Interoception, Proprioception & The Feet: Cultivating Inner and Outer Awareness in Yoga with the Foot Mapping Exercise
Interoception, Proprioception & The Feet: Cultivating Inner and Outer Awareness in Yoga with the Foot Mapping Exercise
1. Exploring Proprioception and Interoception: In modern terms, we characterize external and internal awareness as proprioception and interoception. Proprioception encompasses the body's physical coordination and skill in traversing space—that is moving through space without stubbing your toe, or simply the ability to close your eyes and touch your nose. In contrast, interoception refers to the body's capacity to perceive its inner landscape, such as the heartbeat, breath, or subtler sensations like muscle tension or the feeling of security and sustainability in a posture. However, the value of interoception often remains underestimated since it unfolds within our internal realm, ie. Its hard to perceive. Yet, it's through interoception that we gauge whether our postures are executed with the right blend of support and surrender— the Sthira and Sukha or Patanjali’s maxim. Without interoception yoga is a just another exercise, but with it your yoga practice becomes an inward journey.
2. Interoception is Rare: While activities like sports and dance offer ample opportunities to enhance varying degrees of proprioception in our daily lives, we seldom find the same avenues to cultivate interoception. Often, we are not educated on how to attune ourselves to our internal environment. This training combines dynamic internal and external awareness techniques. Our approach to postures restructures the musculoskeletal pathways of movement, fostering more fluidity and refined proprioception. Simultaneously, it nurtures interoception by refocusing our awareness to the sensation of movement itself, both within and without. This mirrors the essence of Shiva Nataraj—moving gracefully through life with inward focus. This is the essence of the yogic tradition and the core of ShambhavAnanda Yoga.
3. Feeling is Healing: Over the past three decades, numerous studies have demonstrated that nurturing inner awareness in external situations leads to greater healing, reduced pain, and an overall sense of well-being. For instance, in 2008, pain scientist Lorimer Moseley conducted a study involving patients with hand-related pain. One group was allowed to engage in distractions during treatment, while the other group was required to stay present and focus on their sensations during the treatment. The latter group, practicing interoceptive awareness, displayed better therapeutic outcomes and reported lower levels of pain. The beauty of interoception and the yogic concept of being present is that they are intuitive—participants merely needed to 'feel' the experience as it unfolded.
4. Proprioception Itself May Relieve Pain: In a separate study it was shown that low back pain was directly related to an individuals ability to feel their low back, ie. Decreased levels of feeling led to increased pain. This might seem contradictory, as we might associate a lack of feeling with numbness and therefore a lack of pain, but this is not the case. When you can’t feel your low back, you are more prone to not be able to notice when it is not being supported, a lack of feeling is a path towards eventual injury. But when you can feel you can support, and through support comes healing. This is why Abhaya often teaches in class, “Feeling is Healing”. This is a sentiment that takes time to understand, but the basis behind it is simple, as the yogic tradition teaches, the state of being, vitality, and health (known as Sat) are inherent aspects of our true nature. Our body is strong, intelligent, flexible and beautiful— we just have to learn how to move with it, not against, as Paul Reps teaches.
7. Surrendering the Role of the “Doer”
In our asana practice, the primary hurdle to interoception lies not in the postures or our physical limitations/samskaras, but typically within our own sense of agency—the inclination to be a 'doer.' Our attention is easily captured by external markers of success, such as prolonging a posture or achieving greater flexibility, causing us to overlook the authentic healing power of simply being in a pose, as our body feels best supported, and enjoying the sensations available when we are present to that experience. Sri ShambhavAnanda elaborates on encountering and surrendering the role of the doer in his movement practice: “When I am working out and I am trying to attain a goal, if I get too caught up in the goal, I know that I am not working out correctly. Therefore I focus on the present. I focus on what I am doing right now, and I try to do it correctly…Keeping your attention on what you are doing strengthens you in a way that will give you relief from the debilitating feelings that overcome you now and again….If you focus on your true nature things will get better.” Letting go of attachment to external goals and redirecting our focus inward empowers us to experience genuine strength and relief. This transformation initiates in our asana practice and extends deep into our lives.
1. Grounding through our Feet
The gateway to this level of feeling in the body may in fact be the feet. Every movement team we will study in this training, such as the deep front line, superficial front line, the back line, spiral line, lateral line all pass through the feet. If you want to feel your body, you start by feeling your feet. The feet carry a profound spiritual significance, serving as our conduit to the Earth and, on a subtler level, our gateway to the present moment. This concept is beautifully illustrated in a Paul Reps picture poem where two feet are accompanied by the words "now, now." When we focus our awareness on our feet, we not only enhance functional movement throughout our entire body, allowing for better walking and fluid motion in all situations, but we also tap into a deep sense of grounded presence. The feet not only tether us to the Earth but also connect us to our very essence.
2. Intricate Design
The feet are a marvel of intricate design, a masterpiece of physiology. While the hips consist of three substantial bones (the two ilium and the sacrum) and the legs of three (Femur, Tibia, Fibula), the feet boast an astounding twenty-six bones, accompanied by over a hundred muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Beyond this remarkable structural complexity lies an equally astonishing capacity for sensation. The entire sole of the foot is a network of nerve-rich connective tissue known as the plantar fascia. Additionally, the ankle is surrounded from all angles by a densely packed layer of highly sensitive tissue, known as the Retinaculum. This tissue allows us to perform complex activities like walking or running on uneven terrain with exceptional accuracy. While this tissue was once merely considered a sheath for holding the ankle's tendons in place, a 2010 study redefined its role. The study conclusively demonstrated that this specialized fascial thickening around the ankle serves as a "proprioceptive specialization within the fascia of the leg to better sense the movement of the foot and ankle joint." It acts as a rapid data processor, guiding the swift, coordinated movements of our knees and hips as we navigate uneven surfaces. Our time barefoot on the mat is a time to turn these high speed processors back on! And it really is as simple as ‘pressing a button’, as we’ll see in the upcoming foot mapping exercise— the take away here is that our feet are the highest tech shoes on the planet, if we are willing to put in the time to start feeling them again.
Mobile Foundations
The feet form our foundation, but not one akin to the unyielding cement base beneath a building. Instead, our feet provide a flexible, adaptable base that helps us establish a 'ground' on any type of surface. Regrettably, though, the true nature of this foundation often eludes us as it remains shrouded by shoes that have concealed it for much of our lives. Our shoes have cushioned and protected our feet from below and on all sides. Additionally, the terrain beneath our feet has been artificially leveled, stripping away the stimuli that once kept our feet awake and responsive. Imagine if your hands were covered in thick gloves day in and day out, and the objects you held were uniformly flat. Eventually, you'd expect your hands to lose sensitivity and adaptability. The same phenomenon occurs with our feet. One could postulate that reduced stimulation results in decreased circulation—less enters and less exits—leading to an overall numbing sensation while paradoxically rendering them hypersensitive (walking on gravelly surfaces hurts while feeling numb). Through your yoga practice, your feet can reawaken and reclaim their remarkable sensory awareness. No need to discard your shoes or walk over hot coals (although you might enjoy walking over smooth stones or other uneven surfaces); the process begins by using your standing postures to rouse your feet's intrinsic awareness.
Slip Off Your Shoes
Throughout history, yoga has advocated for the removal of shoes before entering sacred spaces like temples or stepping onto the practice mat. This tradition automatically grants us a valuable opportunity to connect with our feet. Interestingly, for many students, their time on the yoga mat could be the sole instance in their day when they unshackle their feet from shoes in public. Within the yoga class setting, our feet are predominantly engaged through our stances, and each stance offers a unique path for integrating our feet into our overall body alignment. While our bodies may appear motionless during these stances, they are far from rigid. In the following section, we will explore how each stance demands movement, sensitivity, and surrender to authentically discover and maintain.
Exercise: Foot Mapping
Prior to delving into foot-focused work, it's beneficial to allocate time solely for feeling and mapping our feet to awaken their awareness. Laden with connective tissue in the form of the plantar fascia and encased by a robust fascial band around the ankle, the feet possess impressive processing power. As previously cited in the 2010 study, our feet are covered in high speed sensors that process an intricate array of information, relaying signals to the body above and the muscles within to maintain balance and stability. Through gentle touch, light pressure, and mindful observation of our feet's terrain, we activate these sensors. A gentle touch is all it takes, and the data begins to flow, unveiling that our awareness is the key—both neurologically and philosophically—to unlock our inner potential.
Detailed Exercise: Foot Mapping for Grounding and Body Awareness
Begin by sitting cross-legged or in a chair, ensuring you are comfortable and relaxed.
Lift one foot gently, allowing the sole of the foot to be accessible for your touch.
Use your fingers to gently brush across the sole of the foot, initiating subtle sensations. Pay attention to how the fingertips feel against the foot's skin and the sensations that arise. Experiment with different amounts of pressure and observe how it affects your experience.
Focus on the toes and gently squeeze each knuckle of every toe. Take note of the soft padding and the points where the three bone segments of each toe meet (except the big toe, which has two segments).
Place your thumbs on the inner and outer balls of the foot. Start squeezing the transverse arch from the big toe to the pinky toe, covering all the spaces in between. Try to feel the structure of each metatarsal bone.
Move your attention to the inside and outside of the foot, the medial and lateral arches. Feel their shapes and textures. Are there any tender areas? Experiment with different levels of pressure.
Shift your focus to the calcaneus, or heel bone. Notice the fat pad that cushions it on the underside and compare it to the back of the heel where the Achilles tendon connects.
Wrap your hands around the ankle and give it a few gentle squeezes. Then, while still holding the ankle, rotate the foot in circles. Feel the muscles beneath your fingertips as the foot moves.
Conclude by sliding your fingers between the toes, getting as close to the knuckles as comfortable. Explore pointing, flexing, and circling the foot using this gentle touch.
Stand up and take a moment to notice any differences between the two sides. Walk around your space or perform a few forward folds to observe how the foot awareness impacts your movement.
Repeat the entire exercise with the other foot.
Summary & Reflection:
Interoception, the awareness of internal sensations, is central to the practice of yoga, fostering holistic well-being and conscious, embodied awareness. Contrasted with proprioception, which deals with external movement, its significance is often undervalued. However, quality peer reviewed studies reveal that a focus on interoception, like the practice of "Intero-surfing," enhances our ability to heal as well as increases overall well being across many different spectrums. Embracing the practice of interoception, which aligns with ancient teachings from Patanjali, challenges individuals to release the role of the "doer" and delve deeper into their innate bodily sensations, promoting a more genuine connection throughout their yoga journey.
How often do you find yourself attuned to the sensations of your body and inner landscape during your yoga practice? Can you recall a specific instance where focusing on interoception, or the internal sensations of your body, shifted your experience or understanding of a posture? How might integrating the practice of "Intero-surfing" into your routine enhance your overall connection to your body, and how do you think it could influence your approach to both yoga and everyday movement?
The feet serve as a profound spiritual connection to the Earth and are foundational in our ability to ‘step into the present moment’. With an intricate design comprising twenty-six bones, over a hundred muscles, tendons, and ligaments, and a nerve-rich connective tissue known as the plantar fascia, they offer unmatched precision in movement and sensation. However, modern footwear and artificially leveled terrains have numbed our feet, reducing their sensitivity. Through practices like yoga, especially because it is done barefoot, individuals can rekindle this sensory awareness, allowing their feet to guide their overall body alignment and as well as harness their mind into the present moment. An exercise in foot mapping further accentuates this awareness, promoting a deeper understanding and appreciation of the foot's complex design and function.
What is the significance of the feet in yoga practice and how does the concept of the feet as a gateway to the "now" resonate with you? How have shoes and leveled terrain affected the sensitivity and responsiveness of your feet? How did the Foot Mapping exercise influence your overall body awareness?