Developing Balance and Awareness of the Feet with Somatics

Foundation

Attention to the health and strength of the feet is commonly missing in traditional fitness training. Roberto Melani, specialist in barefoot movement, master trainer, and health and wellness coach, noted in an interview with the author that before he started taking workshops in barefoot movement, “I put shoes on, done. Maybe I get a pedicure. I never thought of fitness in regards to my feet and how that connected to balance training. I did some balance training but it was always a part of something else. It wasn’t focused on just balance training. In my 35-year career of going to the gym every day and teaching, I never heard anyone say, ‘Today I’m going to the gym and I’m going to work on my feet.’ If someone had said that to me, I would have said, ‘Why?’”

The prime reason for attending to the health and wellbeing of the feet is the fact that the feet are the foundation for the body and our bipedal movement. The feet have an intricate structure: there are 26 bones, 33 joints, 12 tendons, 107 ligaments, over 7,000 nerve endings, and thousands of sweat glands in each foot. If the feet are not well, the overall health and quality of life will be affected. Even a relatively small issue such as a hurt toe, a problem with a toe nail, or blisters and calluses has an immediate impact on how we feel as we step and move, not to mention the impact of chronic conditions or foot and ankle injuries and healing from surgeries. “If the foundation of the house is not strong, the whole house is not strong. Your foot is the first part of your body that is in contact with the environment, whether you’re wearing shoes or not. You have to walk to go anywhere. We have a relationship with the ground whether it’s outside in the middle of a beautiful lawn, whether it’s at home or in the gym. Our feet are a gateway of information that comes from the environment up,” Melani noted.

Many shoes, especially high-heeled shoes, have a narrow toebox that cramps the toes. “Every time you’re taking a step and you’re lifting the heel and moving on to the next step, the space of metatarsal heads needs to separate at least five millimeters. If the shoes are so tight, that does not happen. When you put the foot down, there should be a natural release and opening of that space which feels really great,” Melani observed. “Every time you take a step, your foot takes 1.5 times your body weight. If I weigh 100 kilos, every time I take a step, I put 150 kilos on each foot. If I start to jog or run, it can go up to three or four times that. This is a lot of pounding. We have to be very aware,” Melani emphasized. Reflexologist Valerie Voner notes in The Everything Reflexology Book, “The way you walk dictates how the entire body functions. Proper gait allows for good posture and pain-free existence. Many aches and pains in the body can be directly related to the feet.” ²

The surface reacts to our movement. The body reads the impact forces through vibrations, and different surfaces vibrate differently. Cement does not vibrate, but a wooden floor does. “On a wooden floor, if you start to jump, you’ll feel how the surface moves with you a little bit. The surface gives back the vibration and that’s how your body, your nervous system reads the impact forces. The vibrations are absorbed by the foot, the tissue, the bones. Any type of vibration will improve bone density,” Melani added. Shoes that have a lot of foam make it difficult for the nervous system to read the surface of the ground and to send that info back to the body to tell the feet and legs what to do. The foam absorbs the vibration. The growing trend of “minimal shoes” that are pliable and have thin soles is an attempt to provide a more accurate way for the foot to traverse different terrains.

Improving Sensitivity of the Feet and Balance

The ability to take in information about the ground through the soles of the feet should not be taken for granted. Aging affects the entire body, and it also affects the feet. As defined by Tahsin Barış Değer et al, “Balance is the ability to collect sensory and proprioceptive signals related to a person’s position in space and to produce the appropriate motor responses to control body movement. When this ability deteriorates, due to both disease and the normal aging process, the risk of falling increases in the elderly. Balance disorders are one of the most important reasons leading to falls.” ³ Falling can lead to injuries, loss of independence as a mover, as well as disability and death. Balance training is an important aspect of active, healthy aging and should be a deliberate component in our movement practices at any age.

According to Melani, “At the age of 40, we reach the optimum level of sensitivity in our feet. We gather a lot of information about the environment and the ground through the feet. As you place your foot down, you have information about the pressure, the temperature. It will help you with your gait, your balance, and your walking cycle. As we reach the age of 70, we need twice the amount of stimulation to get the same effect. Someone who is 40 has a lot of sensitivity in their feet and someone who is 70 has 50% less.” This loss of sensitivity can cause problems for balance, strength, posture, and alignment. In addition to aging, this impairment of sensitivity in the feet can have other causes such as chemotherapy, neuropathy, and diabetes.

It is possible to increase sensitivity in the feet. Melani suggested being barefoot in a place that feels safe for the feet, such as your home, on a hard surface, preferably a wooden surface. You can start with a shorter amount of time, such as 20 minutes. Reflexology, massage, and foot release techniques also help improve sensitivity. Melani recommended doing a five-point foot release using a tennis ball or a lacrosse ball. On each point, you only need to stay for 30 seconds: 2.5 minutes on one foot, 2.5 minutes on the other. “Just with five minutes of pinpoint pressure foot release there are noticeable changes in balance, strength, mobility, and sensitivity in the feet,” Melani noted. With pinpoint pressure, you apply gentle pressure on a point instead of rolling the foot back and forth. “We don’t recommend rolling because sometimes people roll too hard and the tissue under the feet can get more inflamed than it is already. The person doing it controls the intensity. If it starts to hurt, you pull back,” Melani said.

Point number one is the center of the heel, toward the middle of the heel. Point number two is in the middle of the foot, in the middle of the arches. Point number three is on the ball of the foot. Point number four is on the outside of the foot, and point number five is on the medial arch. This foot release technique creates space in the joints. Compressing and releasing brings in a flush of fresh blood, stimulating circulation. “That’s another issue that happens as we age—we start to decrease what we call our microcirculation in our feet. It’s often forgotten. The microcirculation needs to be active to bring fresh blood, bring nutrients, regulate temperature, and heal any injuries in that area. Plantar flexion, dorsiflexion, and moving the ankles—functions that the muscles of the shin and the calf oversee—create blood circulation and pump the blood into lower extremities,” Melani noted.

To improve balance, it is important to reconnect with the feet by becoming aware of the sensations in the feet. “I’d say 8 out of 10 people are disconnected from their feet,” Melani said. In my somatic movement classes, I show the participants that we can simply stand and observe how and where the body’s weight falls on the feet—toward the toes, the balls of the feet, the heels, and toward the sides. We can rock the body’s weight toward different angles of the foot and notice the sensations and shifts in balance and the muscles of the legs and the torso. In a somatic movement class, we take time to observe these shifts in sensations and thus create awareness of the feet.

Exercises for the feet and ankles improve the sensitivity of the feet and help with balance. “One of the exercises I do with my clients is ‘playing the piano.’ You can do it in a standing or seated position, barefoot. You lift all the 10 toes, you spread the 10 toes wide and then put them down on the floor and feel the tip of each toe connecting to the floor. Do that 5–6 times. Then you lift all the 10 toes and place them on the floor one at a time. Start with the little one, then go to the next toes, as if you were playing the piano. It is not easy to tell just one to go up and then to go down. It takes practice but it really works,” Melani said. Another useful exercise is a “short foot exercise.” “Start in a standing position, barefoot. Start to press down with the tip of your toes for 2-3 seconds, into the floor. The moment you press down, you start to activate the muscles in the feet – you start to create a little dome in the arch. For a lot of people, this exercise will connect all the small nerve muscles that have fallen asleep because we do not use them. That is why it is helpful to walk barefoot – you’re using all the muscles that are in the feet that sustain the feet,” Melani said.

Reflexologist, massage therapist, and sacred dance practitioner and facilitator Tricia Lee noted in an interview with the author that taking care of the feet impacts the functioning of the organs and the health of our digestive system and nervous system. She recommended touching the point under the fleshy ball of the foot midway under the second and the third toe. “It’s the reflex for your solar plexus, which is under the ribcage. That’s the most important point for relaxation and good digestion. If you’ve got tensions there, you don’t digest food well. Poor digestion leads to other more serious illnesses. If you do just one thing for your feet it’s to massage your solar plexus point.” She also recommends massaging the tips of the toes, which releases mental stress.

Another useful movement exercise would be to come onto the balls of the feet and pound down onto the heels. “You can do it with vigor and expand your chest. Coming up on the balls of the feet helps energize the heart and the chest. It’s really good for keeping the heart healthy. Coming down on the heels—we have our large intestine on the heels and getting rid of the waste products, letting go, pounding out what you don’t need, is also really a gift of the feet that we can use regularly. Constipation, sluggish bowel—those simple exercises are good for the heart and the lower body, the bowel. That’s balance for me. That’s part of balancing your holistic physicality as well as the associated emotional connections,” Lee noted.

To develop awareness and sensitivity of the feet, we can be doing an activity or movement where the attention is not specifically on the feet but we move our awareness there. For example, in my somatic strength training and flexibility classes, I often ask the participants, “What do you sense in the feet?” while we are doing a biceps curl, a chest press, or a latissimus dorsi pull-down. Any position and any movement offer a chance to bring our mind’s awareness to the experience of the feet and ankles. This habitual “checking in” with the feet helps us become more aware of the experience and sensations in the feet. Stepping on different surfaces with bare feet, such as the sand, the grass, or a wooden floor, and touching the feet with different objects, such as hot stone or a feather, heighten the sensitivity of the feet as well.

Barefoot Dancing and Somatics

Somatic dance and movement practices offer many opportunities to develop awareness and sensitivity of the feet and increase balance, strength, and flexibility. Somatic dance practices are mostly done barefoot, with the aim of helping the foot maintain its sensitivity. If need be, the participants can wear shoes, such as flexible modern dance shoes or sneakers with more support for the feet.

In Nia dance, a somatic practice where simple choreographic patterns alternate with free dance, there are many ways in which we condition the feet, the ankles, and the legs and bring awareness to the base of the body. To warm up the feet, we do a “squish walk”: we lift the heels and press them down, as if squishing imaginary oranges. In a “duck walk,” the heels stay on the ground: we lift the balls of the feet and the toes of one foot, then the other moving the pelvis to the back. We “rock around the clock” by keeping the feet close to each other, moving the ankles and the knees in circles, and feeling how the weight travels from one area of the foot to another. We use different stances for the feet: closed stance (big toes together, heels apart), open stance (feet parallel, hips width apart), A stance (feet shoulder-width apart), and sumo stance (feet wide to the side).

The foundation established by the feet impacts the kinds of movements that are possible in these positions. For example, with the feet in a closed stance, I can do a spinal rolldown: the head starts to descend, the spine and the torso follow. With the feet in closed stance or open stance, I can put the hands on the thighs, descend with the belly, the chest, and the throat and round the back as I return to the vertical stance. With the legs in sumo stance, I have more movement variety as I bring my torso closer to the ground: I can move the shoulder blades and the ribcage side to side more easily as I descend; I can play with different arm movements and undulate the spine more vigorously; I can decide to keep the head upright and only bend and extend the knees as I come closer to the ground. With the feet in closed stance or open stance, I feel my height and my narrowness. With the feet wide apart and the knees bent, I feel the power of taking up space with the legs and feel grounded through the feet. We use front kicks, back kicks, and sidekicks and travel in circles, lines, and laterally. We change directions and draw different shapes on the ground with the feet.

We can introduce images and act “as if” to see how these imaginary situations bring movement variety. “The feet stick to the mud,” “we walk on the ocean beach; let’s play with the sand and massage the foot into the sand and kick the waves with the feet”; “hot coals”; “we’re walking on stones”; “this is an uneven territory”; “a lot of puddles!”; “the ground is slippery”; “we’re in the forest”; “we play soccer”; “ahh, this is what it feels like to walk on the clouds! All these images bring up different imaginary sensations and invite us to move differently, while maintaining awareness of the feet and the legs. Movement variety is important: It brings a sense of vitality, surprise, and playfulness into our movement experiences and gives a boost to the mood and the cognitive system.

We practice balance while dancing. Leg kicks to the front, side, and back can exercise balance. We stay on one foot and pulse the knee toward the chest, at different angles on the sides or to the back. We can take a long slow step to one side and lift the knee or the long leg up to the side. We can infuse these movements with the energy of tai chi and take time to sense the slow movement of the body weight from one leg to another. In some songs, we lift the long leg to the side and move purposefully like clumsy “tin-men.” In some songs, we practice slow motion or imagine that we are on some territory that we do not know, such as the moon, and imagine that the law of gravity does not apply or applies differently from what we are used to.

With music, through dancing, these movements feel playful. The participants might not even feel like they are exercising. Working on balance becomes fun and seamlessly blends into the rest of the class. Participants always have the option of keeping the leg close to the ground or going close to the wall or a chair to seek for additional help with balance. There is no judgment or need to perform in somatic movement classes. We can let go of any need to attain a particular outward beauty and grace with these movements and explore what it feels like to play with being balanced.

Somatics on the Ground

An important part of a somatic dance class is the time we spend taking the weight of the body off the feet: A part of the experience typically includes coming onto the ground. A JourneyDance session starts on the ground. We are on the back and explore small movements in the joints as well as expansions and contractions of the body—we reach the arms and the legs away from the torso and bring them back toward the center. We roll on the ground and move forward, back, and sideways on our bellies. Coming into a standing position is a gradual process.

Nia practice includes a seated version: you can find online tutorials, classes, and in-person classes where the entire class or a section of the class is done in a seated position. A regular Nia class ends with floorplay—we gradually come onto the ground and explore different movements for the torso and the extremities on the belly, the sides, and the back. We do a “free dance” but without being in a vertical position on the feet. We explore giving our weight to the ground and pushing away from the ground, lifting the arms and the legs into the air, and letting them travel freely in the air.

The movements done on the ground attend to the health and wellbeing of the feet, the ankles, and the legs by giving them a break from having to carry the weight of the body. Moving the legs in different positions, pedaling the feet in the air, extending the legs into different angles, and holding the legs in the air helps with circulation, joint health, and flexibility. Several somatic practices, such as the Feldenkrais Method or Continuum Movement, are done largely on the ground, without coming onto the feet at all, which gives the participants a chance to develop awareness of the body and its various systems in positions that are non-vertical. Most somatic movement classes end with a meditation or a stillness practice where the outer movement ceases and we rest the entire body.

Movement with Foot Injuries

Conditions that affect the feet and the legs, such as Achilles tendonitis, neuropathy, issues with the arches, the bunions, and the toenails, as well as surgeries in the areas of the foot and legs, problems with ankles, numbness, arthritis, and many other conditions, can leave us temporarily or permanently restrained when it comes to being on our feet and moving in space. Foot conditions are a powerful reminder of the importance of a healthy foot, and experiencing them may make us reconsider our life direction. This time of healing might lead us to ask, “Where am I going in my life? Am I going in the right direction? Is this the path for me? Do I need to introduce some changes? How? Is there a detour I need to take, try on a different trajectory, or follow an intuitive calling?” During these times, being creative and open to new movement practices is essential. Certain practices might no longer be possible or might be temporary impossible; however, finding movement practices that continue our connection to an alive and vital body is also important during these times when forward movement is hindered.

As I was recovering from Achilles tendonitis on both feet—a process of nearly two years—any movement on the feet was painful. I had to carefully consider how much time I spend on my feet every day: where to walk, how much to walk, what shoes to wear, and how to put the foot on the ground all became important questions. As a physically active person and a teacher of movement practices myself, this time of limited movement made me re-evaluate many aspects of my life. I had to give up movement methods that I was used to at the gym—kickboxing, step aerobics, and traditional weight training classes. I discovered the practice of Kundalini Yoga, where many sets are done in a seated or kneeling position on the ground. I was “off the feet,” letting my feet rest and heal, and at the same time, I was able to keep developing my awareness of and connection to the body. The practice helped me stay flexible, develop some muscular strength, and calm down my nervous system. This practice also brought with it a more spiritual approach to movement and felt healing. During this time, I found that the movements in Nia and other somatic movement practices were not so strenuous on the legs, which made me feel able to perform the movements. The listening to the mind, the body, and the soul that these classes encouraged felt healing on a holistic level.

This holistic dimension is particularly significant during times of challenge and vulnerability in one’s life. The experience with Achilles tendonitis made me incorporate different self-care methods into my life: after each movement session, I massaged my feet and calves, and I learned how to give myself Reiki healing sessions. I started to teach and write about somatics and health. The foot condition led me to an entirely different chapter of my life.

“Off Balance”

Life-altering experiences, big changes, and deep grief can all “knock us over” and make us lose balance emotionally. Tricia Lee talked about the grief of losing her son: “I was totally bereft and I found myself taking to the earth. I was releasing to the earth. I connected to the ancient funeral tradition of keening where they wailed to the earth. I found that if I surrendered to the earth, the grief could rise up and the day could happen. Listening to the body’s connection to the earth and the power of release that the earth offers as well as trying to rise up and be up here is a part of the balance that we’re given in our human incarnation.” She would be on the ground in child’s pose or on the knees, sometimes curled up. “I just took it to the earth rather than trying to hold myself up,” she noted.

In her work with bereaved women, Lee has observed that during the emotionally difficult times people feel more vulnerable and accidents can happen more easily. “The physical balance is affected by the emotional balance—it’s skewed and it can be a hazard. We can respond to this risk by taking it down to the earth and releasing it.” We intentionally come off the feet and spend more time on the floor. “If we think about how mother earth composts things and turns them into nutrition and food – whatever we give it that might be on our spectrum of experience described as ‘negative’, they get recycled. Mother Earth has the power to take compost, to take the waste, and turn it into new nutrition, to new plants. There is a parallel here with how Mother Earth operates and how we compost our things that we’re struggling with. Things that have hurt us, that are painful, things that we might want to reject.”

Both during the times of heightened challenge and during the times when our life is progressing smoothly, it might be useful to explore the phrase “follow your feet.” Learning how to incorporate improvisation, “non-choreographed” movement into our daily life can open up intuition and add a sense of newness and surprise into our lives, which is important for vitality. ⁴ As Lee mentioned, “Your feet carry you to places that you might not have imagined. A part of that is saying yes to the feet. Saying ‘yes, we will go to the beach rather than the supermarket’ or ‘we will go down on that particular path of the forest.’ Somehow the feet are responding to the earth call and know what your soul needs. The feet give us permission to take a detour. You’re thinking, ‘You know what, I’d rather do this. My feet are calling me to a different experience.’ You get some illumination. You may see something that has a significance that your logical brain didn’t know.”

Conclusion

Ballet and flamenco, hip hop and belly dance, running, and qigong all impact balance and teach us something about our feet. Somatic movement practices help us become more aware of the feet and guide us to notice the sensations in the feet and the legs. “Our bodies are connected from the ground up and from the crown down. There has to be some level of alignment. If something is wrong with my feet, it’ll affect something above my feet. The next level is the knees. Sometimes it goes above the knees to the hip, to the back, to the spine,” Melani noted.

Incorporating moments of ritual for the feet into your day or week promotes health and wellness of the feet and the whole body. A foot bath and/or a massage after a taxing day relieves the stress of the day and prepares us for a restful sleep. They are a soulful way of saying thank you to the feet for helping us move from place to place during the day. A massage for the feet enhances the awareness of touch and helps us feel more connected to the body as a whole. Offering a foot massage to a beloved enhances connection and deepens the bonds of intimacy. These moments of connection to the self and the other by attending to the feet help us practice gratitude for the body. We recognize that being able to move is a gift. They help us see the feet—and the entire body—as sacred.

As a conclusion, I offer a “blessing for the feet” by Tricia Lee. A blessing or a good wish for the feet before or after movement, at the beginning or the end of the day, is one way to stay connected to our base, the foundation of our body, the environment in which we live, and the earth itself, not only in our movement practices but also in our thoughts.