Before I tried any of the exercises, I wanted to first gauge what my current body map was and further more, things I knew already to have issues. I know that my lower and mid-upper back are constantly having problems. This goes for during singing as well as everyday life. I'm always wanting someone to pop my back, because this seems to be the only thing to relieve my back pain. Another obvious fault of mine (one that I knew previous to ever reading this book) is that I'm constantly raising/shrugging my shoulders. All day long I find myself suddenly becoming aware that my shoulders are up by my ears!
It came as no surprise to me that, according to this book, my back pain and shoulder tension are due to an unbalanced state of being. What did surprise me was the fact that you need to start from the top and work down, and unless the section directly above is in a correct state, you can't fix anything underneath it. Another discovery came when I realized just how accurate Cindy's definition of "natural" was. I "naturally" am in a very uncomfortable posture most of the day. When I was able to find a balance and have everything aligned properly, ALL of my back and neck pain vanished. The trick was staying focused on my body to enable it to stay free since habitually I am practicing terrible posture. I also really enjoyed reading about the knees and ankles. I never took much thought to anything lower than my hips during singing, but finding my center of balance over all three arches and in my knee joint really helped my to feel buoyant in my whole body. Suddenly gravity was not my enemy, but my ally!
So what I took away from this experience is this: I need to mylinate a whole lot of good habits to counteract the MANY awful ones that are so strong. Practice makes permanent, so if I want to feel released and free, I need to make sure I practice it! Not only should I try to make an effort throughout the day to check in on my balance, but I could even go as far as setting aside a solid 10 minutes (or actually 17) to really hone in on my state of being.
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