Physical Scholarship* and Sleepy Glutes

Life’s circumstances provided two unexpected opportunities this week, which furthered my physical-philosophical study in significant ways. A study which appears to move slowly, as I let life take over daily. But, I also ask God to help me advance.

I woke up randomly at one in the morning on Tuesday and grabbed my phone. I saw a new job had been posted. It was at my son’s high school, so I immediately accepted it, even though I usually don’t work on Tuesdays because of ballet class, unless it is a half-day affair. I sacrificed ballet class to be at my son’s school all day. There was a student teacher in the class, so I didn’t have to do anything except to be there, for legality’s sake. I used the school hours to finish the online anatomy lesson I had been stuck on since last year. It felt like a divine gift along the path of getting my first yoga teaching certificate. I am beginning to feel more ready than I’ve felt the previous three years. My body is transforming rather slowly, as are my perception and understanding thereof. Then again, I am but a product of millions of years of evolution. Anyway, finishing the anatomy lesson on the spine has me emphasizing the strengths of each section in the execution of different movements. For example, exploring the extent of the thoracic spine’s ability to twist and bend laterally, and how it can affect movement of the other parts of the body.

On Thursday morning, an a.m.-job popped up, and I immediately took it. I wasn’t going to miss ballet class at 12:30 p.m. again. The job was only until noon. I was covering for a para-educator at an elementary school. Another para-educator in the class turned out to be a physical scholar, who I had a sporadic but meaningful exchange with.

Mikhail Baryshnikov, New York City, 1977

“The glutes pull in,” he said. I’d wanted to know the opinion on human posture from this consciously built man before me, who had studied the human form with evident devotion. He mentioned a phenomenon called “sleepy glutes”. Immediately, images of ballet-butt popped into my mind’s eye, like Mikhail Baryshnikov’s magnificent jumping, nay, flying mechanism. 
I realized, indeed, my glutes are asleep! Now I’ve been mentally mapping my glutes from within, and pulling them in. I seek to activate them for every movement, no matter how removed from the ass. For example, while writing pen on paper, sitting propped forward on the garden chaise lounge, legs bent, one pushy arm stretched out with fingers spread apart, while the other, holding a stylograph, subtly swings in tiny twisting motions.

I noticed that the pelvic floor is a crucial consequence in the conscious mental effort of awakening the gluteal area. The pelvic floor responds in interesting ways when playing with glute awakening. Glutes that drape the back of the pelvic bones (left and right Ilium), Ilyopsoas draping the front, connecting to the lower spine (lumbar), I imagined. The physical scholar also mentioned the hamstrings and hip flexors. He showed some moves, like bending over, and I exclaimed three times: “That’s yoga!”

I wonder, is there a practice more (physically, anatomically) specific than Ashtanga Yoga? What about ballet (as an evolved human movement art form)? What about Win Chung, and countless other human body/mind-maintenance traditions?

As I jumpy danced around in the kitchen – I did NOT burn rice nor beans this time, I noticed that the more I lifted the legs and feet quickly off the floor with the effort of the glutes “pulling in”, the more the core awakened. The very core area (between the front ribs and hip bones, approximately, a kind of diagonal (from below the tits to the ass)), the physical scholar had described with his hands, when I asked him about forward head carriage and rounded shoulders. It’s all connected, of course. I did notice, while playing around with dancey jumping (i.e. Irish-river-dance-like steps, quick waltzy stuff, indigenous tribal vibe moves, Indian Shiva limb lifting, Mexican ranchero hops, etc), that awakened glutes made all movements more precise, stable and powerful, including those of the arms. I guess awakening can flow through the entire body. Sleepy glutes appear to affect a lot of phenomena up and down the body’s fault lines (fascia trains). While lying in the bathtub, I noticed that when I “pull in” the glutes, I sense a lifting of the sacrum/lumbar (lower spine) creating a subtle back bend. I suddenly felt like awareness of my sleepy glutes was the missing link in my hips, between my lower back (QL, etc) and legs, and in activating the front with hip flexor sensations shooting out in up and down directions.

It occurred to me that I had misunderstood the glutes in yogasanas to be optional, while I realize now that they are vital to any body position. Then again, what isn’t? Thus, awakening of the body at large is vital. Hence, techniques such as yoga, and other traditions and practices, develop as a matter of human health, as mechanisms for the realization of full consciousness through studied awareness of self. Pulling in the glutes also awakened in me the sensation of body spirals running from the feet up the legs through the hips, crossing to the front and back again around the ribs to the arms…

Can I repeat these realizations beyond meditation? How do I make them part of my daily (unavoidable) movements? What is it like to achieve a holistic, awakened state of the body, its structure and movements?

Before the brief time of our meeting was over, before our paths would indefinitely part, I asked the physical scholar: “Is it possible for afflictions to occur in isolation?” Despite the holistic fascia connecting everything (which nonetheless, or precisely therefore, is very adaptable while also becoming stubborn, affected by the constant push and pull of a material universe). “Can the shoulders and head drop forward without it coming from sleepy glutes?”
“Perhaps,” he uttered pensively. Then he explained how runners can suffer from stiffness in the top of the body due to shortened pectoral muscles. Yes, I responded, the clavicles become diagonal. I’ve observed this in my son.

Philosophers can be anything: scholars, physicians, inventors, engineers, cooks, artists, parents, teachers, caretakers, food makers, farmers, gardeners, construction workers, messengers, drivers, representatives, bearers, sex workers, spiritual practitioners, masters, mistresses, leaders, et cetera… Philosophy is everywhere, characterized by the constant search for life to thrive, through curiosity, adaptation, variation, and evolution.

“The asymmetry sometimes drives me insane,” I confessed to him. And quickly gestured my hands together in front of my heart and bowed my head, twice, exclaiming discretely, “Acceptance, acceptance!” Saying it to myself more than him. He remained stoic. There was little time and many duties. Later, he asked me what my deal was, given my curiosity about the human body. I had sat in lotus on the bench and walked mindfully around the class room while the students worked on their chrome books, the way I, as a substitute teacher, always do.

“I’m studying yoga.”
“Yes, I noticed you sitting cross-legged.”
“Really, I consider myself to be a philosopher. What I like about yoga is the philosophy. And, I believe the body is scripture.”
He nodded.
I felt he knew exactly what I was talking about.

I think about my sleepy glutes and off-hips after giving birth to a giant baby. I think about all the has affected the body’s condition. My limb-related asymmetry makes me wonder, what makes the left (post disc hernia (L5)) side from the hip (post partum trauma) down the leg feel number (more sensationless) than the right side? After all the glute-intensive movement experimentation, the top of my right foot was screaming with exhaustion. Why doesn’t the left side feel the same? To what extent does being right handed play into it all?

Anyway, if the nervous system (sensation generator and suppressor) is intricately linked with the omnipresent fascia, can the nervous perception equipment be reactivated through fascial treatment through movement techniques, such as yoga? To what extent have we always known about the body’s mechanisms? If it is all written in the body scriptum. Why do we fall asleep ((Buddhist) ignorance) and generate phenomena such as “sleepy glutes”?

 

*Study of body scripture, study of the self, of the human form (through maps, movement and complete absorption (i.e. yoga, et cetera))