POST COMPETITIVE INSIGHT

 

Alternative Title: Describing the Avoidant Half

 

I have been writing about asymmetries for some time.  Whether it be determining the up leg from from down leg, or the pitfalls of detorsioning the system, I continue to find and make connections about how the body works in two different halves.  It also must be said that I am learning most of this with help from others.  Adarian Barr and Nicole Uno have been instrumental in pointing things out things that I eventually come to feel and understand.  (It has to be on my own time and way, though.  It becomes interesting and accessible once I have an experience that offers a breakthrough, which may be months or even years since I first became privy to it.)

This particular connection links the half that avoids load (down leg) to breath.  When examining, one must try to make special effort to not designate one as good or bad, or functional vs dysfunctional.  That coding places a sort of blame and causation on a certain finding, and creates a story one is apt to believe.  It becomes the end all and be all that discourages further unbiased investigation.  The difference between “This IS correct” and “IS this correct?” determines if one is finished learning or will continue to do so.

The halves are complimentary and cooperative.  They care nothing of ‘the way they look’.  They work together to form a system, and that system operates at a level that remains (and likely will remain) beyond human grasp.  That’s the beauty of it.  There is always more to unravel and dig into.  The question begets an answer that creates another question.

The following is a breakdown of the path I took to theorize, experiment, and expand my perception of what is happening and why.

1.  A Noticing

Before I swim, I sink the the bottom of the pool with a hefty exhale.  It became apparent that I only blew bubbles out of my left nostril.  Knowing that they tend to switch from side to side throughout the day, I started to monitor this.  EVERY time I checked, the left lead and the right petered.  This seemed less conditional and more standard.  (Also, when I freestyled, I preferred breathing during my left side up rotation.)

2.  A Tinkering

Right around the same time, I noticed difficulty hanging with my right arm.  The scapula wasn’t setting as my left did.  There was a similar awkwardness when I tried pressing through that half — the home position and corresponding rotations felt off.  Using a repetitive row motion for context, I tried to breathe in into my right nostril during certain times in the sequence.  In doing so, my mouth joined in on the process.  Remember this for a later post — the lips pursing are not the same as the jaw clenching:

The angle and action of the elbow changed as I tried to inflate that upper right quadrant with air.

3.  A Theory (Specific)

If my right nostril wasn’t getting air, and my upper right quadrant needed A LOT of energy and attention to get going, perhaps a lack of air flow was also contributing to my postural issues.  (Though I am not well versed in it, this seems like the basis for PRI.) I used this specific inflation as a test-retest to see if expanding in this area effected my ability to extend and rotate in this extension:

Note how the single nostril breath takes more time to get a full inhale and exhale.  

Awareness and attention to the ‘fullness’ of this quadrant shift the shoulders/ ribs right. 

 

Curious how a more vertical inflation might affect the shape and state of my standing posture, I tried again:

I got width and a weight shift (right).

This concept of spreading the tissue like canvas will be explored in a later post.

 

4.  A Model (Systemic)

Sometimes, when a theory gains some traction, I like to try and express it outside of my body, where relational concepts can be both deliberate and observable.  Before I break it down, I will simply show it to you and let you gather what you might from it:

 

The first major premise was that instead of one big container the torso can be divided into two.  (This can further be halved into quarters or quadrants, but that seemed a bit too complex of a construct for utilizing a simple instrument of a long balloon.).  Since the pelvic floor can be anatomically split in half, so might what sits upon it that also takes in air.  The green balloon represents my right side which avoids load, and because it avoids load and tends to collapse into a squat or fold, my hunch is that that is the half of the pelvic floor that struggles to regulate pressure.  To symbolize this, there is no knot at the bottom of the balloon.

My thumb is pressing into the area just above the hip line, as I often feel that this lower right quadrant is stuck in ‘suck in’ mode.  (Perhaps a reason my upper right faired poorly at getting air in.)  The green balloon forms a parenthesis shape when pushed into, while the yellow left half which accepts load retains its rigidity (and slants back).  Tethered together through the pelvic crest, this action also spins the left forward (which I’ve also observed in my everyday life.)

While it is true that there are limitations in every model, I do feel like this represents a reasonably accurate representation of how the halves are reacted upon and interact with one another.  A huge realization I had while writing this piece and reflecting on the model (made a month ago) was that it is floating and in no way in contact with the ground (or a grounding force).  It speaks volumes about my own lacking anchor into the ground (and thus, into myself) — a finding that is literally changing everything and which I hope to write about soon.

 

 

Feature Photo by Brad on Unsplash.