Diversity

Hi PA Runner

I mix mainstream medicine and alternative healing all the time. Sometimes a dose of medical grade poison is just what we need, but I don't take it lightly, and I do regard medicine and surgery as imposing something over the top, rather than working with the resources the body has.

My daughter is having a knee reconstruction in a couple of weeks, which should allow her to freely and safely do all activities again, except elite level sports which demand lots of twsting and jarring of the knee. No way anything alternative can help with that. She could probably get through the rest of her life with nothing worse than arthritis, but she is an active physical worker, and it is not safe to have a dicky knee when you are on the ground in cattle yards! However, I do hope she will do some Feldenkrais at some point so she learns to use the knee as it was designed to be used.

I figure it is all just 'horses for courses'. The POP area though, is one where a myriad of surgical fixes are touted as 'successful'. In my opinion they can only be regarded as successful if they restore natural function of the damaged fascia which cause the prolapse. They don't. They try to hang organs up on structures that were never intended to support them. The success of these procedures ten years down the track seems to prove this. Something always seems to 'give'. More symptoms develop as a result of the *surgery*. Gravity is real. Even the long term studies on success of these procedures only go for five years after surgery! To me, that does not mean long term at all. Therefore, I cannot see straightforward pelvic repair surgery as valid surgery.

I love whole foods with their textures, balanced nutrition and flavours. I also love good meat, and I drink 1 cup of strong, good quality coffee every day. I drink beer and wine. There is nothing quite like freshly baked white bread, except for freshly baked mixed grain bread. Mmmm-Hmmm!

Life is not black and white. It is grey. We are so lucky in the Western world to have so many options available to us. Give thanks, I say.

Cheers

Louise

Thank you for this topic, PArunner. For some years now you’ve been a gentle balancing voice here, which I so appreciate. Yes, of course it’s about diversity and using the medical system judiciously.

I think in centuries to come - when we are using light in new and miraculous ways - and also living in ways that truly reflect the fact that we have come from and are one with our natural environment, there won’t be this sharp duality. The medical system is still a very blunt instrument and the deep mistrust that many people harbor is not without warrant. Is there good also? No doubt.

And Louise...I so hope all goes well with dd’s knee surgery...

When I was in high school I dislocated my knee, which gave me acute pain for about a year. The experience itself was very unpleasant and I protected my knees ever after - forfeiting downhill skiing and other activities I thought might stress my weak knees. With this WW work came a great re-building of my knees and hips, which I didn’t even realize was happening until one day it dawned on me that I have bomber knees and hips!

You know, humans (women especially) had to change a lot to stand upright and one of the areas of the body that had to become most strong and flexible were the knees. This strength and flexibility is not easily won by simple forward locomotion. However, when the knees are turned out and deeply bent, a whole different set of muscles and tendons come into the creation of a very strong and resilient joint. And where was the opportunity to do such movement? Dance, of course. All early dance was turned out at the hips and deeply bent at the knees. Why shouldn’t we consider evolutionary movement as necessary to health as evolutionary food?

Consider this...it’s not like we never use “second position” soft tissue. Say we are walking along with our feet pointing straight ahead and we suddenly change direction. Bingo...we’re instantly in second position. Now, if we never do exercise that strengthens and elongates these alternate connections to the knee, when we do suddenly “turn out” is it any wonder the knee dislocates?

Whatdayathink?

Hugs to you both,

Christine

Hmm, good point about turning. I think another thing we need turnout for is acceleration when running (hunting, jumping over logs or streams, or escaping from tigers or unwelcome suitors). We spring off the big toe when running. As the big toe is off centre we have to shift the ankle towards the centre line of the body to get the big toe back in line with the leg. I wonder if we should be doing turn-ins too?

L

Am noodling on this.....

am also noodling this one.
my initial thought was that the ankle remains (or should) pretty steady in that plane during running. the shift back to midline occurs higher up, probably at the pelvis. the pelvis, during gait, moves in a three-plane figure-8. so while one side is externally rotating, the other in internally rotated (or turning in) relatively. its actually pretty cool to watch. back in school we placed glow in the dark markers on our hips, shut the lights and walked around the gym. but its the external rotators that provide the bulk of stability during gait. iirc, the internal rotation occurs during the push-off phase. when turned in, there is intrinsic instability in the lateral aspect of the knee and hip so you wouldn't want to land that way. unless I remember this all wrong, in which case, would someone please correct me?

Okay...I’ve carried this around in my head like a zen koan for days. I’ll take Gmom’s word for how the pelvis, etc. rotate to keep shifting stored energy up through the spine so that everything - most especially the head - stays level. It’s the big toe that has my mind boggled. Is it really off-center or does its medial edge move through the exact center of the sagittal plane (think directly under the middle of the pubic bones) of the torso? If this is the case, the only movement I envision the ankle making is dorsal to plantar (flex to point). This has been carefully studied ad infinitum and all I’m going on is a kinaesthetic sense of it. The ankle very well may rotate - I really don't know.

I’ll also take Gmom’s word on turning in - no wonder about the instrinsic weakness of the knee since we don’t use this movement very often. We should use it more often than we do and we would if we had natural, uneven terrain to navigate rather than paved surfaces. I think we can work this out by simply looking at the obvious (my preferred method - lol). As bipedal creatures, there is barely anywhere to ‘go’ turned in. Our potential movement frontiers are forward and externally rotated. Therefore, exercising turn out should be emphasized far more than turn in.

The immediate one that came to mind was turning left off the left foot and vice versa. I know that in dance you don't ever do it, but everyday life might be different. Maybe our brains are wired to always turn left off the left and vv?

Re the acceleration thing, I am visualising footage I have seen of a front-on view of a sprinter coming out of the blocks. The big toe probably is directly under the pubic bone but the ankle of that grounded foot seems to be turned out at the spring-off, and the arch of the foot is quite flat until spring-off.

It is a little like skating. Maybe something to do with resolving the force sideways instead of straight backwards?

Dunno, maybe I am imagining it?

L

most of our joints were designed to function in spirals, not so much the straight back and forth associated with traditional exercise. the muscles mostly wrap around the joints in a diagonal or spiral way, which provides stability and efficient movement. sometimes the diagonal movement is very subtle, but you're probably right, louise, that it is present to some degree.

the foot/ankle is an awesomely complex structure. it needs to be flexible for rolling our body weight over uneven terrain without sustaining injury or causing us to lose our balance. and then, within seconds, the foot must be a rigid plank, lifting our body weight up off the ground. in running, as you know, the force of the body weight is significantly increased.
at some point the ankle probably is supinating/pronating slightly as it flexes and extends. even the knee rotates slightly with extension and flexion.
it could be that runners learn to position their center of gravity slightly differently than we do for walking (or ameteur runners) so to maximize speed.
but, I think the bulk of the force resolution occurs in the spine. ever watch a cheetah run? their spines look like slinkies, its amazing.

and really, I hope no one takes what I say as absolute fact, its been a while since I've studied this, its just my thoughts on the matter.