Alignment Comes from the Bones, Movement Comes from the Muscles

“Alignment comes from the bones, movement comes from the muscles. We’re used to using our muscles to make the alignment when it is really the bones’ awareness of themselves that will bring the alignment.

Embryologically, the bones create the architecture of the alignment and the muscles come in later, once the architecture is almost finished to create movement.

When the bones don’t recognize themselves, when the structure is unaware of itself, the muscles come in as a compensatory pattern to create alignment.”

-Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

Community Question:

How can we make ourselves aware of our bones so that our muscular system doesn’t come in to compensate, get overtaxed, and put us out of balance? I am in a situation where my muscular system is providing the majority of my stability and putting my skeleton out of joint – would love some guidance.

Bonnie:

That is a key question in somatics. It is not our brain initiating the awareness of our bones. It is our bones’ awareness of themselves that informs our brain that they (the bones) exists.

One way to approach this is to breathe into your bone(s) and to open the back of your brain to receive the information from your bone(s). It is a different way of perceiving.

Compare this to directing the breathing of your bone(s) from the front of your brain (frontal lobes). This is a more common approach, and you might want to begin with this approach and then later switch to the one that begins in the bones.

This is also good to share with someone else to receive feedback and to dialogue outside of your own thoughts, questions, and insights.