Are You Flight Ready?

Categories: Blog Jul 17, 2016

And now, a guest post by OS Instructor, Sarah Young.......

 

 

"Flying by the seat of your pants precedes crashing by the seat of your pants." -Coach Bill Walsh

Have you ever experienced 'flying by the seat of your pants'? If you have, then you know sometimes you get lucky and you 'fly'. And it's awesome! Other times, luck just isn't enough, and... *boom*... *crash*. And crashing kinda sucks. But what if you could remain in a constant state of 'flight readiness'? What if you could take the brakes off and become pretty much 'crash proof'? What if you could simply soar at a moment's notice? What if you could truly carpe your diems and embrace your fullest potential? Would you?

Early aviators (think: Orville and Wilbur Wright) knew all too well what 'flying by the seat of your pants' was like. They knew the joy of flight and far too many knew the suckiness of crashing. In fact, the term 'flying by the seat of your pants' has its origins in early flight. Without today's high tech instruments early aviators relied on their senses. How the wind felt against their skin. How their backsides felt in their seats (i.e. 'seat of their pants'). And by what they could see and hear.

Flying this way worked pretty well as long as conditions were perfect. And perfect conditions meant clear blue skies and daylight so a pilot's eyes could lock on the horizon. But if a pilot lost sight of the horizon due to clouds or darkness, it generally didn't end well. Because in the air, without a clear visual of the horizon for orientation, a pilot's other senses could be easily tricked about their plane's position in space. A plane could yaw and pitch and roll in ways a pilot could very easily misread and wrongly respond to. Now sometimes a pilot could pull out of the resulting graveyard spiral or spin, but most of the time that was not the case. They would quite literally crash by the 'seat of their pants'.

Then in 1914, in Paris, a really smart guy by the name of Lawrence Sperry introduced his 'stabilisateur gyroscopique' to the world of flight. This gyroscope based instrument allowed for Sperry and his flight partner to walk out on the wings of their plane in mid-flight. Witnesses to this event were stunned. They watched as a plane flew along perfectly without a pilot at the controls. It was incredible! Sperry's device was essentially the first 'autopilot' instrument and it paved the way for modern air travel. Today pilots no longer need absolute perfect conditions of blue skies and daylight for safe and successful flights. Pilots just need to learn how to use these tools (become instrument-rated) and ensure the tools are properly maintained and calibrated to avoid 'crashing by the seat of their pants'.

Now what does all this aviation, gyroscope, auto-pilot business have to do with you and your ability to carpe the heck out of your diems? The connection lies in how you are designed. Because you are awesomely designed to be 'flight ready'. All. The. Time. We all are. We are not meant to be grounded always waiting for absolute perfect conditions to appear before we attempt 'flight'. We were not born to crash and burn. We were born to fly. To soar.To realize our fullest potential. Sound crazy? Please hear me out.

To start with, each of us as a part of our awesome human design, has our own powerful 'stabilisateur gyroscopique'. It is our vestibular system. One important part of our vestibular system is our vestibular apparatus. We have two. One inside of each ear. These vestibular apparatii each have three semicircular canals laid out along three axes. They detect motion: yaw; rotation around the Z axis (think: nodding head 'no'), pitch; rotation around the Y axis (think: nodding 'yes'), and roll; rotation around the X axis (think: ear to shoulder). They also interpret gravity and acceleration/deceleration. Your vestibular apparatii are essentially mini-gyroscopes that allow you to know where your head is in space. And knowing where your head is at goes a long way in becoming more crash proof.

These 'mini-gyroscopes' wire into our vestibular system. So do three of our five senses (sight, hearing, touch). And our vestibular system wires into our muscles. The wiring that connects it all is our nervous system. This precision design of our vestibular system is pretty miraculous. It allows our bodies to interact with and respond to our environment. Our vestibular system is our sensory motor interface. It is our autopilot that keeps us on course. Keeps us balanced. And the more efficiently our vestibular system can process the sensory information it gets from our bodies, and the faster it can relay the information to our muscles, the more fluidly and joyfully we can move through life. Our vestibular system makes it possible for us to walk, run, skip, dance, play, learn, and explore life to the fullest.

If we didn't have this amazing autopilot feature as a part of our design, we'd be left to always 'fly by the seat of our pants'. 'Perfect conditions' would mean walking with the assistance of a cane or a walker. Balance and dynamic posture would be close to impossible. Our movement would be anything but fluid and graceful. We'd move with hesitancy and uncertainty. Most likely fearfully too. And we would crash. A lot. We'd spend most of our lives grounded with the brakes on. Making it hard to carpe our diems.

But we are designed with an impressive navigational system. It offers us the promise of 'flight' and the ability to soar. All we have to do is take care of it and maximize our capacity to use it. I once asked my friend, Julie, who is very smart and a pilot, "Would a pilot fly a plane if the mountings that connect the navigational tools were loose? Would a pilot fly a plane if they knew the flight instruments weren't properly calibrated? Would a pilot fly a plane if the instrument wiring was frayed?" Her response was a big fat, "No! They would crash!"

Unfortunately many of us attempt move through life with our 'stabilisateur gyroscopiques' set on wonky. The mini-gyroscopes in our heads aren't on a stable mount (our bodies). We've forgotten how to keep our navigational instruments, our vestibular systems, properly calibrated and maintained. As a result, we stop moving according to our design. We compensate. We get clumsy. Simple activities like getting down on and up off the floor often become stiff and awkward. Even painful. As a result we move less, which dulls our vestibular system even more, which leads to losing more of our freedom to move. Flight becomes a distant memory. We blame age. We become set on a crash prone trajectory. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Because each of us has the potential to re-calibrate our autopilot system and shore up its mounting. Each of us has the potential to begin repairing our 'loose wires'. How? Through movement. Yes, movement. Movement holds the promise of hope, healing, and restoration. And some of the best movements for getting our vestibular systems operating optimally are same movements we did as babies.

As babies we honed our navigational systems in preparation for getting up on our own two feet so we could explore the world. We laid the groundwork for vibrant vestibular systems by doing what babies do. Breathing with our diaphragms, learning to control our heads, rolling around on the ground, rocking, and crawling. In Original Strength we call these movements, 'Resets'. When we practice these movements we call it 'Pressing Reset'. And by doing so we can begin to restore our Original Operating System. And our 'stabilisateur gyroscopique' is a crucial component of our Original Operating System. It's an integral part of our Original Strength. Now let's look at each of these 'resets' and some of the ways each one can help our vestibular systems function at the highest level. Because the more your vestibular system is online and firing on all circuits, the greater your capacity for full on 'flight readiness'. All. The. Time.

Diaphragmatic Breathing: Babies are masters of breathing with their diaphragms. And breathing this way does a couple of amazing things. One, it helps to keep us in a parasympathetic (rest, digest, chill) state which our nervous systems, our 'wiring', really appreciates. And two, our diaphragms work with our transverse abdominii, pelvic floors, and other muscles to create a reflexively strong center. In Original Strength terms, diaphragmatic breathing starts 'tying us' together. It lays the foundation for a stable mount for your vestibular system.

Head Nods (Head Control): When babies learn to control their heads it's a big deal. A really BIG deal!! After all, baby's big melon head weighs about 1/3 of his total body weight. Now do the math. Babies are crazy strong. When baby learns to control his head it's not just his neck doing the work. Baby's vestibular system lives in his head and wires into every muscle of his body. So when he moves his head (turning, lifting, nodding) to see what's going on he is helping his vestibular system come online more fully. And as his vestibular system wires into all the muscles of the body it starts connecting into his postural muscles. Here's an of example, if baby is on his back and he lifts his head, his abdominals start to fire in order to help him lift and hold his head up. And here's another, if baby is in tummy time and lifts his head his back muscles come online to help him lift and hold his head up. Baby is building on the reflexively strong center he began developing with diaphragmatic breathing and at the same time he's calibrating his vestibular system. He's nourishing his brain, his nervous system, his whole body. He's beginning to 'tie' his body together into an amazing functional unit. He's giving his vestibular system a more secure mount.

Rolling: When a baby rolls she doesn't rely on her arms and legs alone. Her arms and legs aren't really online enough to help out that much. But her vestibular system is. And baby rolls because she wants to get somewhere. She sees or hears something, then moves her head (vestibular), and gets her body to follow. Rolling gives her vestibular system even more data than head nods alone. And this data helps the vestibular system to be more precise. Also baby's skin is full of touch receptors and her joints, muscles, and tendons have receptors called proprioceptors. These proprioceptors really start coming online when baby rolls. And proprioceptors can be thought of as the body's GPS system telling the nervous system, and the vestibular system, where the body is in space. The vestibular system processes this information so the body can respond. A properly calibrated GPS system goes a long way in having a functional navigational system. And to become more 'crash proof' it helps to know where your head and the rest of your body are in relation to objects. It helps with spatial relationships. Rolling also ties the body together for a more solid mount and further nourishes our 'wiring'.

Rocking: When baby gets his torso off the ground and supports himself on his hands and knees he starts shoring up his foundation for his auto-pilot even more. He's learning more about how his body works with gravity. He's learning how his hips and shoulders are designed to work. When he starts rocking he both stimulates his vestibular system and his GPS system (proprioception) in new ways. All of this helps him to develop and strengthen his 'stabilisateur gyroscopique' more fully.

Crawling (Contralateral Movements): When baby starts crawling she really starts tying herself together on a whole new level. Crawling pretty much super-strengthens all the connections she started building with diaphragmatic breathing, head nods, rolling, and rocking. As she crawls her right shoulder is learning to work with her left hip and her left shoulder is learning to work with her right hip. The muscles in her torso, shoulders, and hips are becoming stronger and figuring out how to work together. And her GPS system is getting even more precise in its calibration as the proprioceptors in her joints are firing with each crawling step she takes. This is baby's first experiment with gait and it helps pave the way for walking, running, skipping, and more. She's building a reflexively strong foundation and strengthening the connections for her internal 'stabilisateur gyroscopique' to be fully functional. As she crawls she's taking in information as she moves her head around to see her world. Her vestibular system uses this information about her world so she can move through her world. She's learning to find her bearings. The bandwidth of her 'wiring' expands and her processing speed becomes faster. She's becoming more and more 'flight ready'. Eventually she will be up on two feet and begin walking. And yes, she will fall on her bum in the process. But each time she'll learn more about her inner 'auto pilot' and use that information to fine tune her abilities to navigate in her world. It's simply awesome!

The developmental movements we went through as babies are what allowed us to become more fully who we are. They helped us take the brakes off and more fully embrace our glorious potential. These movements are also what can help us re-calibrate and maintain our 'auto pilots' at anytime and at any age. But often our lifestyles get in the way. We sit too much and stare at screens too much. We stop moving in all the wonderous ways we did as kids. We stop rolling. We stop rocking. We stop playfully exploring our world with a sense of wonder and awe. We lose the ability to control our heads or know where our bodies are in space. As a result, we become less and less prepared to navigate through our days. We start to resemble crash test dummies.

But please know that it doesn't have to be that way. Each of us can reclaim our resilience and reconnect with our souls desire to soar. We can greet life, each day, in a 'flight ready' state. All it takes is the willingness to embrace the promise of hope and healing that movement offers. So, ask yourself, "Am I ready to fly?" Because if you are, each and every one of us at Original Strength are here to help however we can. At OS we have all kinds of variations of resets to meet you right where you're at so you can be 'wheels up'. And Original Strength has plenty of free videos on YouTube, lots of blogs, a book, a DVD, certified OS coaches, and workshops to help you learn how to 'Press Reset' and fully prepare for flight.

So c'mon... what are you waiting for... let's fly!!
***According to my friend, Chip, Coach Bill Walsh is considered one of the great NFL coaches. And Chip knows football. I don't. So I trust Chip's judgement. Coach Walsh led the San Francisco 49ers to three Super Bowl championships and was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame. He was nicknamed "The Genius" for his cerebral approach to the game and his strategies. He was the Father of the West Coast Style of Offense. He was not a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kind of guy. He believed in being prepared.

 

 

 

 

Sarah Young, M.S., has spent over 20+ years working with people’s bodies. Her ongoing goal has been to help people move better and feel better. To further this goal, she continues to learn and expand her knowledge of the body. On the recommendation of a friend, Sarah attended her first “Original Strength” workshop. She quickly realized the beauty of the movements and simplicity of power inherent in the OS System and began utilizing the resets with her clients: golfers, runners, walkers, rock climbers, clients coming back from hip replacements, clients with back issues, etc. And her clients, while they may have thought Sarah was a bit nuts with “all the crawling and breathing” stuff at first, have been happily amazed at how much the OS resets help them move better and feel better. Sarah believes that OS offers individuals very accessible tools so they can “Press reset” and experience hope thru movement. That’s why she is thrilled to be an Original Strength Instructor. 


Along with being an Original Strength Instructor. Sarah is also nationally certified in massage and bodywork, certified as a ChiRunning & ChiWalking Instructor, and certified as a Titleist Performance Institute Level 1 practitioner. Sarah continues to expand her knowledge of anatomy and movement and is currently studying Neurokinetic Therapy and Functional Movement Systems. She also holds a Masters in Exercise Science and a graduate certificate in Complementary Medicine and Wellness.

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