Introduction

Over the last few weeks I've been engrossed in Anodea Judith's Chakra Yoga book. It has sat on my shelf for ages and I was somehow drawn to pick it up and leaf through the first few pages. I've never really connected with the more spiritual aspects of yoga, and certainly the word 'chakra' generally puts me off. But there was something in there that struck a chord for me, so I've kept on going.

Just to briefly explain the concept of Anodea's work, she explores the 7 key 'chakras' or energy centres, that run from the tailbone to the crown of the head. At each stage along the 7-link chain, energy can become blocked by trauma or life experiences, disrupting the balance and flow from ground to sky and back again. In this abstract sense it can be hard to connect with, but once you start digging in to the detail of each chakra it appears to speak to many of my own concerns/ thoughts around the body/mind synergy and the ways in which the internal psychology of an individual is held/ reflected/ played out through their external physicality, be that movement, posture, injuries etc.

Using Judith's book as a map, I've decided to work my way through each chakra, to spend time thinking about how each one is played out through the Pilates repertoire and the common issues that I often encounter that might signal some disruption to this specific location.

The Root Chakra

The first chakra is known as the 'root chakra' and is located around the tail bone. Judith relates this chakra to the early developmental stages during and just after birth, and our ability to land into our body, to rest, receive our weight and be present. I find it interesting that she relates a healthy functioning of the first chakra to having our earliest needs met, to feeling welcomed and wanted in the world. The key to a healthy first chakra is the sense of grounding to lengthen. Judith describes this as the 'first chakra paradox: push down to rise up':

'Solidity gives you something to push into. You push into the solidity of the earth with your legs or arms, and the energy expended turns around and fills your body...The more you push, the more energy you generate. The root chakra uses the principle of gravity and solidity as the starting point for filling the body with prana.' - Anodea Judith, Chakra Yoga, 2015

As she describes in the quote above, the root chakra is not about collapse. In fact collapse might signal a too heavy or weighted chakra, making up for a lack of true rootedness or disfunction further up the chain. She observes that a deficiency is often evident in lightness of weight. She writes:

'Without some weight to ground us, we can feel flighty, spacey, nervous, and fearful - in short, ungrounded. With too much weight, however, we feel sluggish and dull.'

A similar idea is found in Imgard Bartenieff's Fundamentals phrasing: Yield to Push. Whilst Bartenieff never spoke about chakras, she did instead describe the idea of the 'Head-Tail Connectivity', which in a sense demonstrates the polarity of grounding to lengthen. Described in Peggy Hackney's text, Making Connections, the Bartenieff method considers the organisation of the spine between the head and tail as a description of an individual's 'bodily knowledge of self and establishment of a personal sphere of action in relation to the environment.' And, like Judith, Hackney explains that this begins at birth, as an infant pushes down to move out of their mother's womb and into the world. I find Hackney's observations on social and cultural inferences around our use (or not) of our tailbones quite illuminating:

'Someone whose tail is tucked under may seem to be "submissive" or "ashamed", somehow trying to lessen themselves... While a person whose tail opens out to the back may seem to be "brazen", "sassy", "flirtatious"....

or later:

'...most people are not utilising Head-Tail Connectivity to aid them in moving... Most commonly one sees a head disconnected from the rest of the spine, striving to pull the individual around the room...

- Peggy Hackney, Making Connections, 2002.

It seems that whilst Hackney is talking about cultural associations with different postural tendencies, Judith considers these to be key ways-in to understanding the integration of body and mind via the root chakra. I have to say that I recognise all of these postural/ movement tendencies within Pilates settings, and I want to briefly think aloud around some of the common problems and ways that we can incorporate a root chakra approach to our Pilates practice. the aim is not to correct posture one way or another, after all, each adaptation is really a response to that individual's internal and external state. My aim is to find a sense of congruency, where we can feel at home within the postures we take on, but alert and aware or our tendencies and options for change.

The Root Chakra in Pilates

Tucking Tail

I think this is one of the most common patterns I come across and one that tends to lead or contribute towards lower back pain and disc issues. Whether due to socio-cultural patterns and attitudes or reflecting an internal state. I see the pattern in children as young as 7 or 8 years old, sometimes coupled with a sense of giving up, depression, trying not to take up space, but sometimes also just the result of their musculo-skeletal structure and postural tendencies. I find it interesting to see how some people compensate for this lack of grounding at the tailbone level, with an over-use of other centres higher up the chain. I notice how men, particularly, tend to over expand in the chest area, and how many of us simply hold ourselves up from our upper backs, necks and shoulders. I normally cue the un-tucking of the tailbone in classes, but since exploring this chakra approach I have started to think about the notion of taking up space and wondering whether this could be a useful cue for people with this tendency.

Closed Kinetic Chain

I have to admit that grounding has been particularly challenging in the last year where all my work essentially shifted to matwork. Working on a Reformer is one of the most effective ways of activating this sense of grounding to lengthen. As your feet drop into the foot bar to meet the resistance of the springs, your centre becomes activated, creating the sense of length through the whole body. When you're lying on a mat, this sense of grounding through the feet can lose its weightiness. This is not helped by the fact that many matwork exercises contact the ground via the torso through open kinetic chain movements (with the arms and legs flailing around in the air). All of this makes it tricky to root down, further contributing to the tucked under patterning that I note above. The key is to close the kinetic chains to send energy back up through the limbs into the rest of the body. All of which is why I often begin my sessions with some standing work. Recently I have been curious about really allowing the legs to drop down into the earth to bring about that shiver through the legs as the energy travels upwards. This also translates to four point kneeling work where the arms become the legs of the shoulders. Rather than thinking about press-ups as such, I've started to cue them as 'arm-bends', similar to 'knee-bends' in standing. Similar to the yield to push sequencing in BMF, I find the sense of rooting down through the hands to push away, activates a more three-dimensional sense of support from the shoulder. Other more creative ways of closing the chain including placing blocks on the hands and feet when lying on your back. Though you've got to be careful with the latter, as I've often ended up being knocked on my head as the block falls off my feet!

The Heel to Sits Bone Connection

If you've attended any of my classes you'll know how much I tend to focus on the heel to sits bone. For me, the heel to sits bone connection forms the root or anchor of the pelvis. During seated exercises on a chair I often describe the sitting bones as the heels of the pelvis. They connect fascially down the backs of the legs to the heel bones. Pressing the heel bone into the ground activates what I describe as the 'sits bone connection' which is, in effect, an activation of the lower gluteals and upper hamstring attachments around the sitting bones. The aim is to learn how to 'activate' this connection without 'tucking under'.

Conclusion

I feel I need to add in here a particular experience I had with this 'heel to sits' bone connection some years ago. A dance teacher named Jeremy Nelson was working with a group of us postgrad students at The Place sometime in 2008/9. He first taught a regular movement sequence and gave us time to practice it till it was in our bodies. Then he put us into twos and gave us a partnering exercise where one partner lay on their backs, whilst the other supported partner one's foot on their thigh. Partner one had to push into partner two's supporting leg, activating the heel to sits bone connection. He then asked us to lie down with our legs up the wall, tracing lines into the wall with our heel bones to further accentuate the connection. After around 20 minutes of this work we all got up and he asked us to repeat the initial movement sequence, travelling across the floor, tilting, spinning, jumping. It was a completely different experience. We each had a sense of our contact with the ground. We were lighter and yet more stable, rooted and freer.

And of course this is exactly the aim of the root chakra. It's not about getting stuck to the ground. It's about being able to drop down as a precursor to pushing off. If we cannot access our roots, then other areas have to over-compensate higher up the chain for us to get anywhere in life. As another of my favourite bodywork writers says:

'The pre pre pre-movement of dancing on the Earth is yield, connecting down toward gravity so you can push away and move through space.' - Andrea Olsen, The Place of Dance, 2014