I’m a sucker for images when moving – they help us to get out of our judging/correcting/observing mind and into the sensation of the moment.
So while working with a client this morning on soft breathing and integrating the back, we played around a little with images.
My trail of thought…
lungs in lower back..expansion through the middle…pear… things go pear shaped (we enter a hard lockdown tomorrow for 6 weeks, so things feel a bit meh)… pear shape torso… shapes…breathing shapes…change the context of an image… this is what I arrived at
So while we know these attributes of comparing our torso shape to fruit and vegetables to somehow ‘look more proportionate’ (I say wear whatever makes you feel good and allows for movement!!), we could nick the image to direct our breath and make it more variable.
SO… when things go pear shaped, make your breath pear shaped! What do I mean by that?
(You can listen to the audio if you don’t want to read any further)
Imagine you allow your back, waist and belly to soften and expand (without pushing) when breathing in. The image that works for me is a pear – the air comes in through a narrow pipe and takes up more space lower in your torso. How would your breathing feel if you imagined it filling your lower back? As if the lungs (2 lobes in your left, 3 lobes in your right lung, both to the back of your ribcage) gently stretch and lengthen down in direction of your pelvis?
Try it out! (below is an unedited, me talking to the recorder audio instruction playing with some of the images – we will work with this in classes this week )
