Saturday, January 3, 2015

A Specific OMG Update

Too much has happened since I last wrote.  I can only hope I have enough random journal entries and discussion board comments I can go back and cut/paste at some point to piece together some chronology at a later date.

Suffice it to say, I've made progress, a lot of progress.

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One must be noted, though I won't get in detail.  Christmas Eve, technically 1am or so Christmas morning, I freed something through my right shoulder, which in turn freed my right hip (where usually things go across to opposite side), and I experienced such a change in my abdomen that I became unable to carry the weight of my own stomach/lower gut.

No strength at all, presumably muscles not in position to hold with the flexing they had been accustomed, some muscle memory movements cause extreme abdominal pain.  I became very ill, experiencing sweats and chills and pain throughout the next 40+ ours.

I missed Christmas.

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But I do believe it was progress.  It changed my shoulders.  It greatly changed my right side, allowing wholly new access to muscle and posture and adjustments.

In fact, where I have long used "Unwinding" to characterize my adjustments, I can now, at least subjectively, say it is "Unfolding" that I am doing (and not just because it fits better with While My Guitar Gently Weeps).  The "Unwinding" involved the contortions around kinks.  The kinks themselves, I believe, I am unfolding.

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Anyways, while trying to access muscle previously unknown to me, and thinking of how to describe the experience and practice, I stumbled upon one (a "new to me" movement, not the words to explain the process):

I'll say, I widened my hips.  More specifically, I seemingly spread the muscles around the right side of my hip further right, further from center, which allowed my right leg to lift outward to the side in a manner it never had.

Then, the OMG part.  As the leg lifted, the muscles on the right side of my abdomen moved right (away from center - sorry, the word for this eludes me at present) and up.  Then, the muscles of my right side moved up and around my chest.  An aside, one new aspect has been the muscles previously behind the right shoulder are have been freeing the right side of my back to expand, which also goes into my neck and brings substantial changes in my neck/jaw/head posture.  The cascade brought about by the leg lift extended all the way up into the back of my neck along this same path in a way I can only describe accurately with the words I uttered in the moment: "HOLY SHIT!"

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Shortly thereafter, I realized the leg could now do a motion I believe a physical therapist had tried to get me to do before.  In truth, it is an exercise I was able to do, unlike so many which would result in sharp shooting pains in locations that did not make sense to the therapist (product of the knots/kinks, I believe).  The difference this time is that the movement used muscles as they were meant, and presumed, to be used.

I may have taken a huge stride.

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Of course, feeling guilty that I have not done any updates in so long, I came here instead of trying to do more and repeat the movement.

That said, I know, and have repeatedly demonstrated to myself, that any progress I make, I can build upon.  I can repeat the movement, even if it takes weeks to find, or I can find the endpoint and build upon it.  So, I decided that at least this bit of documentation was more important.

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So now, back to unfolding, and football, and video games, and reading.  And pain - this cold is tormenting me.

I laugh as I write this, because I do not even know where this new motion is leading, I abandoned it so quickly (very unusual for me) to come notarize it.  Per Vonnegut, so it goes.

I can't wait for Summer, or at least a warm Spring, to get here.