The Spine - Part one: stretch it slow!

Spinal talk.
Can I “buzz” that?  probably not - wouldn’t be interesting to nearly enough people.
(I love bodywork humor)
OK! Now that I’ve lost 90% of my audience - let’s throw out a bullet point list!

In this article I will talk about the spine.  I will cover these things in no particular order and all scrambled together, no doubt:

1. The health and good maintenance of your spine
2. The beautiful structures and anatomy of the spine
3. The embryology of the spine
4. How people’s lives shape their spine
5. My unbridled opinion of all the above mentioned points

Ah! The spine is so beautiful.  The bones involved are esthetically pleasing while my heart loves the beauty of the nervous system it protects.
Just today (September 15th) I was in my cranio-sacral class at the location that was once known as the Brian Utting school of Massage.
This afternoon’s lecture was on the development of the embryo in the womb and how the spine, or the midline, is the first thing to form after conception.
While the egg is still in it’s round shape - inside of it there is a division in the middle of the egg created by a linear collection of cells.  These cells will form the spine and, from this central structure, all things will come while the baby grows.
Geez, that makes me think of my posture while I write this!

Anyway.  The Trauma of birth as well as every day following birth, our spines will form and shape according to genetics and the stresses we place upon them.

What I really love about the spine, if I can choose one thing I like to talk about, are the little muscles close to the vertebrae. They are called the paraspinal group of muscles. They have names like  “rotatare” and “intertransversari” (try saying that 3 times! or spelling it with confidence, for that matter)
These little muscles are rad.  They have different “ways” than the more superficial muscles or the body.  They are called “slow- fire” muscles. They are very deep red in color and need quite a good blood supply because they are almost always in flexion.
They hold up the spine on the deepest level that a muscle can.
The only other soft tissue acting as the duct tape that keeps the spine from falling apart are the ligaments.
The paraspinals are the muscles that those yoga lovers are going for when they do the super-slow twists, stretches (sit-there-and-breathe-for-a-while poses) and bends that limber up the spine.  Because of the nature of these little guys - they hold and contract for a long time and they do not contract slowly - it would make sense that they also release and let go at a slow pace as well.

So when you want to loosen up your spine in deep and profound ways, you need to stretch really slow, breathe deep and slow and stay in the spinal stretch (comfortably) for a good, long time.  Chances are, if you stay with that sort of deep long slow stretch you will increase your body awareness, your relaxation level as well as the flexibility of your spine.

This is where I will stop my post for now. I will probably have a part 2 and 3 to the spine because there’s just so much to say and I need to post something on my blog or else I’ll look like a liar: she said she would post something about the spine and she still hasn’t done it!

None of that!
I just want to post this and add more over a non-defined amount of time.  Feel free to leave comments or ask questions if you have any specific things about the spine you may want me to address in my posts on the spine.
Also!  If you have trouble posting or your comments doesn’t show up in a day or two, just shoot me an email because my blog might be “buggy” and I might not be getting your comments. Sorry for the hassle! oh! this technology!