Don't Pathologize Normal

Ben Cormack's perspective is really refreshing.

I've posted about his work before. And thought this would be interesting for many of you.   

I know one famous yoga teacher who teaches the idea that most people are walking around with a posteriorly oriented pelvis which is said to be the cause of their body woes. 

I taught at this teacher's studio, and the students were told not to deliberately posteriorly tilt their pelvis (as a general rule) and especially when doing stretches for their quadriceps and hip flexors. I asked the students why? What was the rationale behind the instruction? The answer was this, "Everyone is walking around with a posteriorly tilted (or tucked) pelvis and that is why they have hip and back pain." 

Then there is the perspective of many a yoga/movement teacher as well as movement therapists and even whole movement systems, which is the exact opposite:

 That everyone is walking around with the dreaded anterior pelvic tilt and THAT is the cause of their woes. But the thing is, there is no real evidence of an association between pelvic orientation and pain. 

There is normal variance in our morphology. And as Ben says in his post, "don't pathologize normal, it does harm."

I have linked to his "dreaded anterior pelvic tilt" post here: LINK

It is a short post, but he elaborates further than I have, so I encourage checking it out!

And while you are at it, check out this post he did on a similar topic...which is posture! LINK

In his example, there is a real human standing with vertical and horizontal lines imposed over their image to demonstrate her supposed postural problems. Does this look and sound familiar? I used to get so tired of seeing pictures of BKS Iyengar in poses with lines imposed over his image to demonstrate symmetry and correct alignment.  Yet he was not perfectly symmetrical, and neither are you, or me. And that is not a problem to be corrected, straightened out with little metal rods on the outer knees, or fixed by being tied up with several belts in various positions.

We are not cars whose tires must be aligned, or machines that cannot change and adapt. As Ben says, "We are biological systems that display high levels of variance. If we have different muscles lengths etc., why would we all stand the same? Humans are constantly adjusting positions and even homeostasis is a dynamic process." 

We are a dynamic process, a dynamic system!

What if we were to explore moving our body (and our pelvises) in different ways, in different positions and in different relationships? 

What if we explore what options are available to us in different contexts? How might we expand some of those available options, if that is something we are interested in doing? What if we were to move with curiosity and from a zone of open-mindedness? What if we explored our body and practice as if it were a playground...a place to learn about ourselves and our relationship to the world within and around us? 

And what if we explored our body as a dynamic learning system, as opposed to searching for a set "system" of movement, postural analysis, or alignment to provide the answers? 

Humans are complex, dynamic systems that display high levels of variance. And we, and other animals, seem to learn well (maybe even best) through play, without pathologizing what is normal, or trying to make our beautiful biology into a mechanical machine. 

There is so much holistic learning that happens naturally on a playground, and in places where biological systems (like us humans) can explore and play. 

Pathologize normal, or play? I choose play. How about you?