Prana Machine

The big and important thing!

Added 2021-04-01 21:04:36 +0000 UTC

Here's the big important thing I shot the other day! I had actually set up to shoot this and ended up also making some vibey shapes that I published yesterday for Rib Flare+:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/49453134

I definitely consider all of 2020 a pretty big set-back. The turmoils that came with feeling so stuck meant stagnation in my work, my healing, and ability to organize my thoughts and photos to tell my story in the most succinct and empowering way.

But HERE IT IS! Prana's Postural Journey. The one thing that will offer me real relief from chronic pain in the wake of scoliosis and joint hyper-mobility (connective tissue disease maybe TBD). I've waited a long time to be able to "occupy" these healthy postures in order to make the pics. Soon I will be deleting the above words, making this post public, and linking all of this in my bio! YO, don't miss my updates on the bottom as I will be deleting those too.

I went through 4 major postural changes over the course of two years, starting at the end of 2018. Each change took a lot of time, energy, patience, and devotion to my bio-mechanical and neuromuscular health. I didn't have a plan or outlook for the most part during this process-- each postural change revealed the next step. Making these changes has halted my degenerative disc disease and will save my life by helping me combat chronic pain from nerve compression, and find contentment and purpose during my time here!

First came the Pelvis/Sacral Spine (image 2). I fixed my posterior pelvic tilt by rotating my tailbone back and out. I had realized that the back edge of my shoulder blades were several inches farther back than the back edge of my butt, giving me a swayback posture. My hip flexors were incredibly loose and weak and my low back muscles, hamstrings, and certain glutes were very tight and tense to compensate for lack of stability in my hips. I spent 6 months correcting these muscle engagement patterns and "sticking out my butt." I wrote "untuck" in black sharpie on my arms and practiced a lot of mindful, meditative walking that was uncomfortable at first but eventually became more familiar as my pelvis got used to the anterior tilt.

Second came the Lumbar Spine (image 3). Once I anteriorly tilted my pelvis, I noticed a huge curve in my back. Instead of my core muscles holding the frontline of my body into a strong, straight, synched unit, my weak core from swayback posture was unable to keep my ribs down and I continued to "lean back," and now with a "duck butt" which caused my weak L-spine to arch into hyper-lumbar-lordosis, also known as military back or as I like to call it, bad bitch back. I spent a solid year (and will continue evermore!) fixing this rib flare issue and working on my inner abdominals. I learned to breathe into my belly instead of my chest and to move with a straight spine instead of letting it snake around as I moved. This one took a bunch of careful, repetitive physical therapy exercises that I still do every day to maintain a healthy core. I also had to incrementally release specific parts of my back muscles that had to bear the brunt of holding up my torso lest I fall all the back and snap in half. For a long time, most of my back did not touch the surface when laying on my back. The day I felt myself supported, cradled by the ground for the first time in my life was a big moment for me. Fixing this has already contributed greatly to decreasing my nerve pain, although it will be a long time before I can stand and move with a synched core without having to think about it.

Third came the Thoracic Spine! (image 4) All of my big changes overlapped since they were so revealing of the next step. I also got uncomfortable with the new positions if I didn't start "fixing the next step" as soon as I was able. It was very overwhelming at times! Halfway through the year of correcting my hyper lumbar lordosis by fixing my rib flare and training my core, my neck and shoulders were really crowded and uncomfortable. Pulling my ribs down to align my upper torso with my bottom torso essentially just angled my entire non-flexible T-spine downwards. My shoulder and neck angled down with it, revealing hyper-thoracic-kyphosis (hyper=too much, thoracic=upper spine, kyphosis=bending outwards), or hunchback posture. I had to open up my chest muscles, fix my rounded shoulders and winged scapulas, while also training my T-spine to open up and twist. It will be a long and productive journey to practice bending and rotating continuously throughout my whole spine instead of isolating all of this movement in my low back.

Finally came the Cervical Spine (image 5). This process of fixing my forward head position (aka cervical nod) is intimately connected to corrections in my T-spine and shoulders, but has proven to be the hardest change to make in terms of time, energy, and how debilitating the pain can be from repositioning these joints. With my T-spine correctly aligned with the rest of my spine, my neck was at a 45 degree angle to where it needed to be. My postural abnormalities hid each other and I was able to get away with them for a long time, which means my body had a lot of time to get used to and injured from these positions. I'm fixing my neck with a lot of gentle physical therapy and bodywork while slowly building correct muscle memory, but the changes in cervical fluid and musculature in my C-spine gives me cervicogenic headaches that put me on my ass, so I have to move slow. I have been working on my C-spine for all of 2020 until now and have been making steady progress, which is highly encouraging!

New me! Sweet Relief (Image 6) Once I was able to access this "final form," everything came together for me in my body. I "grew" a couple inches. Every posture seemed to snap into place and I have slowly begun to feel like a strong unit for the first time in my life. A feeling that I didn't know was possible before. I wasn't aware that everyone gets to lay their entire backs on the ground, and twist and move while feeling stable and grounded. I was dealt a bad hand with hyper-mobility and double-curvature scoliosis, but I'm doing what I can with it and will make the changes needed to re-claim my body and improve my experience. I still have a lot of work to do making sure these new positions are healthy, comfortable, and familiar enough to became a default way of existing and moving. I'm so grateful for self portraiture to help me document and express my experience and I appreciate you being along for the ride!

Other images:

a few illustrations of common spinal deformities... I have journeyed through not just one but almost all of them! With a predisposition for hyper-mobility, this means I have to pay a lot of mindful attention to posture cues and how I am positioned since I don't yet have the muscle memory to lean on. Photos are a great help!
spinal curvatures: Lumbar and Cervical spine segments curve inwards, referred to as "lordosis." Sacral and Thoracic spine segments curve outwards, referred to as "kyphosis." These curves add spring and flexibility to your spine to avoid injury, sort of like a strong-yet-flexible tree. It's when this shit gets fucked up over long periods of time that can lead to joint degeneration and chronic pain. Repetitive stress injury is a beast.
some of my personal imaging to show part of my scoliosis. For some reason I can't find a full-body x-ray, but this low-back curve presents the other direction in my T-spine, to create a backwards "S." I am right on the edge of needing corrective bracing or surgery (the latter of which would be a death sentence anyways). There is nothing I can do for this but maintain a healthy spine. Scoliosis (and subconsciously avoiding little muscle pains from it) is what I think has greatly contributed to my bad posture starting from when I was very young. I also included some MRI imaging of my tired vertebral discs and their deterioration.
image #14 is actually one of the first self portraits I ever took of myself (late 2018). I had a powerful realization hit me in the middle of the night about my posture and got up and took this with my little point and shoot! This is where I noticed the swayback that started it all.

I'm really excited to finally capture and share this with you! I'm going to be publishing a couple more informative posts as well and will link them here when I'm ready. This is such a big facet of my art (really the whole thing), so I want to be as informative as possible. I definitely had to wait until I was sure I was doing the right things.... and now that I am I can cash in on a lot of my own affirmations and use the energy to symbiotically power my art. Woo!