A Continuity of Arches

Ah, the mystery of the head circle. Something funky happens when you roll the head to the back, right? The cervical spine, especially at the occipital joint, is a pretty wild area and you hear mildly frightening things about it all the time, like, "The head circle is a dangerous movement, anatomically speaking," and threats of serious spine problems from "breaking the neck," releasing the head backwards in a way that causes the shoulders to pull up and in. Support can be really hard to find once the skull crosses that threshold where the weight drops behind the occipital joint.

So lately I've been re-imaging the movement. Before I thought of the path of the top point of my skull as inscribing a circle on the horizontal plane, which is unrealistic and physically unsatisfying. Tilt that plane on a diagonal forward, and everything changes. Going forward the head is also going down, which creates the sensation of space between the vertebra. As it goes backwards it is also lifting, which allows for continuity in the movement and helps me feel the support traveling up the entirety of the spine, all the way from the sacrum, or from the heels on a good day. Doing this when making a circle with both the cervical and thoracic spine (in other words you're circling both the head and shoulders) has also helped me open the front of the body, both chest and abdominals, while maintaining support and continuity in the movement.

It's funny learning how parts of the body behave. In the morning, my spine is like a steel pole, like when I was sleeping all my vertebra compressed and fused. Seriously, if I'm sitting with my legs straight out in front of me, I can't release my head even half of the way down to my knees. For other people it's the hips, or the hamstrings or the shoulders, but I always have to focus on things spiney to warm up. But after like, three in the afternoon, even if I haven't been dancing or thinking about the spine or warming up, I can do comfortable back arches, or roll backwards onto my shoulders with my head tucked between my knees.

Gotta run. Someone at the university thought it would be an awesome idea to schedule a performance at 11 o'clock at night, on a Friday to boot.