The naughty child in the class…and ankle and foot anatomy

There is a tendency to let the thoughts go where the tension / discomfort / pain is. So for example, your [left shoulder] hurts, you tend to send all your thoughts and directions there – replace [  ] with any body part. I tend to talk about “naughty child in the class” when this happens – it’s like the body part that is bothering you is wiggling around in their seat, shouting out at inappropriate times, throwing things, talking to their neighbour…doing anything to get attention, and generally getting it.

This is hard, but I would encourage you to send attention AWAY from the naughty child to anywhere else. The bit that is bothering you is too tight / tense / inflamed etc to listen to you right now. So if your left shoulder is hurting, think about anything but your left shoulder. Think about your ankles.

Yes, your ankles, and feet. These have been coming up a lot in lessons at the moment. I will admit to never / hardly ever considering my ankles during all the time I was in teacher training except perhaps when Ruth or Alan (Ruth Murray or Alan Philps) called me out on it – I can still hear Ruth saying “your left ankle, dear” in my head. Now I think about them a lot.

If we have tension in our feet and ankles we can’t really expect them to be in contact with the floor. Here’s some basic anatomy (from John Hull Grundy’s marvellous “Human Structure and Shape”):

One of the first things I would point out is that there is lots of tendon and connective tissue going on. Look how the achilles starts way up the calf, and inserts into the calcaneus (the big bone of the heel). Look how the tendons in the sole of the foot then come away from the calcaneus and stretch right across to the toes. Also look how another set of tendons come into he sole of the foot from the inner side of the ankle.

John Hull Grundy also does these “woodwork” drawings to simplify the workings of the joints etc. This is how he simplifies ankles:

So the tendons come from various parts of the lower leg then “wrap around” the ankle to become tendons in both the top and the sole of the foot.

Which offers some lovely directions you can use in your head. Some of my favourites are:

Let your calf become your achilles become the tendons in the sole of the foot

Let the top of the foot soften back towards the ankle

Let the heels drop into the floor (look how he’s represented the calcaneus – the block of wood sticking out at the back).

One other thing I’ve noticed – complaints of plantar fasciitis (inflammation of the fascia and tendons in the sole of the foot, the plantar) go way up in summer. Is it the walking around barefoot suddenly? Is it the flip flops and sandals with no ankle straps? Dunno. But if you are suffering from this (and it’s debilitating) send a bit of love via your thoughts down to your ankles and feet.

That’s all for now, enjoy the rest of the summer

Marie