What is the container/structure/basis of ideal movement? The bike as an example.

From a bodily intelligence perspective, what do I attend to when riding a bike?

Ideal Model for Breath-Stability showing how the low-back is stabilised from inside

Focus on the principles of being long through the sides of the trunk and spine, so that your legs are free to spin, with attention at the feet being 1st and 5th metatarsal heads. Send the knees forward to infinity with the knees tracking over second toe.  Pay attention to the circular push of the pedal action.

When I speak about attention in the body, many people wrongly interpret this as thinking. Thinking involves thoughts and images, so in some cases an image would be an appropriate action, but I am specifically pointing to attention to sensation.

Sensation is one of two inner intelligences (the other being thought) and like any intelligence, attention to its manifestation will increase your capacity to notice it and understand its messaging.

By learning to attend to sensation, we are in a position to understand the globality of our movement and make subtle adjustments until ideal movement is our automatic pattern.

What is the container/structure/basis of ideal movement?
1. Spine lengthens to influence recruitment and stays long in a push/reach pattern.
2. As a result of the axial extension, the chest position remains in an expiratory position, which keeps the thoracic diaphragm aligned with the pelvic floor.  The head neck is above this.
3. As a result of this ideal arrangement, the pressure regulator of the abdominal cavity (thoracic diaphragm) maintains a downward push to increase intra-abdominal pressure to stabilise thoraco-lumbar junction.
4. As a result of the informational push and the CNS re-cognising that stability is being maintained from within, the multi-segmental and global mobilising muscles are free to perform work.

In other words the body has the degrees of freedom to perform the task to the boundaries of its current potential. Metabolic/Neurological/Cognitive/Experiential.

One is free to fully explore the task because clarity is the basis of the exploration. The enemy of clarity is ambiguity. A body that is locked-down provides ambiguous information and this dominates experience instead of being free to explore in the moment.

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