Month: May 2018

Here’s a question I was asked on “The Dao Bums” site recently, and my response:

“Is the suffocation response something you experience while sitting?”

It’s something I experience every sitting, along with the anxiety connected with the precariousness of posture.

The precariousness for me is mostly about support for the lumbar curve, from the middle lumber vertebrae to the sacrum. That’s why my description of anatomy starts with the ligaments from the pelvis to the fourth and fifth lumbar vertebrae, and focuses on the mechanisms by which the fascia behind the lower back is displaced in support of the lumbar spine.

My sitting is largely a matter of realizing a spontaneous breath in the midst of activity. I don’t know about anybody else, but for me that requires a recognition that I am staying out of suffocation, while relinquishing control of the precariousness of posture.

I know that the alignment of the spine affects my ability to feel. The spaces between the vertebrae allow the nerves that exit the spine to relay feeling from the various parts of the body to the brain, in a dynamic that changes as the alignment of the spine changes. The more I discover relaxation in the face of the suffocation response and calm in the face of the precariousness of posture, the more the things that come forward for me in sitting reflect a timely ability to feel.

Lately I tend to emphasize the relaxation of activity when I experience discomfort, and the calming of the senses that coordinate the placement of awareness when I experience unhappiness. That I can experience ease and not experience happiness, I think is an oddity of human nature.

On the other side of the suffocation response, comes ease and the experience of the senses that go together to make up the feeling of place in awareness. On the other side of the anxiety associated with precariousness comes a detachment from the placement of awareness, and happiness associated with a balanced ability to feel.

The more I realize ease through relaxation and happiness through calm, the more open I am to feeling my actual condition at the moment–even though such openness risks invoking the suffocation response or inducing the anxiety of precariousness. That is a gain for me, in the continuity of my ability to feel my actual condition at the moment, yet somehow the approach seems only natural.

(“The Dao Bums” has many participants who practice the martial arts of China, and for those with an interest in Tai Chi, I added the following.)

Cheng Man-Ching described three “stages of development” in the art of Tai Chi:

1) Relaxation from the shoulders to the wrists, from the hip joints to the heels, and from the sacrum to the headtop;

2) Sinking the ch’i to the tan t’ien, the ch’i reaches the arms and legs, and the ch’i moves through the sacrum to the top of the head;

3) Listening to or feeling (ligamentous) strength, comprehension of (ligamentous strength), and perfect clarity (“spiritual power, or power without physical force”).

(Cheng Tzu’s Thirteen Treatises on T’ai Chi Ch’uan, by Professor Cheng Man Ch’ing, translated by Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo and Martin Inn, pg 75-81, copyright 1985 by Juliana T. Cheng; except Part 3, “perfect clarity” from “Master Cheng’s Thirteen Chapters on T’ai-Chi Ch’uan”, Cheng Man-Ching trans. Douglas Wile, pg. 53, in place of “omnipotent level”)

Again, relaxation through the suffocation response yields ease, and the experience of the senses that go together to make up the feeling of place in awareness. That is to say, complete relaxation (1, above) brings out the feeling of place in awareness, and allows the necessity of breath to shift the placement of awareness to generate activity that displaces fascia behind the sacrum and the spine (2, above).

Distinguishing ligamentous strength (as in 3, above) depends on the experience of reciprocal activity in the muscles and stretch in the corresponding ligaments in response to the placement of awareness in the movement of breath. To me, comprehension of such strength is the sign of the concentration, as voluntary activity in the movement of breath is surrendered. I would say that “perfect clarity” refers to the complete cessation of voluntary activity in the body, the cessation of action effected through the exercise of will but not necessarily the cessation of action. Cheng Man-ching describes it this way:

The ch’i can mobilize the body, but you need not will the ch’i in order to move it. The spirit can carry the ch’i with it.

(Ibid, pg 80)

Under the topic, “What is so special about the lotus?” (“The Dao Bums”), someone posted the following:

When ‘tucked in’ there is a deep release I experience in the legs, kua (pelvis), that emanates up into the abdomen and prompts a deepening of sung (relaxation) and full body release.

I second that, and I have some specifics.

The movement of breath in or out shifts the accent in support for the lower spine between the ilio-lumbar ligaments that run vertically from the pelvis to the 4th lumbar vertebrae (in inhalation), and the ilio lumbar ligaments that run horizontally from the pelvis to the 5th lumbar vertebrae (in exhalation).

 

The weight resting on the sit-bones shifts the accent in support for the sacrum between the sacro-spinous ligaments and the sacro-tuberous ligaments:

 

 

The stretch of the ligaments generates activity in the muscles of the pelvis that alternates to relieve stretch on the ligaments, and that activity can carry into the quads and hamstrings right to the soles of the feet. The quads stretch fascia between the quads and the ilio-tibial bands on the outside of the legs above the knees, adding stretch to the ilio-tibial bands and generating activity in the sartorius muscles:

Stretch in the ilio-tibial bands encourages reciprocation in the sartorious muscles, triggering activity in the tensor muscles (from the ilio-tibial bands to the front of the pelvis) and in the gluts (from the ‘bands to the sacrum and to the lumbodorsal fascia behind the sacrum and the lower spine).

The action in the tensors and gluts carries up into the muscles of the abdomen and into the lower back:

There are two mechanisms that stretch the fascia behind the sacrum and the lower spine to the rear, to support the lower back. The first involves the extensor muscles behind the sacrum: they’re enclosed by bone on three sides, so that when the muscles contract and bulk up, that bulk presses rearward on the facia and effects a stretch behind the sacrum. The second involves pressure generated by the abdominals in the “fluid ball” of the abdominal cavity: pressure from the “fluid ball” can push the fascial sheet behind the lower spine to the rear, and even a slight stretch away from the spine can allow the fascial sheet to carry load in support of the spine.

Of particular importance to me is the way that activity in the legs returns as stretch behind the sacrum and activity in the lower abdomen, activity in the lower abdomen that is connected with a pressure that stretches the fascia behind the lower spine to the rear. Or to put it another way:

… a deep release I experience in the legs (and pelvis) that emanates up into the abdomen and prompts a deepening of (relaxation) and full body release.