Some Advice on Physical Challenges Facing Us All
College of Complexes Talk on August 24, 2024 at 5pm, Chicago, IL, USA
Dedicated to James Kromelis, Chicago’s Walking Man
© 2024 by C. Jenny Walbridge
Blueprint for a Greener World magazine of art by the author also available for viewing and purchase
I. Movement
Trained in art of many sorts, and anthropology—the study of humans—I am versed in differences between people on Earth, and the lifestyles of our ancestors, the hunter/gatherers. As a vegetarian for thirty years and now a fish-eater, as well as a worker in seven different food stores, I am familiar with food issues. In her book Move Your DNA, biomechanist Katy Bowman presents this lifestyle as the one that formed our bodies, by evolution. The idea is that we need to move—all the time—in different ways, to nourish our bodies. Some of the diseases considered genetic are actually brought on by failure to move healthfully, says Katy. Another writer, Brenda Farnell, subtitles her book “I move, therefore I am” to contrast with the philosopher Rene Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”!
Our ancestors were active. I like to call them our dance sisters! The hunters and gatherers we can study wear bare feet or the like. And they do not propel themselves over FLAT surfaces. When they do sit, they aren’t doing it on chairs—as babies, children or adults.
Here are Katy Bowman’s suggestions for shoes that nurture our feet, from her 2015 book Whole Body Barefoot. Notice what our feet need to do their work and play. I quote:
- a sole that is thin and flexible enough for the tissues in the foot (and not just the ankle) to feel the ground below the foot and respond by articulating, innervating, contracting, releasing, etc;
- a heel that is neutral, or “zero-drop,’ allowing all joints to work from a neutral baseline and enabling the full range of motion for all joints in the body;
- an upper that fully connects the foot to the shoe, so there’s no need to grip the toes or the front of the shin to keep the shoe on while walking;
- a spacious toe-box that allows enough room for the toes to extend and spread as necessary while walking, hiking, or climbing; and
- a front of the shoe that rests on the ground (as opposed to one that swoops upward and raises the front of the shoe above the standing surface, slightly extending the toes.)” (page 5)
Flatness is all around. Think how many jobs in uneven paving could be created for sidewalk conversion, providing sightly, and slightly uneven, walking surfaces—slightly, so as not to annoy the folks in wheelchairs; but giving us opportunity for FEELING with the soles of OUR FEET while we self-transit! And think of decoration with our footprints! I’ve suggested to our transit system here in Chicago that they use riders’ foot- and handprints to adorn railcars, stations, and busses. Maybe tourists could partake, too.
Moving can mean more than one thing to people. It can mean “getting up offa that thing,” as Britain quotes James Brown singing, in the government’s anti-sedentary-lifestyle educational materials. It can also mean emotional impact. I was moved by the Chicago woman who was on the news celebrating her 104th birthday the other day—she was dancing and said she loved it!
Maybe if we left our anger at the world—the emotion that causes us to disintegrate in order to express our frustration at life, which is legitimate. But if we left it in the garage, and went for a ride in the sportscar of fun, we would last longer, without unconsciously causing accidents and injuries for us and our loved ones so we die early! (Though we were right—it was difficult! Let’s fix this!) Look at yours truly—typing these words with two fingers in a desperate attempt to share ideas that seem helpful, while meanwhile my own body is suffering! It’s time for a break!
II Touching
Acupressure is a technique of healing touch based on the touching of certain places on your own or another person’s body. It’s not acupuncture, but is similar, and is less invasive. What if we knew about these points and could stimulate them often? Informed hugging could lead to preventative medicine, it seems to me: lovely! How touching!
Our dancistors, the apes, were great. They still sit around and groom each other, touching fur and skin with hands. The bonobos are like the chimpanzees—the animal most related to us. But bonobos don’t kill each other as chimps do. In an anxious moment, I understand, they like to be sexy. Is there something touching to learn, here?
III. Ascension
I have known three people who used tilted seat pillows. One was a phlebotomist—her patients’ chair bottom slanted away from the back of its chair. Another was my Feldenkrais worker, who had studied movement, especially skeletal positioning. The other is a friend who is short. She loves her tilted seat pillow; it helps her sit comfortably, which she does as a professor, a lot. I am interested in the idea that triangular-when seen from-the-side seat pillows or rubber cushions might be helpful for ALL sitters, until tilted seating is standardized. I hate sitting on seats that scoop me up and tilt me BACK, like I might fall out of my chair if they don’t! I am a believer in gravity—it works equally over horizontal space the same, in the vertical direction. Plus, I think that putting my weight on my spine is bad for me; we have sitting bones for a reason—they are even called Sitz bones (the ischial tuberosity).
The next move of any sitter is to ascend, and the next move of humanity is to get connected, which is a spiritual move into smiling. I think we humans are a bit scared of this type of experience right now, the possible world changes that ascension suggests. Yet we have a weapon to fight our uncertainty about the future: to document the steps that get us there! Brenda Farnell’s book, Dynamic Embodiment for Social Theory: I move therefore I am, introduces a way to express movement on paper; before Labanotation, film was the operative technique, but it has proven impractical.
Instead of watching TV, elders could be playing/working for posterity: having their hands drawn; writing things in cursive; getting interviewed for the Library of HuemanKind; sharing their insights after hearing some music and seeing some performance art videos that get them up-to-speed on intellectual/creative issues—inspiring artists to put them in videos! These projects, instead of melting back into the chairs. Maybe if all chairs were slightly tilted forward, seniors would never need so-called seat lifts because they would be in much better physical shape from using their muscles more. How about everyone getting in better shape? Can you see a world informed by healthy body environments?
IV. Exercise
There is a decent diet for people who want to lose weight— it helps you reset your metabolism gradually until you’re at your desired poundage. Then, you can indulge a bit and then reset yourself easily. This diet strategy that I’ve employed also uses exercise—a circuit of specified weight training, cardio training and stretching—to help bring one’s body into health and maintain that state. I have lost weight doing this diet—the Curves program, now evolved into Women’s Group Fitness center on Devon in Chicago.
A member years ago, I am now returning to the club that I used to enjoy as a coach- in-training; I’ve been doing it for just a month, and have already noticed changes for the better. A hurt knee influenced my stopping the program years ago, and I have missed out over a decade until returning onboard last month. The other people at Women’s Group Fitness—along with the music— inspire my enthusiastic movement; it is sort of like a group project for all of us.
I am learning through personal experience and research how to take care of my knee—and it doesn’t include staying away from exercise like I thought at first. Strengthening is what I need, as I found out through physical therapy at Athletico. But rest is important for my self-care, too; I use icing to soothe my limb, and work out only every other day, so my muscles can heal and grow.
And I try to employ Alan Hedge’s sit/stand/move technique, standing for 8 and moving for 2 minutes of each thirty spent sitting. Katy Bowman also shares visually her personal living space (on her website, nutritiousmovement.com), and my initial approach of frolicking through life is, with these methods, reinforced. I also have discovered The Foot Fix, by Yamuna Zake, who I talked with by email at one point. Just as I suspected, my feet are alive, I have discovered, and will respond to loving care. The small book sits in a prominent place on my shelf, and with its footprints on the cover inspires me to take care of myself from the ground up.
While the medical community encouraged my stance as victim of my body and its pain, which would probably have been prevented had I been encouraged to embrace athletics early on, it also sent me to physical therapy, which has helped me a great deal. And now with the weight training workouts, I am back in the saddle—older, weaker, but on a victorious path to health! I have learned that, ironically, I DO need to move! My knee joint needs the fluids that flow in it to circulate—and that can only occur through exercise of whatever kind. And that is for me to figure out—by an optimistic glancing into possible future directions in which to continue to grow!