Scanning

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This body scan should be used before, during and after the movements you are doing to assess any changes and to help you establish a better sensitivity to your body alignment and sense of movement.

This is what sets this approach apart from other ways of training. By noticing yourself in these details, you will learn to fine-tune your movement, posture and alignment.

Lie on your back and allow your legs to lengthen on the floor and your arms to rest alongside yourself.

• Notice how your two legs are resting. Which leg is longer, heavier and more in contact with the floor?
• Observe where your legs do not make contact and measure the size of that space with your imagination.
• Which way are your toes pointing; does one leg turn out more than the other, and how does this relate to the heavier leg
• Which way are your knees pointing; are they wider than your hips or closer in than your hips?
• How is your pelvis resting on the floor; is your right buttock making more contact than your left buttock?
• How does the end of your spine rest on the floor; is your tailbone or your sacrum (the flat bone above your tailbone) touching?
• What is the space like under your low back; how much space is there and where does the spinal contact begin and end?
• How does the rest of your spine make contact with the floor; can you feel the curves your back makes as you move up the spine in your awareness?
• Do you feel your ribs making contact, and how do they compare from left or right?
• How do your shoulders rest on the floor, and which shoulder is in more contact?
• How do your shoulder blades compare in shape with the contact they make with the floor? If you were to lower the ceiling to reach your shoulders, which shoulder would be touched first?
• How much space is under your neck; is it larger than your low back or smaller?
• Where is your head resting; where is the point of contact with relation to your ears; are you resting closer to one ear than to the other?
• How are your arms resting; which is longer; which has more contact; how does the contact with the fingers compare from left to right?
• Finally, how does your breath influence your overall contact with the floor. Does the contact change when you inhale? Exhale?

See if you can practice this when you sit, stand, walk or in other activities. This will hep you be more in the present moment as well as provide you ways to break out of habits you may not want to keep.