Go for a short run, just far enough to
feel how your running is right now. Go just far enough to get the general sense
of your running, your weight on your feet, and your general sense of effort.
Now come back inside. Remove your shoes,
and stand in one place with your feet a comfortable distance apart. Notice the
sense you have of how you are carrying your weight on your feet. Do you feel
heavy, light, balanced or unbalanced? Do you feel comfortable? Begin to scan yourself from head to foot. What
is the general feeling of tension you have in your neck? What is the position
of your head in relation to the rest of your body? How are your shoulders
aligned? How are you holding your chest, your ribs, you low back? How do your hips feel? How does the weight
settle on your feet? Is your weight carried more on the outside or inside of
the feet, the balls of the feet or the heels?
Or is your weight carried more in the center of the feet?
Take a short break and walk around for a
minute or two. Think of a chair and the four legs it has. The chair has no
muscles to hold it up. But it has a structure. Unless the chair is broken, it
never falls down. It can stand on its
legs for many years. You have a structure too. It is called your skeleton.
Trust your bones. They are a secret to effortless running. Learn how to use them and they can hold you
up for hours.
Come back to the place you were
standing. Now picture a heavy weight on top of your head. In some places in the
world, people routinely carry heavy weights on the head and they are skilled at
doing this. With the image of the weight, again notice the curve in the neck.
Notice that now the brain will now want to organize the neck to support weight.
Can you feel how the head will want to rearrange itself? Can you feel that with the rearrangement of
the head, the entire skeleton will want to rearrange itself? Once you rearrange the head you have affected
everything. Can you feel that the relationship of the head to the feet has
changed?
Take away the image of the heavy weight
on top of the head. Now you are standing differently than at first. See if you
can now relax further some of the muscles that you normally think of as holding
you up. Due to your new alignment you
may be able to do this.
Walk around again and notice how your use
skeleton can reduce the amount of effort in your walk. Go out and run again. Do
not try to maintain an absolutely vertical posture, but trust your bones. Allow them to do the work of holding you up.
Notice at mid stance if there is a brief instant where the bones really work to
hold you up. Play with your alignment and see if you can use greater awareness
of the skeleton to create more ease in your running.
The Magic of Running
You might run for exercise, you are wise if you do
But there are other reasons to do it too
Movement is a vehicle, a tool.
To explore what’s around you and inside of you too.
What are you without the outside, that space, the environment even the
universe
And what is the outside if it didn’t have you
You go out and run and you feel alive.
But there is more, and when you
find it you no longer struggle and strive.
Now you are connected and the ground runs with you.
That joining, with the ground moving backwards under your feet
You are no longer running on the earth, but with it.
You no longer hold yourself up, but the alignment of your bones like
the trunk of a tree
Creates the magic of perpetuity
Don’t
forget to get your free e-book, The Runners Body/Mind at
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