fighting gravity, part 4

In cartoons, skeletons can stand, sit, walk around, even dance. That’s part of the myth that your bones support themselves. They don’t. Without connective tissue (ligaments, tendons, muscles, interstitial tissue and skin) holding everything together, your skeleton is just a pile of bones on the floor. If you don’t activate the muscles to support yourself, and hold the space you have between the bones, you are just a pile of bones on the floor. You might still have a human shape, but it’s a delusion. Gravity is crushing you. You have to hold your skeleton. It does not hold you. And that means gentle stretching and movement every day, including moving through the full range of motion of every joint in your body. That means: wiggling and bending your toes, circling your ankles, bending your knees, moving the leg bones around in your hips, bending your spine forward, back, side to side, wiggling and bending your fingers and thumbs, circling your wrists, bending your elbows, moving your shoulders up, down, forward, back, and around, turning your head from side to side, and gently around in circles. None of it needs to be aggressive, but it does need to be as far as it goes in all directions. You must hold your bones, and own the space between them, to have the pain free body you were made for. That’s #theyogayouneed