Literally Getting Grounded – Reflections and an Exercise

A teacher of mine reminded me once, "You can't fight gravity."

He didn't mean that all we can do is fall down. After all, we were in a tai chi class. What it reminds us, instead, is to remember how crucially our ability to move efficiently, and even powerfully, depends on our relationship with the ground. 

Gravity, and the opposing force of the ground supporting us, are what lend us the foundation on which to create powerful and meaningful movement, whether it's a sprint on a track or a brushstroke on an easel. So rather than "fight" against gravity, we can use gravity, skillfully, to create our movements and postures.

I'll go further: years of exploration have confirmed for me that we don't derive our greatest strength from the raw muscular strength we may have developed during exercise. And the same holds true for those trying to recover from spinal pain problems: we regain pain-free movement partly to the degree that we learn, or re-learn, to relate skillfully to the ground.

You can start learning this right now. Try this MOTOR Method™ exercise, and afterward see whether you can use the support of the ground under your feet to underpin and strengthen the next movements you make right after that.

Grounding the Feet

Stand with one foot slightly advanced, feet equally weighted. Raise your back heel, allowing this naturally to shift your body weight forward and up.

Gently drop it back on the ground, re-centering your weight as you relax. Repeat a few times. 

Switch to raising the front heel; this will tend to push you backward and up, before you release the tension and return to center. 

At each repetition, notice that the back of the ankle and calf, and the back of the knee, are able to relax and loosen as the heel settles into the ground each time. Develop a sense of both the boundaries and central region of your base of support (between your feet) as you keep settling your feet into the ground. The more “settled-in” your feet become, the more stable your lower body posture. 

Switch the forward foot and repeat.