Time machines, classes and thoughts about ankles and how they rock.

Hello everyone,

Guilty as charged. Life is busy, and if someone would ask me what I'd prefer to do, go for a run or type my blog, well, generally I go for a run. Also, I get my best thoughts while running, and usually I come off of a run with no time to spare between cooling off, washing up, and picking my daughter up from school...So the thoughts drift away and the blog lays fallow.

But now I'm back a full year later. One of my resolutions? (Maybe my only one since, as a rule I don't tend to make them!) That I will blog more often. I will do my best.

I have just updated by web site after a long period of inactivity since it is the turning of the year and new things are happening again. I have some great new testimonials. Both of these ladies are terrific students and a joy to work with.

Firstly, the current classes happening this year are Pilates Fusion on Mondays and Wednesdays at 10am at The Bridgeway Gym in Sausalito. It's a great class and I often incorporate foot-to-core exercises as part of the warm-up. There has been great feedback from many of the folks who take the class about improvements in balance and in their ability to access their abdominals later in the class.

Secondly, there is a new Pilates Fusion class opening up at Presidio Sport And Medicine in the Presidio on Wednesday nights. Right now it looks like 7pm, although it might wind up being at 6:30. The class starts on 1/15. Stay tuned for confirmation.

Finally, the Sunday Gyro/Pilates-inspired class is on hiatus for now. I will be getting my Foundation Certification in Gyrokinesis in a month, and so it will then be back on officially as a Gyrokinesis class. More on that as it happens.

Enough of the scheduling...

So, ankles. Interesting things. I've been thinking a lot about ankles over the last year. So much depends on the balance of the talus as it glides in its groove under the tibia. If anything throws it off it simply doesn't work. Since the ankle is the body's foundational pivot joint, (something from Judith Aston's work) when an ankle doesn't work right, the dysfunction echoes throughout the body like ripples on water.

So imagine, now, that a person's talus no longer glides well and they lose their range of motion - that's most of us by the way, thanks to the 90 degree sitting position and our wacky love of tipped-up heels - then they can't clear the foot as they swing the leg through. So the knee has to be higher during the swing phase, right? That means that somehow, the body has to haul the leg through swing phase with a foot that can't get out of the way. How does their body accomplish that? Here are a few possibilities.

1. A more bent knee (to lift the foot off the ground) which means
2. More work for the quads and hip flexors and possibly
3. More work for the abdominals (except that when the hip flexors are overworking then it's likely that the abs are unaccessible) which also means that
4. There is more likelihood of an injury due to impact without abdominal support and
5. More likely to see a hard heel-strike (which, in turn, encourages a less mobile ankle, more work from the hip flexors, and more injuries, depending on other factors, of course)

This is something that was sliding around my brain during my last run. One of the enjoyable parts of minimal running to me is the accordion-pleating of the body into and out of the ground. This creates resilience and encourages a full range of motion in the joints without excess impact. I am not the most resilient person in the world thanks to hypermobility issues, so these things make a huge difference to me when I run. If my ankles freeze up I feel it immediately. My stride shortens, I have pain and I feel every impact, even with pretty good form.

When the ankle folds at the joint during a mid-foot strike the dome of the talus actually glides both inwards and around its axis, which doesn't go forward to back - it's actually at an odd and interesting angle that, if you look closely at it, makes perfect sense as the bottom joint of an accordion pleat with the very complex joints of knee and hip as part of the system (hooray Angle of Henke (don't forget to scroll around a bit to see other planes)!!!). So when a person reaches forward with their toe pulled straight up and slams the heel down, they are actually throwing the talus out of its orbit, so to speak, making it less likely to see natural joint movement there later. They are also pushing the calcaneus up into the ankle, and forcing extra length into the sole of the foot along the plantar fascia...sounds like the potential for some serious pain!

So, that's the thought for today on ankles and theories about how they work.

A Collection Of Runs

It's been a while for various reasons, including recovery from an injury that I sustained from a dance exercise in a class that I took. (Who knew that one supine twist that was held too long would have repercussions that lasted from March to July, and that it would affect my foot, of all things?) Then our performance company took over my life. There were three big deadlines in succession, then two performances, then we traveled back east, and now we're back. We have a show at the end of August (stay tuned to the Right Brain Performancelab site for that information!), then we're quiet until October, although I have plenty of deadlines throughout the next few months. Sigh.

Either way, I'm back, running about a mile and a half at a time, or so. I finally stretched my legs today somewhat.

The first pics are from our visit to the Philadelphia suburbs where I grew up. I took a run in the rain one warm, drippy morning. The next are from some recent nighttime runs - my most comfortable free time is after 8:30 or 9 when our daughter is soundly asleep.

Someone planted corn on their front lawn (!!!)

An especially pretty house with a nice garden - kind of a luxury to this San Franciscan.

One of the spots where I occasionally played as a kid.

Here I am, at Anthony Wayne Park!

At home I tend to run at night. I love the quality of light around 9-9:30pm. As time has gone by I progressed from running a few blocks to running for about 20-25 minutes and about 2 miles. That's pretty slow, I think, but I'm mostly paying attention to how my body feels and feeling the ground clearly.

On July 5

On July 21 - the first day I really felt my legs start to stretch and to move more. I think I went faster, overall, but I took more breaks, too.

I'm taller in shadow, but my sweatshirt makes me look like I have a tiny head. :)

More running stories (a hint)

I am listening to Coyote Network News with Caroline Casey - something that always makes me grin. That woman can use words like no other person I've ever heard, much less heard on radio.

She is interviewing a man, whose name I'm not sure of (Martin Prectel?), who is from a pueblo in New Mexico. They are talking about lots of things, but (as she usually does) are going from one interesting story to another and one poetic moment to the next, and occasionally touching on a book that he's written about the rituals of his youth. One of those rituals was running.

I love this description: The sun and the moon would be threatened with death because the people would walk too heavily on the earth. So they ran. The run was to keep the sun and the moon in the sky, so that the world would continue on and so that people would have food in their bellies.

Gorgeous imagery, huh?

From what they are saying, there is one whole chapter devoted to this ritual run, where the folks who planned and held the race would actually have to hide the finish line because the runners would refuse to cross it since it would make the other runners feel bad. At one point, they put the finish line down and several of the runners simply turned around and went home. Competition wasn't a part of it.

This is on first hearing, by the way. I just went to their website and the details aren't listed yet. I plan on looking into this speaker in greater depth at first chance...If I can get and read the book I will report back!

Ah! Here he is! (I almost got the spelling correct, too...)

Martin Prechtel

And here's his latest book, which is, I think, what they're talking about. On the other hand, it's Caroline Casey, so it's hard to be sure. <grin>

The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive