My orthopedic massage provider works with children as well as adults.
He says that small children can lie on his arms and be lifted up, belly down, to be flown around like an airplane. Until age 5-7 and then they can't. They fold up. They have lost that core strength. Core connection.
We are discussing that. Per Thomas Hanna's Somatics, "Sensory Motor Amnesia is the condition of chronically-tight muscles that have learned to stay contracted due to repeated and reflexive response to stress such as accidents, injuries, surgeries, repetitive tasks, and on-going emotional stress."
So is this loss of core connection sensory motor amnesia? I don't know. Are other cultures around the world the same? I don't know.
My ortho massage provider thinks that we lose that core connection and turn outward. That our US culture has us look for feedback externally: how we look, how we appear, how people respond to us.
I have been trying to improve my posture and learn not to lock my muscles. I go into a "fight" position. Head forward, hands up, hips stuck out, ready to fight. The flight posture is curled protectively, lower back curled, shoulders hunched, head forward. I tend to lock my throat closed, jaw back: a just before crying posture. I see others with a jaw thrust forward posture: ready to yell or fight.
I had trouble at first engaging my lower abdominal muscles and not locking my hips out. I still lock my hips but not as much and they unlock more quickly. My posture is better. Sometimes I still go up the stairs head down fast as if I am falling and catching myself, but I am better at slowing down and moving in a more healthy way.
Core connection makes me think of the chakras. The third chakra particularly, the solar plexus, but also the root and the sacrum. I am an MD. Minimal training in chakras. As my daughter says, everything is theories including all our words....
Core connection also makes me wonder about reading and screens. Our culture is so focused towards decoding words on a page and also on decoding dots on a screen. To the point where we can nearly disconnect from our bodies. I have had patients say, "I don't pay any attention to my body." That was an academic. The patient wanted ME to fix the body which was now "broken" and demanding some inconvenient attention. No can do.
A military posture is more of a fight posture. Our culture values that more than a "flight" posture. I saw an advertisement for a personal trainer, a woman, amazing muscle definition, in workout clothing and with body oiled. It's an interesting advertisement, because she is not relaxed at all: she is posed to show off the muscle definition. Her muscles are tight, with abdominal definition. Is that our goal? Is that what we want? Tight oiled muscles, on display, with little body fat? No, not me. I want my muscles to be able to relax and to be able to play, to run, to dance, to swim, to bike and to relax after work.
Show me the advertisement that offers personal training in that.....