I just discovered this sequence, and I am pleased and impressed. The subject of this post is something I have been looking at learning more about a lot recently, because I have a problem in the area.
Specifically, I never know where my feet are positioned. I can infer it, and I can confirm it, but I simply don’t feel the position of my feet in relation to the rest of my body. Even when I am trying to focus on it.
By contrast, I do feel where my calves are in space. Most of the time when I need to place my feet precisely, I am actually just aiming my calves at that point and relying on the fact that my feet are on the end of my calves.
I’ve been thinking more about my feet since your post. I too sense my calves more than my feet, the muscles are tense, overworked …
And I had an interesting experience as I was walking down a rough (but familiar) track...
I’ve got to the point of often thinking of my body as 3 lines—my central line (linea alba) and a line from hip to shin (rectus femoris) of each leg. As was doing this I suddenly thought ‘where are my feet?’. The shift in focus made me feel like I stumbled (I don’t think I actually did) and brought on a flash of motion sickness (which I’ve always been prone to and crushed my dreams of being an astronaut when I was about 5).
It was like thinking about my feet rather than working from my Base-Line knocked me off balance. A weird sensation.
The expression ‘don’t worry about where your feet are to start’ has been floating around looking for a home in my posts (I’m not sure where it ended up!) and “stand with your feet hip-width apart” was a common instruction that I never understood/felt I was doing it right (shuffling around, trying to judge in a mirror … I lacked a Base-Line reference to feel from.)
When you say lack of feeling—lack of awareness? or lack of sensation/numbness? The latter can be associated with various medical conditions so it’s important to differentiate between the two experiences (duration is relevant).
I’ve tried to make the anatomy easy to understand (pictures are better than words!) here.
I get all the normal pain/temperature/pressure/friction feedback just fine. It is only the problem of knowing where they are in space without looking at them.
I just discovered this sequence, and I am pleased and impressed. The subject of this post is something I have been looking at learning more about a lot recently, because I have a problem in the area.
Specifically, I never know where my feet are positioned. I can infer it, and I can confirm it, but I simply don’t feel the position of my feet in relation to the rest of my body. Even when I am trying to focus on it.
By contrast, I do feel where my calves are in space. Most of the time when I need to place my feet precisely, I am actually just aiming my calves at that point and relying on the fact that my feet are on the end of my calves.
I’ve been thinking more about my feet since your post. I too sense my calves more than my feet, the muscles are tense, overworked …
And I had an interesting experience as I was walking down a rough (but familiar) track...
I’ve got to the point of often thinking of my body as 3 lines—my central line (linea alba) and a line from hip to shin (rectus femoris) of each leg. As was doing this I suddenly thought ‘where are my feet?’. The shift in focus made me feel like I stumbled (I don’t think I actually did) and brought on a flash of motion sickness (which I’ve always been prone to and crushed my dreams of being an astronaut when I was about 5).
It was like thinking about my feet rather than working from my Base-Line knocked me off balance. A weird sensation.
The expression ‘don’t worry about where your feet are to start’ has been floating around looking for a home in my posts (I’m not sure where it ended up!) and “stand with your feet hip-width apart” was a common instruction that I never understood/felt I was doing it right (shuffling around, trying to judge in a mirror … I lacked a Base-Line reference to feel from.)
When you say lack of feeling—lack of awareness? or lack of sensation/numbness? The latter can be associated with various medical conditions so it’s important to differentiate between the two experiences (duration is relevant).
I’ve tried to make the anatomy easy to understand (pictures are better than words!) here.
I get all the normal pain/temperature/pressure/friction feedback just fine. It is only the problem of knowing where they are in space without looking at them.