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Sensing Exercises

Start with your breath, which you should always allow to come naturally and easily into your body.

We have two different exercises to help you recognize and feel the depth of your breath and how it powers your body.

Breath Exercise #1

Instead of telling yourself to breathe naturally, imagine that your rib cage is an umbrella and that its shaft is the central axis of your torso. The umbrella opens and closes as you breathe. Don't consciously make like your ribs are an umbrella, just image that idea as you breathe. Go ahead. Try it for a few minutes. Does it make a difference?

Image comming soon!

Breath Exercise #2

Don't act on this, but image. As you breathe in, your body expanding as we see see with the arrows on the left image to the side. Image your body moving in or contracting as you breathe out.

Images from Franklin's Pelvic Power

Move Around Your Axis Best to do this barefoot, but you can do this with your shoes or your ski boots, too. Stand relaxed. Move your weight from one foot to the other, back and forth. Start to turn around slowly with small steps, completing a 360 degree turn. Then, do it going the other way. Feel your central axis, your center, as you do this. Is it the same turning each way? Different? Why? Then, do this with your eyes closed. Finally, do this by hopping. Hop a quarter turn. Hop in place once. Hop another quarter turn, then in place once,  until you complete the circle. Do this in the other direction. Then, with eyes closed. Are you more aware of your axis and your center? Is it the same or diferent in each direction? Aware of your axis, are your movements getting more economical? Taken from Eric Franklin's Dynamic Alignment

Find Your Standing Center You can do this barefoot, in shoes, and with your skis boots on. Stand relaxed. Keep your feet on contact with the ground, shoe or boot beds while moving your body forward and back, then side to side. Then, rotate clockwise, then counter-clockwise. In fact, play with all directions.  As you move, come to a stop at what you feel is your center.  Feel this centered position in your mind. Remember it.

Begin to Sense Your Center

While standing, reach just to feel your left hip socket with your right fingers. It is just to the outside of your pubic bone. While doing this, move your left leg by lifting and lowering it slightly, so your get a real feel for where the joint is. Then, keep feeling this area while you feel your left perch bone on your rear end with your left hand. Between your fingers of each hand you have your hip socket.

Note where it is and how it feels as you move it. Then, do the same for your right hip. After your do this, repeat the exercises above for your center and your axis. What is different now? How will this new body sense affect your stance, your walking, sports and skiing?

Sense Your Axis in Alignment

In the next two exercises, you begin to enter the ideokinetic realm, as, while sensing your body, you begin the process of reprogramming your body's central axis.  Do not consciously act on these images.

Instead, you simply envision the images in your mind. Over time, this practice, which can be done wherever you find yourself, will improve your habitual posture, alignment and movement. Relax, breathe naturally, focus gently on the images.

a) Your head floats up and body dangles easily from your head.   b) Think of the body providing support for the head.   c) Mix and play with models a and b.

Like clouds surrounding a mountain peak, your body surrounds your central axis. As you move, the fluffy layers of clouds move with you. Experiment with the imag in movement, sitting, walking, then running.

Images and exercises from Franklin's Dynamic Alignment