When you begin to learn about the Center of Gravity or COG whether you are standing or sitting, you will learn how many small movements contribute to your COG and how they awaken the spine and your feet as the foundations for your COG.

You learn:

• how to sit properly on your sit bones vs. slouching and how this affects your posture both sitting and standing. If you slouch when you sit, you will most likely slouch when you stand. This means learning to keep the belly button pulled in, shoulders square, a long spine and open chest (no slouched shoulders or shuffling when walking).
• the importance of eye and head movement to sound balance. Most people do not “think” about how eye and head movement affect the body’s everyday functioning. This is especially critical as we age.
• the relevance of sensing your ankle, arch, heel pad, the ball of your foot, and be able to differentiate and move the five toes, which many people never think of doing.

Because the feet are the Foundation for the COG, weight shifting – both standing and dynamic (walking, running, cross training, etc), and learning to work your heels and toes together are paramount to healthy gait and balance. This applies whether one is aging, recovering from an injury/surgery or extended time off of the feet due to illness.

Understanding this leads to the comprehension of how these individual systems tie into “proprioception” or knowing where your body is in space. The sensors engaged by this proprioception are in each joint, the bottoms of the footpads, the visual and vestibular (inner ear) system as well as touch. For example, proprioception not only helps with daily direction-finding, but also is essential to becoming a beautifully expressive dancer or gymnast, successful professional golfer, or runner.

Together these sensors help to provide information about the environment that we see daily and that the muscles are engaging in judging the height of a step, the distance to the rail or ball, the depth of the curb, or the placement of the foot as a turn or a yoga stance is executed.

Learning to stretch and strengthen these muscles, their respective systems and their correlating movements on the non-compliant surface of an Original SANDDUNE™ makes it easier to do on solid ground. Why is it easier? You are not trying to balance your body on the ground as you do on the mirror resisting exercise produced by the Original SANDDUNE™.  Referenced from Miriam Tate’s findings and class development.