Alignment and Tension Exercises

The preventative measures to stop Corona virus present many issues. What should you do when you cant get to the gym, or even go for a walk? The best thing to do is think about all the free moments in the day you could be doing manual labour like gardening, housework, or DIY. All these opportunities offer exercises for practicing what’s called isometric strength exercises. This is basically contracting the muscle in a given position of alignment for either a short or long duration to enhance firing rate and strength. For example, practice walking around by pressing and extending your foot into the ground and aligning the body to produce maximum force and tension. You can do this with quick steps, or holding a position in the stepping phase. By trial and error and concentrating on the intuitive sense or feel of the force produced, you will gradually find the alignments which produce the greatest force.

Steve Morris says ‘I always have a bow shape in my body when standing. Stand on muscles, not bones. Take the weight on the quad, don’t be back on your heels. And when you do walk, don’t forget to post from foot to foot with your head’1. Using this method you can train the alignment of the body to produce maximal tensile force in every step which, if practiced repeatedly throughout the day, will dramatically enhance strength over time. This isn’t limited to just walking. In fact Steve recommends using this method of mindfulness in action with all natural movement patterns such as lifting, grabbing, turning, pushing, etc.,. The possibilities are limitless. Its then just a question of applying them to other actions.

It is important to train fundamental movement patterns because all specialised techniques such as throwing a spear, launching a punch, or climbing a wall for instance, grow from them like a tree from a seed. These primordial actions left from our ancestors have limitless creative expression and leave room for adaption to modern day contexts. But our modern day equivalent expressions of instinctive movements must build on these inherited principles. These principles are like laws of nature, they are inborn and underpin all creative physical expressions. They are evident in children who have not yet learned anything, and the adult has to evolve them. Steve Morris calls this “repurposing”.

Instinctive actions underpin all martial arts movements. The more they are practiced and applied to our actions, the more they will integrate with them. For example, you might squeeze a tight fist to create tension in the forearm and wrist. This action generally has the effect of causing the elbows to tuck, the jaw to extend, and the head to tuck, as well as other stabilising movements throughout the system. In this way you are engaging the whole body, and the interaction of each part has a large powerful effect on the whole. Merely by doing such an exercise throughout the day, it will have a transferable effect to any skill you practice later on. You then reach the point where you bind them together. From this it is easy to see how the fundamental movement pattern of gripping encourages not only full body strength development, but even the fight stance itself. The two become inseparable if practiced wisely. The fighting stance comprises of the instinctive actions of gripping, pulling, and jaw extension, etc., it is just up to us to make that connection through experience and knowledge.

When performing an action, you should try to align the body in such a way that you achieve perfect equilibrium for the demands of a task. This s usually for a moment such as when taking a step, and the motion should be as economical as possibly so that effort can be applied optimally. In other words you want to be stable and dynamic. It is like water running through a pipe. You don’t want any of the water to escape, and you want the pipe robust enough to send high pressure through it.

Using the Alexander technique, practitioners are told to lift the crown of their head towards where they move by tilting it in that direction. This encourages good alignment because within the ear are sensors which ensure weight is distributed under the head. This idea is central to Yoga and Tai Chi, which describe it as if being lead by the crown of the head by “a golden thread”.As such you are encouraged to lift the head to extend the neck and body in whatever you are doing to lift yourself upwards away from gravity. You lift the body from the ground, which is simultaneously being pulled down by gravity. By doing so you are using gravity to maximise tension in the system through correct alignment. In other words you are harnessing a force of nature, gravity, to pull you up rather than letting it pull you down in a slump. Two polar opposite forces working together and fueling each other. This is all done unconsciously, but by deliberately practicing this principle, and drawing attention to its presence, you can train it to enhance any kind of movement, from throwing to punching. The head leads and the body follows. Don’t over think it just feel it at work.

Alignment of the body and muscle tension are two complimentary actions. They are used to raise the body away from gravity so that you are able to move freely and without resistance. You should at once feel rooted and buoyant. This is because you are using to polar opposite force, gravity and anti gravity as one overall whole. One cant work without the other. For example, in walking the pelvis is raised slightly to recruit the hip muscles, and the head is turned to facilitate shifting from foot to foot 2. In another example, the elbows are pinned and the arms pulled in when holding a heavy tray. The possibilities are endless, and all that remains is to apply this principle as often as you like to whatever activity you like.

References

1 See Steve Morris sp ARCHIves: Head-Center Connection Morris Method

2 See Steve Morris Isometrics Theory DVD. Steve Morris goes over this in far more detail in his work and all the exercises here are based on his work.