How Stable are You?

How stable are you?

It’s a funny question because of it’s emotional and psychological implications (well, maybe not funny and downright insensitive if there truly are imbalances to contend with)…

But let’s think about the movement category for a moment:

Stability is the ability to remain still or in control despite contervailing forces. But in reality, nothing is ever perfectly still or in control…

When you stand on one leg, for example, you may keep your balance and not fall down, but if you are wobbling all over the place you’re not really stable. In essence you may be falling one way and then correcting, and probably over-correcting, the other way in a struggle to stay up. The larger the wobble, the less efficient you are in whatever activity you’re engaged in, and thus you’re expending a lot of energy to simply not fall down.

However, even if you seem to be standing perfectly still, your body continues wobbling and correcting it’s balance, but in a much more subtle way: smaller oscillations in each direction - until you appear to be still.

Why would we care about finding stability?

Well, it’s much more efficient, much less energy expenditure, more likely you’ll be effective at whatever activity you’re engaged in, and there’s less probability you’ll fall (and thereby less likelihood of injury).

How do you get more stable?

You might think it’s just a matter of getting stronger… However, often times strength is often confused with tightening, contracting, or holding muscles stiffly - but when you practice movements with rigidity, you actually have less ability to adjust when you fall off balance. You’re like the stiff, rigid tree that cracks and falls in a storm.

So, then, is it about getting more flexible?

Having access to range of motion helps. Particularly if your joints are too stiff and “coupled” together, if one joint moves it can pull too many other parts with it knocking you off balance. For example, if you’re feet are stiff, a change in terrain can cause your foot to shift all as one piece taking your ankle, knees and hips along for the ride. Whereas, if you have flexible feet, a change in terrain causes your foot to simply change shape - moving independently from the rest of the leg.

However, too much flexibility without strength becomes a liability. In this case, to use a foliage metaphor again, you’d become like a tall grass that gets laid flat with any gust of wind.

So, in the end, it’s about… get this: finding balance… right, I know- I’m saying to find stability you need to find balance… sounds redundant and circular - but what I mean is: where flexibility and strength are coordinated together in appropriate amounts. Through knowledge and training, we can increase our stability by understanding how our parts coordinate and work together. The stability in our ankles is largely controlled by the strength of our hips as well as how flexible our feet are. This is why awareness of alignment is so helpful: We practice developing awareness as to how our parts relate to each other, and how they all relate to gravity, so that when standing and balancing, our muscles can maintain equilibrium - one side of us is not overpowering another. And with that practice, we experience stability.

But how to you practice this?

Start where it’s easy and gradually build to greater challenges. I once had a ski instructor say, “if you’r not falling you’re not challenging yourself enough.” - When it comes to stability, I don’t subscribe to this notion anymore (six knee surgeries later - I think I finally realized there’s a downside to constantly pushing your limits). When you’re wobbling around and falling, what you end up practicing and learning is not stability, but how to experience wobbling and falling! In order to become more stable, you need to start where you feel still and in control, and then just test the edges - and return to stability - but do it consistently - and over time, your edges will expand and get larger and larger until you can experience stability in a myriad of circumstances.

Can you see how this physical practice applies to life?

I find it a comfort to know that in life (emotionally, mentally, behaviorally, and circumstantially), nothing is every truly still or fully in control - there are always fluctuations. The question is: how can we navigate life well if we veer too far in one direction and then react, or over-react, and veer too far in the other - swinging like a pendulum? If stability (which can also can be read as peace, tranquility, calm, inner stillness) is the goal, our practice can be to become aware of the shifts away from center in a more immediate, subtle, and refined way so that it takes less effort to come back to balance. We may strive to have equal mastery over when to be flexible (goals, plans, how we attend to others) and when to be strong (boundaries, values, intentions).

How do we practice that mastery of finding balance between flexibility and strength in life?

I suggest we return to the physical body. When we attune to the signals from the body, it becomes like a compass leading us a little to the left and a little to the right until we are heading true north (metaphorically of course). The less attuned we are, the more likely we’ll veer one way or the other as if without direction in life (Not to say this is bad - sometimes the side quests are necessary!). However, the more attuned we are, we still experience the wobbles and slight losses of balance inside, but from the outside, it seems as if we have a stillness, equanimity, and a solid sense of direction toward the life we intend to live.

If you’d like any guidance in finding your way toward more stability (physical or otherwise), contact me.