Category Archives: movement

⭐️First off, the knees love to walk. They like to bend. Although they are a true hinge joint in that they bend and straighten, they prefer to be bent. In standing, one would think we should have our knees straight, like an open hinge, but our knees should be slightly bent at all times. In walking, although it appears to an untrained eye that our knees are straight during the heel strike (forward leg posi-tion), they are slightly bent at about fifteen degrees. In the mid-phase, where one leg is in full weight bearing, the knee is still bent. Knees are about continuously putting one foot in front of the other and once we have chosen a path, knees insist that we stay on it straight away. Knees don't side step the issue; they move us forward. In fact, we will "tweak" our knees when our feet go one way and the body goes another. It is similar in building character; when we say one thing and do another, we tweak our integrity. Our knees then, in the way they move, teach us a great lesson about integrity….}

{…Interestingly, the knee and the sacrum have spiritual connotations. Although the words "knee" and "know" both come from the Old English "cneo," they are thought to have etymologically evolved into two separate meanings, with "knee" taking on its meaning from "angle." Leonardo da Vinci theorized that the knee promoted religious thought, or what he called "knowledge of God." He noted in an autopsy that the sciatic nerve went the full length of the body, connecting us from the earth to heaven above. 

The sciatic nerve, he ventured, was stimulated as it passed through the large, mobile knee joint and must account for why so many cultures kneel on their knees to pray. Leonardo's theory always elicited a slight snicker from modern, levelheaded scientists, sure that a nerve in the knee couldn't make you think about God. That is, until scientists tested nerve conduction in the brain with Functional MRI (MRI). Moving each joint, they measured brain activity and found that different joints lit up different areas of the brain. The knee, it turns out, heightened a very precise section of the tempo-parietal lobe, an area where we store religious and spiritual thoughts. 

Some schizophrenics for instance, who have a heightened sense of religious ecstasy, or even believe they themselves are God, show constant stimulation in this portion of the brain.
Leonardo wasn't far off when he thought the knee brought knowledge of God-getting down on bended knee enhances the area of the brain that houses spiritual thoughts, and spiritual thoughts might be comforting enough to prompt man, throughout time, to kneel in prayer. It is an example of genetic makeup finding expression in behavior and behavior placing our genes in situations where they can be expressed.

In Greek mythology, the knee is linked with god-like powers. Chiron was half man, half horse who taught heroes medicine (Chiron means "hand healing touch"). He learned the secrets of medicine after having been shot in the knee with a poisonous arrow and while he could not be cured, he could not die and was granted immortality. Without his knee, he was unable to move on like other mortals and was granted some of the gifts of a God. Again, the knee is linked with the human occupation of moving forward.

Sacrum, the bone we sit on when we sit cross-legged on the ground, literally means "sacred bone" and reminds us to sit in connection with the earth and take in the sounds of the universe. In sitting on the ground, we might feel the vibrations of the earth, be part of the cosmology and be a part of the whole ecology of living. This sacred bone, the holy bone, reminds us to listen to all that is holy.”

~Joy Colango, Embodied Wisdom

“Deane Juhan in ‘Job's Body’, a must read for any bodywork practitioner, notes “bones can only go where muscles pull them, and muscles can only respond to conditions which prevail in the nervous system." 

How do we create healthy "conditions which prevail in the nervous system?" 

We move. We expose the nervous system to varying stimulation from the senses. We walk and in walking, we see flowers we didn't know were blooming and grasses that insist on peeking up through asphalt. We hear birds and notice puddles. It is up to us to use our muscles in ways that enhance the alignment and spacing required for joint and bone integrity and in so doing, witness what is aligned and finding space on the earth.

John Napier in the Scientific American article, The Antiquity of Human Walking, notes "Human walking is a unique activity during which the body, step by step, teeters on the edge of a catastrophe....Man's bipedal mode of walking seems potentially catastrophic because only the rhythmic forward movement of first one leg and then the other keeps him from falling flat on his face." 

He calls walking "flirting with falling," and it seems, the less walking we do, the more we flirt with falling flat on our faces. Stiff muscles become weak and we literally splint ourselves, the tissues hardening with waste materials. The fear of falling is heightened, and we are pushovers-afraid of losing status, fearful of falling flat on our face, falling apart, or falling down on the job. 

The more energy we spend trying not to fall, the more energy we deplete that could be used for other activities. As we choose to be overburdened or out of balance, every muscle, joint, bone and cell will see life as a struggle.”

Joy Colango, pg.26, ‘Embodied Wisdom’