Releasing Your Spine (1) - the Basics

2 days ago

2 min read

Over many years of teaching tai chi and qigong, I have had a large number of students with back problems, usually the lower back.

A few have the problem through misuse or overexertion, but the majority appear to be as a result of too sedentary a lifestyle often combined with stress.

Most have trouble releasing their lower spine, and often stand with the muscles in the lower back permanently taut, and the buttocks slightly clenched.

Over time, this becomes a habit, and like all habits, needs practise to break it..

Duck-Bum

It seems that when people stand up, they actually hold their pelvis in what I call a 'duck-bum' position, i.e. with the buttocks lifted slightly behind them. It's easy to experience this: Just lift your behind up and push your abdomen forward whilst standing upright!

A 'Natural' Posture

When you attempt the opposite, and you deliberately 'tuck under' (see 1st illustration on the left), i.e. bring the tip of your spine between your legs like a monkey flicking its tail forwards between its legs, you are doing a pelvic tilt; a small amount of this is what you want to happen, but you don't want to force it.

Our natural standing position should be somewhere between 'duck-bum' and pelvic tilt; the small of the back, although slightly 'in' at the area of the lumbars, is relaxed and soft. We need this slightly concave shape because it is our body's natural suspension when moving. (See central illustration above).

Finding the Norm

So when releasing and taking tension out of the small of the back, we're talking about a kind of 'natural' pelvic tilt, i.e. without forcing anything, and where the pelvis does actually make a slight rotation, but only because the rotation is actually bringing it from an 'unnatural' state of 'duck-bum' and back to the norm.

Practising Releasing the Lower Spine

There are many ways of practising changing this situation so that your new 'norm' is a more relaxed position.

Try practising this whilst you walk:

As you place a foot in order to move forwards and transfer the weight on to it, at the very moment when you put the pressure on the advancing foot, try releasing and softening the buttocks... "hang" the buttocks. It sounds a bit strange, but it works for some.When you first try it, it's quite difficult to do it on every single step, so you try it on every 4th, (or 6th, or 8th step), thereby alternating which foot you practise with.

The next blog will look at other ways of thinking about or feeling this.

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James Drewe teaches Tai Chi and Qigong in both London and in Kent and online.Details of weekly classes both live and online can be found on the website, and there are classes for 2-person Tai Chi on one Saturday a month.