refining the obvious

If you work on all fours, with an awareness of the distribution of weight between the hands and the shins, you can move backwards to child. but coming forwards, if you keep 'weighting' the shins, the front of the knees, and begin to take the pelvis forwarsd towards the wrists, you move into something that is on its way to being cobra/up dog.

now what is interesting here is that there is a point where the lower back feels really open.

and a point beyond this where the lower back starts to feel compressed or compacted.

I owe this exploration to the scaravelli-inspired teacher catherine annis, and her version of this teaching is more hers, and more refined but as an exploration i think it is interesting.

and I enjoy this one sweet point where the lower back feels long and open before you go any further. As the shape becomes more like cobra/updog then its interesting to add the classical alignment points of these poses - shoulders back, pit of belly lifted, heart lifted - is there also some work with the legs that I haven't mentionned - but even with these 'alignment points', as the pose becomes more like a deep cobra, up dog, the lower back is still, compresed, although these alignment points feel (to me) like tools or weapons which we can use to counteract this compression - the pose is a battle (perhaps) between the more open feeling in the lower back and the compression.

again. any thoughts or responses very gratefully received.

xxx