had to cancel a workshop and performance because of an injury. My iliotibial band in my right leg (shown in the illustration to the right; click for a larger image) has "gone on strike", so to speak. Since Monday, I haven't been able to walk up stairs, sometimes just walk, without being in pain, particularly where the tendon attaches to the iliac crest, at the top.

I am, like many of us, a "can do" kind of person. If I commit to something, I want to follow through. I hate backing out of previous arrangements, particularly when lots of people are relying on me to be there, for them. So for me to admit that I can't be there is very hard.

The experience, however, got me thinking about how my body is my dance career. If I don't take care of it, nurture it, take the time to heal injuries, and rehabilitate myself, I'm doing a greater disservice not only to myself but to those who want to learn from me.

I also started thinking about how many of us approach this dance... like it's easy and always good for us. And, if we practice properly, listening to our body when it needs care, and pushing it to our limits, and not beyond, this dance can bring us great emotional and physical joy.

But I also treat this dance like a sport. I want to sweat. I want to feel "the burn". If I'm not sore the next day after a practice, then I think the practice was too easy. In pushing myself, however, I risk injury, as I often don't have the time to properly rehabilitate my muscles after a hard workout. I'll teach for two hours straight, and instead of taking 30 minutes to an hour to cool down, relax, and recuperate, I take a hurried shower and jump into bed, because it's late, and I have to get up early in the mornings. I think that my body can take it. I am a "can do" person, so I think my body can handle this repetitive physical stress... but this week my body decided that enough was enough. So, I had no choice but to listen to it.

It's important to know our physical boundaries. We need to know when to say, "I'd love to prove to myself that I can do this, but my body won't be healthy if I do." Many of us are self-competitive, and we always want to do better, more, be stronger than we were yesterday. Sometimes our body gives us these little reminders that it needs some love, and it's our responsibility to realize that sometimes proving to ourselves that we're strong might actually be a sign of mental weakness. It takes more strength to be humble and admit that we're on the wrong path than it does to stay stubborn and push ourselves beyond our limits.