The Shoulder Remains Mysterious.

Sketchblog: DayBooks

I realize I don’t understand shoulders, how they work, or how they hold together.  Seems a little like magic.  Shoulders have to swing loose for reaching, catching, pushing, pulling. They’ve got to stay together, be able to integrate, to give your arm movements force,  to support you when you ask them to.

I know I’m one of the hoards who rounds in a forward direction.  I carry my head forward too. No matter how often reposition myself and think about getting long through the back of my neck and getting into my hyoid.  I’m working on my awareness of my hyoid bone.  I keep thinking about how it’s the strangle bone: the bone that’s broken when the blonde is strangled (I watch lots and lots of film noir). That helps me locate it, especially since I’m kind of vaguely blonde myself.

I do a lot of yoga on my own and part of my roll call is “where is your hyoid”.  That helps. And, back to topic, locating the hyoid helps bringing the shoulders into soft agreement: away from military attention, without slumping into grief.

Well, it’s complicated.  Sometimes getting yourself configured and in position entails a lot of call and response.  This is best done silently and internally, unless of course you’re a yoga teacher.

Anyway, when it comes to the shoulder, sometimes it’s a reach.

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