Jake Dalton American Cup 2011

Sooo of course I have to post an appropriately-timed reflection, for the XXX Olympic games, on the incredible bodily awareness successful athletes acquire over years of training. While watching the mens gymnastics qualifiers I was struck by the impressive awareness of bodily connectivity some of the gymnasts showed, especially in moments like this, where the gymnast rolls out of a tumbling pass and is suddenly vertical.

In breaking down that moment, let’s first look at the relationship between upper and lower body. After rolling through the spine as his back comes up off the floor he keeps his legs folded and his torso reaching forward. In the movement of his upper body, he holds an appropriate amount of tension to keep this forward reach without relaxing into depending on his momentum. This keeps his upper body tucked close to his upper legs which will help transfer his weight, in coming to vertical, over the feet.

In the next moment he establishes clear connections between heel to knee through the tibia, and between the heel to the sitz bones of the pelvis. Keeping his upper body reaching forward, he plants his feet and comes to an almost-sitting position where his knee and ankle joints are perpendicular. This was the most consistent marker I saw all night. Every gymnast who did a pass like this found this embodied marker in coming out of the floor. Why? — because at this moment the tibia is exactly vertical over the ankle joint, setting up the standing position, but this involves a connection through the upper leg to the pelvis too. If the pelvis were any more forward the knee joint would be at a different angle affecting the alignment of the lower leg. This means a connection between the front of the heel, that roots the foot, ankle, and lower leg to the floor, to the pelvis is critical to finding this marker.

This connection is also important in the last motion: bringing the pelvis over the vertical set up of the lower body to standing. If the body simply straightens, the weight of the upper body would, like a see-saw, overpower the alignment set up in the lower leg. The feet would slip out and the gymnast would land on his behind. To avoid such a disaster, the connection between the pelvis and the front of the heel informs the mover to find where vertical alignment over the set up of the lower-leg, and the torso continues to reach forward as he comes to standing, and unfolds from the pelvic hinge.

Assessing the entire movement on a macro level, it is clear that folding and unfolding occurs simultaneously in every joint. It is the relationship of joint functioning, not muscle contractions, not pure momentum, that allows this action to occur smoothly. This functional anatomical study is the way somatic educators teach anatomy, because this is how human beings live life. Its interesting to know that the tibia is the most vertical bone in the body, but what purpose does that knowledge serve if we don’t also understand the functional role of that information?! One answer might be that the tibia is vertical so that during a moment of weight transfer the body can find stable vertical alignment again, but it only does this through its relationship to operations of the ankle, knee, and pelvic joints.

-Julia Moser-Hardy