I was alert to body language, growing up. I learned young that body language and the spoken word rarely matched up. I saw the stories all around me as complex and daunting. I did what I could do to fashion my own code so I wouldn’t get lost. I particularly watched the adults, preferably the elders. Their bodies seemed more definite like they wouldn’t be hidden anymore. The hurts and the curves and rigidity became a definite creature. The elder’s words though, rarely changed, continuing the many stories they lived, stories of reveal and cover-up, gaps and broken bridges.
I spent much time studying potbellies on my male relatives and their adult friends. As they got older they got bigger, though some of the men didn’t have one. They weren’t saggy, baggy fat, but a solid, fist thumping shape. As I transitioned into my young adult years, I pursued my fascination with the language of the bodies by exploring the information found in anatomy books and health practitioner manuals. Then, when my belly began a slow shift into a pot-bellied state, I decided I had better develop a system of managing the situation.
First, I rocked my pelvic bowl forward and back to explore where there might be tension. Definitely lower back. That made sense. I knew how the forward shifting belly compromised the lower back. And, once those muscles shortened significantly, back injuries became more and more common. I also sensed tension low down inside my pelvic bowl toward the tail bone. After more research, I figured out my psoas was also short and tight.
The best psoas exercise I’ve come across is the visualized triceps pulldown. I stand. Sometimes I close my eyes. I visualize a weight room triceps pulldown machine. I grip the handles of a visualized split rope, position my pelvic bowl neutral, secure my upper arms biceps forward and pull the rope down. When I reach the actual level of the top of my pelvic bowl, I slowly split the rope and visualize connecting the end of each handle to my leg sockets inside the pelvic bowl. The psoas’s duty is to maintain a strong and flexible pelvic floor. It connects the lower spine to the leg sockets. When it gets short and tight the floor constricts and becomes problematic.
I did the Psoas Pulldown Dance every day, three times a day, three minutes per session. To music, of course. I started with a light visualized workload and used my pull-down repetitions to position my pelvic bowl ever more neutral and my biceps ever more forward. As I added a heavier load, I used my increased effort to visualize taking hold of the real psoas and jostling it fo0rward and back to see if I could get it to loosen up a bit. I rocked my pelvic bowl back and forth to the beat and visualized the tight psoas learning to let go and flap like a sheet in the wind.
Once my psoas was a bit stronger, and I could maintain my neutral pelvic bowl position for longer periods of time, my lower back muscles relaxed some and naturally lengthened into their rightful position. I learned that the two rope-like muscles that travel alongside my spine, the ones I pull on like big, cathedral bell ropes, are actually the deepest abs. I played those ropes until I could feel the emerging potbelly breaking my AB Wall forward. Using the bell ropes for an anchor, I slowly pulled the AB Wall back into position, aligning my ribs over my pelvic bowl. Tough, tough work. I visualized ten strong men in work overalls pulling a broken beam up from a deep ravine. I encountered many hidden to me layers of self-belief and perceived stories that I now understood was what I saw in others as a child. The potbelly is mostly about pulling away from the core, trying to flee the body.
Once my AB Wall was more or less upright, my muscles could come together in a chorus of call and response muscle organization. My AB Wall got stronger, increasingly flexible and alive. Sometimes even happy. My potbelly continued to pull on me, a deeply trained belief I needed to check out and get away, disassociate. But, now that we are more friendly, we don't fight so much and it feels good to get along.
