The Pelvis as an Extension of the Femur
Kind of like stilts ...
When you swing your right leg forward, where does the top
of your hip go? up/down? forward/back? What
happens when you swing your left leg forward? Does the
top of your hip do something similar to the top of your right
hip? Or does it do something different?
Do you have a leg where you can draw a straight line from
your knee to the top of your hip? Do you have two?
(!) Do you have none? (!!)
I have a left hip that folds forward when my left knee
goes forward and a right hip the goes back and down when the
right knee goes forward.
How to figure out which is better?
The one that is more functional! I would say, 'the one
that doesn't hurt' but many times your body realizes you
aren't paying attention and simply quits having a
conversation with you. If that's happened, the level of
pain/comfort won't help.
Here's my favorite walking illustration (from https://doctorlib.info/anatomy/classic-human-anatomy-motion/14.html)
with a line drawn from the knee up through the auricular joint
(?!) to the top of the hip (aka illiac crest). You'll
notice it's a straight line.
One of the downsides of skeletons is, well, they're not
moving. So looking at pictures, it can be hard to tell
how things move in real life. But you're still
alive! So have a walk around and notice what your
illiac crests are doing.
Are they symmetrical? Does the crest swing forward
as the knee swings back? Or does it do something else?
In real life, the pelvis has the ability to move the left
and right sides in mirror fashion. To get familiar with
this, play with each of these awareness's until they make
sense:
- As the top of the left side goes forward and down, the
bottom of the left side goes backward and up. (ie
left knee back.)
- As the bottom of the left side goes backward and up, the
top of the left side is going forward and down. (ie
left knee back.)
- As the top of the left side goes forward and down, the
top of the right side is going backward and down. (ie
left knee back, right knee forward.)
- As the top of the right side goes forward and down, the
top of the left side is going backward and
down. (ie right knee back, left knee forward.)
- As the bottom of the left side goes backward and up, the
bottom of the right side is going forward and
up. (ie left knee back, right knee forward.)
- As the bottom of the right side goes backward and up,
the bottom of the left side is going forward and
up. (ie right knee back, left knee forward.)
The pivoting occurs around the auricular joint.
Here's a pic of that gotten from the internet. You're looking at the inside of
the right hip. The white granular area is the auricular
joint surface and it's where the sacrum connects with the
hip/pelvic bones. The two bones connect in front via
the pubic symphysis.
front view: (pic also from the internet)
with sacrum: (pic also from the
internet) The green bone is the sacrum.
The yellow bones are the tops of the hips. The
pink is the front and the purple is the bottom.
Other things you might start noticing are: Also,
does one hip stay in front of the other all the
time? or higher?
A way that you can change this is to simply be
aware of what your body is doing. The more aware
you are the more information your body has about how
to move and it will, given the chance, chose to move
better.
You can also play with superimposing an 'ideal
movement' pattern over the pattern your body
provides. Basically this is like a beacon -- 'hey
body! I see you're doing <xyz> and what
I'd like you to do is this. How can you achieve
that?' And then you let your body figure this
out! For instance, my left top of
hip wants to fold forward, so as it does it I give it
an image of that bone rotating back.
A third way is to, mostly in your mind, play with a
range of motion. Sometimes move more, more,
more, then less, less, less, and then let your body
pick what works. For instance, when my left top
of hip wants to fold forward, sometimes I pretend it
can do more forward and sometimes I pretend it can do
more back.
Another way to do this is to figure out where
something is trying to go and (mentally) let it go
there to finish the pattern. With my left hip,
it's trying to curl left and go about three feet out
in front of me. (!) So mentally I take it
along the same trajectory for about three feet and an
inch.
There is also a really cool way to connect directly
with your subconscious by projecting what you want
onto the back of your brain.
The first step is finding you what you've
got! Then you can play with it.
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