As is the case with all real forms of self work, if done irresponsibly or with the expectation of instant gratification, disappointment will probably ensue. I have found that the deeper amount of my body I get access to, the more I am also capable of ignoring about what is happening in my body and messing myself up, if I do not stay responsible for me ever-deepening capacities. Outward lives typically look boring when inner lives are vibrant.

Eagle focuses on the use of diaphragms and the arm flap in gait and all motions. In standing, the human and the bird both have two lower limbs interacting with the solid earth, and two middle limbs interacting with the gaseous air. Of course there are many differences between humans and birds biologically: feathers, hollow bones, low brain complexity, one waste orifice, etc.

To understand arm flap, first spend time watching birds flap their wings, and float in the air. Spend some time trying to imitate them. Make some bird sounds, do whatever you need to really get into it and get lost in it.

Arm flap questions: where am I flapping to? up/down? forward/back? banking left or right? landing or taking off? coasting on air currents for a long journey?

Biomechanics of arm flap: push air down, pull body up. Explore different ways of accomplishing each of these primary goals, discovering how they can synch up.

Experiments: begin gently punching down and letting the body recoil back up. As you steadily increase the force, note how the whole body can begin to bounce up after the punch downward. Discover how much lift you can get from your feet without trying to jump as well. Try moving the arms so the punch down occurs in front of the torso, then behind, then one on each side. try leaning forward and back slightly to get a feel for this. Try doing it on one hand. Try leaning forward, squatting down, etc and finding the down-punch lift from each position, or find the positions you cannot currently find it in. Allow it to show you the parts that need to connect for the down-punch to translate into lift.

Next, stand up, make loose fists, and pull the pointer finger knuckles straight up to the armpits, stopping halfway. Begin bouncing the whole arm upward starting from the wrist, allowing the hand to bounce up into your armpit. Take breaks frequently as you learn. Find a way to allow this to drag the body up a bit. As we did above, try changing the body position a few different ways, finding out more of how this bounce can connect.

Basic Diaphragms: pelvic, plantar, thoracic, cervical, cranial, palmar. There are many others we could discover/create in the body, but we’ll start there. Explore breathing into/with each of them, noting how each of them are. Note how the shoulder complex sits atop the lungs.

Through the following exercises, try to value breadth/depth of relaxation and tension equally.

Palmar: stretch each finger away from the palm one at a time, then all at once, turning and tilting the wrist in different directions to get more of the tensions. Now keep your fingers straight and alternate bringing them together and apart, focusing on pulling through the skin of the palm and bringing all of the bones of the hand into the domed shape, then letting it all flatten out.

Plantar: stretch each toe away from the sole one at a time, then all at once, turning and tilting the wrist in different directions to get more of the tensions. Now keep your toes straight and alternate bringing them curled down/together and up/apart, focusing on pulling through the skin of the sole and bringing all of the bones of the foot into the domed shape, then letting it all flatten out.

Cranial: stretch the eyes, nose, jaw, cheeks, ears, soft tissue through back of the neck all away from the scalp in various ways, one at a time and combined. Now begin tensing the scalp from the crown, gently getting all sides pulling as much as they are ready, then relaxing. Extra stretching and/or massage will probably be needed to ensure you don’t end up a ball of cranial tension.

Pelvic: find your pelvic floor in your breath cycle, just discovering what it is already doing and not doing. Now sit down in a squat as much as possible for you, supporting yourself as needed with whatever you have around. Being breathing with the pelvic floor, letting it expand downward with the inhales, increasing the volume of the core egg, then upward with the exhales, decreasing the volume of the core egg. Then flip the sync: pelvic floor up on inhale, down on exhale. find relaxation into both of these styles, and/or holding the pelvic floor up or down. Begin stretching everything attaching into the pelvic floor one at a time, then all together: inner thigh, glutes, quads, hip flexors, front and side abdominals, back extensors. check back in with the pelvic breathing and holding variations in each of these to discover how they are connecting in or how they can connect in. Finally, find a squatting motion that allows you to feel the hips complex center about the pelvic floor for you. To deepen that centering, make subtle shifts in the squat form, testing if each of those regions we initially separated from the pelvic floor can now help connect in, powering the squat.

Cervical: Sit and begin feeling the whole neck as you breathe. Lean the neck in different directions and feel how the postural neck muscles affect the shape of the core egg. Now to access more of the throat, get the jaw and tongue involved in these neck openings, gently pulling each in various ways. Once you’ve gotten things opened up, try to let the neck pull the core egg gently up with the inhales, then relax down with the exhales. Stop after 10-20 breaths and wait for the neck to relax completely this way of helping the breath.

Thoracic: Lie down and feel into the torso, looking for the domed diaphragm forming a boundary between your upper and lower halves of your torso. Projecting an image of it into your torso can help. So can bringing your knees up in a resting position with a soft belly and curling your fingers up under the lower edge of the ribcage, then feeling what happens. Once you have worked on finding it a bit, begin opening this region. First sit up and reach upward with the arms, stretching the torso in various directions, getting the shoulders stretched up away from the torso. Then begin leaning forward with various different bends and twists, opening the back of the hips, thighs, and legs form the torso, coming up occasionally to allow the breathing system to open from its tie-downs below. Then flip onto your belly and begin pushing yourself up with the arms, allowing the front of the belly, hips, and thighs to begin opening up as you relax a little more each breath into the arch backwards. Again, try various twists and bends, lying back down and resting periodically to allow the opening to translate into the breathing system. If you want more than that, try similar approaches to opening leaning to each side while resting on a hand or elbow, and leaning the torso various ways with the legs pointing different directions in different ways (ex: figure 4, front split, side split, etc). Once you have opened the thoracic region, sit comfortably upright and begin deepening the inhales and the exhales slightly from the diaphragm region you have now felt into and relaxed more deeply. Take frequent breaks while learning this, allowing the breath to return to normal.

Now that you have these diaphragms awakened, stand up and decide if you want first to deepen your diaphragmatic relaxation farther, or explore diaphragmatic movement further. but definitely do both.

Diaphragmatic Isolation: Begin gently tensing/doming the palms of your hands on the inhales, then relaxing/opening on the exhales. Once you find way(s) of doing this that successfully leave you more relaxed, flip the inhale/exhale synch and try again, then rest, sense, and feel for awhile. Continue through the rest of the diaphragms in a similar fashion, spending more time anywhere it feels needed. Again, we are searching for relaxation here, then we can approach greater tension from a balanced perspective. You do not want to get drunk on the power of something you do not understand.

Diaphragmatic Integration: Begin standing still from a calm place. Find a way of pulsing the plantar diaphragm that propels you upward slightly, allowing this to blend into a heel raise movement. Again, take frequent breaks, focusing on accuracy of coordination, stopping before you get tired. When in neural learning, the sets/reps work different. Once you have a handle on this, come up to the pelvic diaphragm. Unlock the lower body from the standing position as if you were descending into a squat, then come upright again, find the pelvic floor connection that structurally connects these two areas. Find a way of letting the pelvic floor bounce the body, connecting the plantar diaphragms together. Next, do some full squats, exhaling on the way down, and inhaling on the way up. Find the way downward pressure from the belly helps push you upward. Rest a bit then find a way of bouncing that connects the thoracic diaphragm with the pelvic and plantar diaphragms. Now, the upper three. Begin bending forward a tiny bit at the hip. Make loose fists and initiate a small punch downward, looking for the feeling of the jolt through the arms. Allow that jolt to show you where to connect the shoulders into the torso, through the back. The neck may already join into this, but focusing on how the bounce jolts through the neck and particularly throat can be helpful. Allowing the jolt to disperse through the neck region will keep the neck from connecting (a more important skill than connecting at first). Finding a way of tensing the neck and throat will assist you finding the tension style that applies to these connections. Sometime the intent of lifting gently with the neck can help connect as well. Finally, discover the difference between bouncing with a soft face (focus eyes and jaw if a starting place is needed), letting the face jolt down and up, and connecting gently through the eyes and jaw. To integrate into gait, start bouncing more on one foot then the other, alternating until you can go foot to foot, staying diaphragmatically connected. Rest, then begin bouncing forward foot to foot.

Another exercise that can assist the gait translation is the arm flap. Try punching down while rotating from the waist, such that your weight shift from one leg to the other, arms bouncing you side to side. Then allow the head to stay looking forward through this torso rotation/translation. Then allow this to blend into a shuffle. Then allow that to blend into a jog.

Once you have integrated into the jog, remember that the isolation and integration phases are still important and should probably be used to “floss” these movements in isolation periodically before integrating back into your running. Taking the body apart and putting it back together has been one of the most reliable practices for biomechanical health I have discovered for myself. Lots of ways to apply that general formula.

Good luck, Good effort, send me an email about any interesting results.