SHOULD I HAVE AN ARCH IN MY FOOT????
So last week I had a client come to me with recurrent back pain. I spent some time breaking down her gait and posture prior to her arriving at my studio as always. One of the big things I noticed was the fact that when she walked she was very much on the outside of her feet and her big toe knuckle didn’t really seem to get anywhere near the floor
As we went through the session and I explained all about the mechanics and bio motion of the feet there was a sudden light bulb moment for her.
“Do you mean I shouldn’t have an arch ALL of the time??”
“Should I not be trying to hold my feet up like that??”
So why would she think it was a sensible idea to not just let her feet be feet and move with the rest of the body??
We know the spine should be able to move or we get pains and aches and problems, so why not the feet??
Well this client had done ballet from age 2-18 and her ballet teacher would come round and kick up the kids aches if they ever were “flat footed”
It was DRILLED into her and her dance group that the feet are suppose to look at certain way and as a developing human child that cue stuck.
Now this is problematic in a number of ways, some of which I’m not going to go into today, but the main one i wanna mention is just that we as adults need to be careful of any cues we give to our clients/students/children etc etc….people listen and they retain these things…do you know that you telling someone to walk or run a certain way is what is good for them and their body??
Another classic cue for the slightly older generation was "stand up tall and pull your shoulders back”…..as if this is miraculously suddenly solve their issues. What cues like this and the feet being held permanently up in am arch do is not allow freedom, not allow movement, not allow the body to just be and do as it has so beautifully evolved to be and do.
So my question is…have you got any cues lurking in your background that you have been told and you now subconsciously hold just because?? Or perhaps you want that slimmer belly so you started to subconsciously hold that tummy in for aesthetics??
Maybe just try letting some of these go and just seeing how your body responds and reacts, how perhaps making some parts of your body do less allows more of your body to do more and allow that blood/lymph/nutrients to flow as they are designed.
Let me know what your cues are/were, how it feels to let them go and is it easy to not just fall back into them??
Please also share this around if you found it of interest, it really does help me more than I can put into words 🙌🏻🙌🏻