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Redefining Strength
I want to change our perception of strength. Strength is the ability to meet resistance and influence an outcome without compromising ourselves. And we already have it.
Strength is not an attribute; it’s a state of being. Gladiators, bodybuilders, and football players demonstrate strength through brute force, sheer willpower, muscle mass, and relentless pursuit. But we’re also quick to identify dancers and martial artists as strong. Their medium taps into a sense of vulnerability, balance, alignment, controlled power, and grace—but no one can deny their strength. Strength may look different on each of us, but it is an inherent part of who we are.
You are not weak by nature; you are stronger than you think. Your strength is not something you need to kill yourself to gain—it is already within you, waiting to be excavated. The key is to stop chasing something you already have and tap into it, so you can manifest that strength in your everyday life.
Because we don’t think we’re strong, we approach resistance with the idea that we’re not enough. We throw everything we have at it and push past our physical, mental, and emotional limitations. We see strength as domination, but it’s not.
When you learn to listen to your body’s divine wisdom, you cultivate a sense of where your body is developing tension instead of standing in its strength. You end the vicious cycle of unrealistic expectations, injury, and self-criticism and learn how to consciously embrace responsible growth. You stop compartmentalizing your strength into emotional, physical, and mental pieces and operate from the strength of your being at all times.
You learn how to align yourself with gravity—instead of working against it—so you can channel your strength to meet life’s resistance. As you meet resistance with equal parts power and alignment, you transform tension into strength
As in the sword dance above, the power lies in bringing just the right amount of force—not too little and not too much. By meeting the sword’s weight, I meet gravity. I am tapped into a larger source of energy, free of tension, and discover a strength that is wholly and uniquely mine.
About Tammy Wise
A Posture Quirk We All Share
by Tammy WiseMy life has been committed to dance, fitness and posture. And although everyone I have ever worked with has a unique tension template that presents a unique posture blueprint of his or her life story, there is a generic posture quirk that we all seem to share.
We typically keep our weight back on our heels rather than on the balls of our feet.
The most notable change in the human evolutionary silhouette is how the pelvis has had to adjust forward for an upright posture and bipedality––two-legged walking. I suspect our generic posture quirk is illustrating that we are still in the evolutionary arch of this metamorphosis.
When our weight lags behind like this it causes our pelvis to tip, hip joints to compress, and our spine loses its S-curve. The back muscles, iliopsoas and quadriceps muscles all have to overwork. The result is back pain, hip and leg tightness, and we literally shrink our height.
The support needed to achieve our uprightness lives in the buttock muscles. These powerhouse muscles are the strongest muscles we possess; yet, we wag them, tuck them, and sit on them more than we use them!
The way to access the buttock muscles for the purpose of standing upright, and owning your strength, is to adjust your hip bones forward. These are the two pointy bones in the front of each hip, not the central pubic bone.
To do this, simply rock your body’s weight onto the balls of your feet and you will feel your pelvis adjust under you. Once you permit the hip bones to be aligned, your buttock muscles naturally engage so you don’t fall on your face.
The moment the buttock muscles engage you experience their power supporting your torso’s weight, instead of your lower back muscles supporting you. Also, you immediately adjust your attention from experiencing what’s in front of you, to experiencing what’s above you.
Your buttock muscles power you through challenge and pad your bones to rest. From start to finish the buttocks keep you in relationship with your power and vulnerability, keeping you stable and content with whatever unfolds in each passing moment.
In the Tao te Ching it states:
To allow your buttock muscles to support your uprightness by placing your hip bones properly forward you develop strength and evolve beyond survival; if you clench the buttock muscles forcing the pubic bone forward misalignment and rigidity are, not only introduced but, what becomes your familiar go to posture.
As a race we are always evolving: physically, mentally, and emotionally, to align with evolving circumstances and environments. Strength is mastered by realizing the necessity to be fluid, neutral and present. Strength is lived by stretching to the outermost limits of an action, thought, or emotion, so regularly that it becomes second nature to be your whole self.
Wake up your buttock muscles with proper bone placement and you will rewire your core strength!
To relax the tension that blocks your strength, check out this FREE Surrender Tension in 8-minutes video!