How about truly knowing your pelvic floor?

Have you ever been puffing along in a yoga or fitness class when the teacher calls out that if something “isn’t working for you” to “just listen to your body” and “modify”?

What do you do with that? Do you listen to your body, heed what she’s saying and make intelligent, intuitive choices about how to move your body in that moment? Even if those choices look vastly different from what the teacher or anyone else in class is doing?

Yeah me neither. 

(But if you do, I bow. Seriously.)

Or rather…I used to be a “me neither.” That’s shifting. I want that for you too.

This all came up for me BIG TIME last week when I attended a fitness class for the first time in years. I’ve been in touch with the owner about teaching there and she invited me to a class to experience the studio. It’s a gorgeous studio with an energetic, intelligent and experienced owner. And oh dear lord I swear every single one of those classes had Bounce! or Jump! or (oh FFS!) Trampoline in the title. 

Even though I teach women, through movement, how they can reduce symptoms of incontinence and assorted core and pelvic issues, I personally haven’t achieved a state of no-leakage-ever. I’m still my own best client. Since my abdominal surgery I’ve experienced leakage in a way I never did, even after three births. Consequently I haven’t exercised in any big bouncy ways for years. It’s as though gradually and imperceptibly I started curtailing those activities. Not trusting my body to make it through a class without an embarrassing event. It’s an unfortunate 

But on the other hand I’ve been doing a lot of work on all the parts that make up a healthy, functioning pelvic floor and core: pelvis and spine mobility, back of leg strength and length, ribcage breathing, foot and ankle strength and mobility. And - underlying all these physical pieces - growing an awareness of my body’s yes’s and no’s, knowing what’s a boundary in my body and how to edge up to it with curiosity but not blow past it. 

So I decided to take these skills and this awareness on the road and try out…The Trampoline Class.

And wow, it was so fun! A damn good, sweaty, gorgeous workout in a beautiful space with an energizing teacher.  

It wasn’t only the workout itself that felt great, it was that I was able to participate consciously in creating a challenging and sustainable class for myself. I paid attention to my breath (always a big one) and went in with an awareness of what kinds of moves tend to make me release a bit. However, I didn’t set a goal of Not Leaking. Because if I did leak, I didn’t want to create a situation where a bit of leakage could feel like the whole venture was a failure.

Instead I set a goal of exploration and curiosity. What movements felt okay? What brought me to my edge? Could I stay there? How could I modify to make a movement feel safe but not buried so deep in my comfort zone that I never explored what I might be capable of? 

I also gave myself true permission to make my own choices. Even when they looked “less than” the movements the instructor or other participants were making. (These choices are never less than, but man, sometimes they look and feel like it. That’s why this piece right here - the self-trust to make and stick to your own choices - is more important than any others.)

Knowing what I know about me and my pelvic floor these are some of the modifications I was able to bring to my experience of the class:  bouncing on two feet often became a light jog; my crunches looked like a lot of holding and tiny pulses; sprints started off at a slightly faster jog and built up slowly; and my weights were 2 lbs. when I noticed most women had 5-10’s. 

To be in a fitness class surrounded by people who seem to be in no need of modification and a teacher who understandably cannot create a different modification for every body and every circumstance in her class…this is where you need to be able to rely on yourself. To trust your relationship with your body. To hear her when she says, “that’s not working for me” and having the tools and the self-assurance to say, “okay, I got ya, I know what we can do here instead.” 

Then doing it. 

Because let’s face it, it’s not easy to decide you’re going to take it at quarter speed, no weights and maybe even at the wall instead of the floor. Because it looks “less than.” And unfortunately keeping up appearances is often more important than our bodily integrity and autonomy. 

Yes, we do this. It sucks and still we do it. Sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. We allow factors outside of our.own.selves. tell us how to live in our bodies, instead of trusting our own knowing. (We all get that I’m not just talking about whether we use 2 pounders or 8’s anymore, right?)

Knowing, listening to and choosing for your body is not easy in a culture that relentlessly slams us with the message that we can’t and don’t know our bodies. That we need authorities, programs and products and purchases to tell us how to look and how to live. But it is an act of deep integrity and, yes, resistance to do so.

Am I trying to put myself out of business or what? Maybe. But I think I’m heading in a different direction. I am a teacher and I do have programs. And what I offer in those programs is tools for you to listen to and heed your own body. It’s taken me guidance and community to unlearn, learn and relearn my edges, how to approach them, nudge past them. Understand my yes’s and my no’s. Teachers and guides are vital on this journey. They certainly are on mine, yet also vital is how to become my own. 

Developing deep body knowledge is, of course, not just for fitness classes and leakage concerns. This is about how you exist in your body, all day, everyday. It’s about how you can spend time practicing tools and multiple pathways to movement so when you need them, they kick in reflexively. Whether that’s playing pickup basketball with your kids and neighbors, carrying the extra bag of groceries to avoid the second trip, or helping your friend move a couch.