Practicing and growing my sacred animal awareness is my questor’s passion these days. Today I took it to the gym.

I tried the treadmill for the second time in my life today. I could feel my body itching for mountain pose (the sturdy grounded initial yoga pose), wanting to elongate vertically, to achieve ideal posture and balance. Yearning toward mountain posture while walking vigorously evolved into a moving adaptation of the pose. And this turned out to be one of the keys to the pleasure and power I found marching that treadmill. Mindfulness was the other key, allowing me to feel/detect what I needed, naturally, like an animal. Instead of ‘analyzing’ while trying to be ‘doing’, which always screws things up for me, not giving my animal self – my sacred animal self – her due.

As my spine gently elongated vertically, my belly muscle drew in just a touch, and my lower back braced itself a whisper. My toes were spreading and massaging the bottom insides of my shoes as I settled into as purely an animal mindset as I could. I just wanted to feel out what my body wanted to do. And quite immediately I found myself striding in neutral spine. It felt like a physical coming home. What a wonderful effortless balance. My attention was on striding/gliding forward, but at the best moments it felt like an almost floating gait. Yes, there were continual split-second intervals in which I had to minutely and sometimes not so minutely adjust my speed to stay in sync with the machine. I could feel myself in a cycle of achieving and enjoying for awhile, then slightly losing, then regaining the mountain posture. I experienced more and more the best ‘floating’ moments as my body found and settled into its jauntiest stride.

This became my focus for the entire session, maintaining neutral spine and keeping in sync with the machine. To start, I’d been holding on tightly to the bars (which you’re supposed to hold onto at first, when you are new at this). I discovered that in neutral spine, I could let my hands rest very lightly. Despite this slightly-assisted stance because I was touching the rails, I became quickly confident in my balance. I read that the standard approach is to walk without holding on. I think now that I probably could have let go easily today; it just never occurred to me. Plus I was having fun closing my eyes and engaging as much as possible in a meditation during this first exploration of the treadmill. My next post on this topic will tell about what it was like to more fully settle into a meditative state while treadmilling.

My favorite part of the whole thing was that with the stride I used today, it was not as if my butt and thigh muscles were ‘being worked by’ the machine, as if the machine were moving my body. Instead it felt like my legs were moving the treadmill, like my hips were giving themselves and my lower back a gentle constant fluid delicious-feeling massage. Oh my. I can’t recommend enough mountain stance awareness and incorporation. Neutral spine gave me a full, utterly pleasurable workout and massage. Oh my.

My boyfriend said I look sexy walking that thing. My posture, its jauntiness, gently-flexed buttocks and rolling hips. (I’d been suffering with gibbled hips for so long, trying to ignore the pain and stiffness, in denial, hoping it’d all just go away). Neutral spine involves chest forward and out as a natural part of it. Chest out, abdomen/core stable/immobile, hips rotating smoothly, buttocks flexing, legs striding, toes spreading and feet massaging. The experience just feels sexy. So find your mountain stride. Adjust till it feels sexy to walk it. Then speed it up, staying with the mountain attitude. And enjoy.