The movement we take for granted comes from a complex set of actions that involve many layers of our brain to coordinate our body to basically do things. Whether your reaching or following through on the split decision you made to get off a long line because you don’t feel like waiting that much for coffee are all driven by the brain through a body within less of milliseconds. How we go about doing all these things are dependent upon the position of certain appendicular skeleton structures that the brain uses to make sense and process where we are. Position of where we are and processing go hand in hand as we will see. The decision to move or do something is going to change the position and relative shape of these appendicular landmarks in our body. These are our Reference centers or points. They tie in with our Vestibular System in order to make sense of where we are. For the brain to understand “Where we are” when on the ground and in the environment around us, the reference points in our bodies are in a specific positions holding us there and referencing the space around them in that position. The brain coordinates the muscles that attach to that reference landmarks to usually be in a shorted concentric state (The muscles are “On”/working to maintain its position). Upon its relative position it is also putting pressure on the environment around it and likewise Newton’s 3rd law in which the environment pushes the same amount back on it. It is this pressure that is put forth on a surface that allows us to “sense” and when moving “sense” our displacement from the pressure. Ironically our “sensing of things” through pressure allows us to have a “say” of what to do. These are our metaphorical “feelers”/tentacles without being an octopus
So without the “sense” of pressure from the reference point on the earth or around us there is no sense of position and hence no processing of where we are.
The reference points allows us and enables us to participate in things in our life and in the gym by feeling “Loaded” on a leg, feel weight on a side, feel the floor come up, feel air expand in back…………..all in all we are essentially sensing ourselves in the world better.
For instance when we are standing on our right leg and happen to look down at our feet, we will see the right arch up is way more noticeable off the ground. We might even feel our weight to the outside right heel too. It probably feels good being over there too (said probably every human). Our brain is orientating the body to put weight on those reference points on the right side. It is making sense of our position from the sense of feeling our right arch and outside right heel. Our heel is putting pressure into the ground and brain makes sense of “I’m on this here right leg”. The brain needs the body to go and not the other way around. If someone were to continue observing us in this resting state (probably on line waiting for coffee again), they might notice that the right shoulder is drooping lower than the left even though the person would barely notice if you told them. If you were to ask the person “Which side does it feel easier to reach in their pockets?”, they would probably comment that its easier to reach in their right pocket (right ab wall more shorted so their shoulder is already closer to reach). Our brain is organizing the body literally from head to toe or toe to head in a pattern from these reference points so the brain can “Make Sense” of where we are orientated. The reference point in this case is a right arch up and feeling the majority of weight on the right outside heel and a right ab-wall which is pulling the right upper half down towards the floor and made it easier for someone to reach in that pocket easier. The right heel in this case is putting more pressure on the ground underneath it to cement its position and everything is following along. This occurs usually on the right side more. People are usually unaware of sensing things in general and won’t feel things unless you point it out. But the reference points, without without us being aware, allow us to process and “make sense of our own sense”.
This sounds confusing at first even almost nonsense (Ah see what I did there?) What does it mean to “Make sense of our own sense”? First our sense of “where we are” in the world is important because if we didn’t feel gravity, the ground, or our bodies interacting with it, we’d probably be rag-dolled around in like some vortex or something (Space or how it works is NOT my strong suit as you can tell). Our sense of feeling the reference point allows us to have autonomy of our movements and shows why the sensory component of our system is important. Because if we didn’t “sense and feel things” in our body or in the world around us then there would be no movement to or from anything and we wouldn’t be able to navigate the world. This is as basic as the reflex of taking your hand away from something hot to the sense of feeling the ground underneath us come up so we can push it when we walk (Specifically to get New Orleans Cold Brew). The brain needs the body in order feel and move. There is a story about how a sea squirt moves around on the rock in order to find a place to stay. Once it finds a place to stay and is content with it, it then eats its own brain because it doesn’t need it anymore. The brain uses its body in order to move and feel and we are no different from a sea squirt.
For reference point to exists it must have a couple of elements. First it must be felt on a location on our body that we can sense. We can feel things expand or feel pressure in a specific location like air in a chest wall or pressure from a heel. The next element is the processing element in which once we sense it then the brain decides if its safe or threatening. Even if something is initially viewed as a threat it can eventually be retuned by the next element which is the the extra attention it brings around that reference point sense. The attention element acts as kinda like a planet that attracts stars around to it (why am I using space analogies again?). What that means is by sensing one specific location, it can allow us to recognize another reference point that we may not have initially sensed. Something else became more accessible from another point we finally sensed. The fact that you sense other things along with it can persuade your system that the initial “Pinch” or feeling something that might be a threat is a threat no more. For instance, if a person is shifted in their left hip and can feel the outside of their left heel and simultaneously sense a right big toe and arch, they should be able to feel something else like a left ab wall that they may have previously been unable to sense by themselves.
Our posture plays into the patterns of reference points that like to bias our weight & feel things especially on the right. This isn’t necessarily bad but when we start to live with the same reference points all of the time, never leaving them, and further keeping them to do almost everything we do, our bodies are going to bark at us. The barking in the form of pains and annoyances that all revolve around living with those reference points 24/7 365 days. These people live on one side to do everything and even walking. Muscles such as adductors, traps, lats, outside shins, etc are chronically shortened, overly tight for your brain to keep a sense of safety to “Stay over there” and not to leave that reference site whether its the floor and or space. Your brain doesn’t want leave them because, ironically, to leave them would be viewed as a threat (But it doesn’t have to be though). Usually it has been there for so long and it feels so safe there that it now deems this as the “new normal”. In your metaphorical house, you knew that you had other rooms you could go into but but barely flicked the light switched or even went in to them. You either pretended they never existed or never wanted to go back in there and check whats in there to begin with. But time to time we need to go in these rooms just like we need explore and sense other reference points in our bodies to help us feel like a normal human being who has control of both a left and right side. Doing so will allow us to get off the right and go to the left and from the left to finally get back to the right. Another big key is doing that efficiently and without interference from another or overrellied reference point. Its like being able to play a musical piece all the way through at normal speed without making 3 mistakes. That’s efficiency. To go from left to right interchangeably we would have to feel what might feel like “new” reference points so the brain, not only feels safe to go there, but to direct us there in an efficient manner.
When we find these new reference points on our bodies, we are probably not going to like them at first. It’s like when your first told to save some money for a rainy day or not eat so much on Thanksgiving. You know its good idea but what you’ve always been doing what you’ve been doing because its immediately rewarding and is all you’ve known that to try do something else would be an attack on your ego.
So you don’t do it until you can’t do it anymore. When you do start to do it you, you kick yourself because you now realize it’s not as bad as you made it out in the past and there’s a weird satisfaction to it. That satisfaction is abstract because its you realizing that you actually have more options than previously known and are now finally taking steps to set yourself up in a better position. You find and feel these points and now those old sites don’t hurt as much, things feel a bit easier, and once you do it enough you start to realize “This is how it’s actually suppose to be and feel”. Ease and effortlessness. The task marathon of your “against all odds” attitude in life can be let go. You don’t need to fight every second of the day anymore. This is what we are doing when we create new reference points and drop those old ones that we never got off of. The beautiful thing is we had to let them go so we can get them again. It’s like life is literally teaching us metaphors through our body but instead of a bird flying its literally your right ankle.
The ability to sense the reference points in our body can enrich our lives and make moving more authentic and bring less pain. We were evolved to use both sides of our arms and legs concomitantly and contra-laterally to sense the world around us and ourselves in it. The ability to oscillate back and forth with pressure is what allows us to be efficient movers and establish frequencies of our bodies.
When you can sense that you oscillate back and forth….. You “Find a Way”
References
PRI Postural, Myokin, Pelvis, & I&I Manuals
The Master and his Emissary, Ian McGilchrist
Signaling of Kinesthetic Information by Peripheral Sensory Receptors https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6462095/
Movement and Musings 