The instruction to scoop or lengthen one's tailbone is a very common, if not ubiquitous, instruction in yoga classes. Mountain pose: tail down. Tree pose: tail down. Warrior: tail down. This same basic cue holds true even if you change your spatial orientation: if you lie on your belly, you are told to lengthen your tail back towards the heels; if you are upside down, you are told to lengthen the tail up towards the ceiling; the list goes on. While I do not disagree with this instruction fundamentally, my personal experience and observation have led me to conclude that, more often than not, it does not work as intended.
I think the instruction generally intends to activate the practitioner's core and provide him/her with much needed support against the combination of gravity (compression) and movement (tension). After all, practicing yoga asanas is core training because it asks us to find our core line (or integrity if you will) in different orientations with gravity. That core stability line, or Deep Front Line in the language of Tom Myers' Anatomy Trains, is our myofascial axial core, which also supports the organ body, or viscera. It's the line that asks us to connect with the internal surfaces of the body and initiate from there. More on this in a moment.
The instruction to scoop one's tail bone is problematic on a number of levels. If what I said in the previous paragraph is true, then our core line can also be seen as our 'lift' line: the intricate chain that lifts us out of the force of gravity, which works 24/7. So, we work to keep the arches lifted, we activate the inner thighs and lift them up towards the core of the pelvis, we lift the pelvic floor, we lift the low belly, we reach up through the crown of the head... This begs the question: why, then, would you want to scoop or draw your tail down? Moreover, this instruction leads most of us to initiate from the back surface of the sacral/tail area, the surface that can be felt under the skin and which has no connection to our core line of support. On a deeper level, doesn't scooping your tailbone whiff of fear? But I'll leave that to someone else to explore...
Further, the instruction to scoop the tail or draw it towards the heels (or worse, draw it down and forward), more often than not, leads to a number of unintended consequences some which are: an over-tucked (and therefore unbalanced) pelvis, thigh bones that push forward into the hip sockets, and a taxed/flattened low back. Further, very enthusiastic tail scooping can lead to a gripping rectus abdominis (your six-pack), which will then have no choice but the pull your abdominal organs forward and down, taking your ribcage down in the process. In essence, tail-scooping becomes an accessory to gravity's mission of pulling you down.
Going even deeper, the core line of the body is the line of the inner surfaces. Various connections in this line create a web of amazing support among key inner walls and surfaces in the body: pelvic (pubic, sit, and ilium) bones, the tail, the sacrum, the spine, the navel, the sternum, and the throat. So, for example, the front surface of the spine is its inner surface, the surface that faces your organs; the inner surface of the sternum is the surface that faces inward towards your heart and lungs. From that point of view, the inner surface of your tail is that surface that looks forward into your pelvic floor and towards the inner surface of your pubic bones. Fun, right? Do you feel like a (yellow) submarine on a fascinating adventure deep below the surface level?
Jokes aside, I have found it more helpful of engaging my core by thinking of creating a lift from the inner surface of the tail bone (the base of the spine) all the way up the whole frontal surface of the spine. This has kept me from the unintended consequences of tail scooping mentioned above and has allowed me to feel the connection between seemingly disparate parts of my body such as the inner surface of my navel and my breastbone and the inner surface of my low back. In short, it has allowed me to feel (in) my center. For that, I needed to go beyond the superficial downward pull of the top surface of the tailbone. Have fun with up front in the back and I would love to hear about your experience!
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