WOMEN DANCED THE HUMAN RACE

I’ve been wanting to address both stubborn rectocele and urinary incontinence for some time, and guess I will put my other work aside for the moment to do so (sorry to Barbara, my piano teacher, for having to deal with a student who can’t seem to find the time to practice!!)

First of all, it’s possible that women with surgical damage (lacerations and difficult births that placed a lot of stress on the lower back vaginal wall) will not be able to affect the area much. It’s also possible that more intense versions of natural female posture are in order to stretch and break up scar tissue and literally throw the organs back toward their anatomical positions. We do not yet have enough data either way.

I think it’s important to begin by reminding women of the importance of trusting our original design – a wonder that many ancient spiritual traditions believe to be the timeless crown of creation. A mindset that can conceive of the surgical solution does not yet understand the utter impossibility of improving upon our natural anatomy – even when prolapsed. I realize there are some cases on the extreme outer limits of what most women here are experiencing and for those women I can only respect whatever course of treatment they choose. What I am working toward is a worldwide understanding of the basic elements of postural pelvic support so that when the occasional woman comes along to say “This doesn’t work” we will all confidently know otherwise.

The method by which this design came into existence in the biological realm(s) of the universe does not have to concern us. The only thing that matters is that we agree we are patterned after the other members of the animal kingdom.

I want to share with you a concept I’ve been considering – one that I would love to be able to prove scientifically. There is a term – sexual dimorphism – that refers to differences between the male and female of a species. Specifically, we are interested in pelvic sexual dimorphism.

In lower animals, there are often pelvic variations between the sexes. However, they are slight and even some primates exhibit no discernable differences. This means a male monkey pelvis might be able to give birth if biology allowed.

The human pelvis exhibits a great amount of sexual dimorphism – much more so than all other mammals. We know the human head grew rapidly, but the female pelvis had to also change rapidly to deliver it. I believe some extreme form of movement was responsible for the drastic change required to widen the female pelvis to its present dimensions, yet enable the graceful, upright human mobility that males adopted with much less effort. Walking, running, foraging for food, and squatting to prepare meals were not enough to affect such change.

I’m going to assume that many of you understand the concept of sacral nutation. When we are in bipedal posture with feet pointing straight ahead, the top of the sacrum rocks toward the interior of the pelvis while the tailbone lifts up.

When we turn our feet out (heels together) the tailbone lowers and the sacrum counternutates, or moves out of the pelvic interior. This is a position of lesser stability, because the pelvic muscles and ligaments have ‘unwound’ to allow for this movement. Unless we work to keep the lower belly relaxed and held forward, the mass, or weight, of the pelvic organs will tip more toward the back than just behind the lower abdominal wall.

However, when we widen our turned-out stance and bend our knees deeply, the pelvis moves into its most extreme range of nutation. The lower belly is horizontal in this position (like a horse!) and the lumbar spine fully extended. This is the basic position of our earliest dance traditions and I believe it is not far-fetched to reason that women danced the human race into existence.

Here at the Whole Woman Center™ we have taken the beginning movements described in Saving the Whole Woman II and exaggerated them both in depth and height. It is my belief that these movements created the possibility for the organs to remain in their mammalian positions as we lifted our spine upright. It is a profound truth that our bottom half is horizontal and our upper half vertical.

Here at the Center we’ve moved on from piano to include flutes and drums and until I can get the next dvd produced, I’ll describe one basic exercise we are working with. I hope this will give many of you a somatic understanding of postural pelvic support, which seems to be harder to grasp intellectually.

Put on some lively, rhythmic music.

While maintaining ALL aspects of the standing posture, widen your stance to two times your foot length and externally rotate your hips. Deeply bend your knees. It is crucial that you keep your knees over your second and third toes. This protects the knee joints and also forces greater hip turnout.

With your lower belly completely relaxed and your lumbar curve in place (shoulders down, etc) begin to bounce flat on your feet by bending slightly up and down with your knees. Place your hands just above your mound of pubic hair and get the sense that while your urethra, vagina, and rectum are angled more toward the back, your bladder and uterus are cradled right there in that curved pocket of your lower belly. Stay relaxed, but have a sense of tightening your pelvic wall. This is a completely awesome exercise and what I believe should replace the worthless kegel concept. See for yourself that replacing the pelvic organs must be done on our feet and there is no more extreme posture to wind up the pelvis into its greatest position of stability. We can and do keep adding extremity in the form of leaps and bounds, which serve to literally throw the organs forward, but this needs visual instruction and not everyone is up to such rigorous movement.

I will say once again that I believe to the core of my being that returning to natural posture and movement is the only viable treatment for general prolapse and incontinence we will ever know.

Christine