Core Stability for You and Your Dog
Core Stability for You and Your Dog
Stability
It’s essential to feel stable during PetMassage. During the massage session, you must radiate stability. When you are off-balance, or can be easily pushed off-center by dogs you cannot be modeling the stability of leadership. And that can happen during sessions when dogs paw at you, nudge you with their head, or lean into you. When you feel more secure and confident – because you are stable – so will your dog. And, it’s really all about the dog.
Centered Awareness
Centered Awareness means you are Aware of Center. You are consciously working from the center of your being. Your core.
Vertical Center
Begin by focusing on your vertical center.
Assume the Wu chi position, standing with your legs and feet as you would to begin tai chi. Lengthen your spine. Reach downward with you’re your sacrum. Reach upward with your head. Breathe. Stretch.
Project your presence up to the stars, and down to the hot, magnetic center of the earth. That’s a very long spiritual projection!
Medial Center
Now for more stability, bring your center of gravity medial, toward your midline.
Focus on the medial sides of your feet and drop into them. Take a few steps with your weight over your medial arches and big toes. This is body language communication that dogs understand. Dogs recognize stability. It coincides with confidence and leadership.
Body Mind Spirit Love
Center all aspects of your being: body, mind and spirit.
Identify and move from your horizontal center: the area just below and behind the navel. It has many names, depending on your culture: Solar plexus/Hara/Third chakra/Dan tien. It’s the Core we work in Pilates and yoga.
The core is the source of your power. Not just physical power; it’s the source of your resiliency; your emotional, spiritual, residual, and stored power. It is karmic. It’s your Akashic connection.
I recognize that these are all spiritual concepts. In my world, massage works as much on the spiritual as the physical. Spirit is the substrate that holds and allows physical movement. And, spirit is PURE LOVE.
Breathe into your core. Hold it in your awareness. As you inhale, feel it expand and radiate within your body. Exhale and feel it flow out.
Working From Core
Stay aware of the power in your core while standing, reaching, moving, breathing, projecting intention. Experience the pleasure of owning the power. Experience the pleasure of sharing the love.
This is the loving support your dog needs to feel strong and stable in her uncertain world. When you work from your centered awareness – you feel everything in your hands shift, radiate, and rebalance. Your very presence is empowering and helps dogs on so many levels.
In the video I demonstrate the centering I described on myself and also on a dog. Of course, they have doggie Dan Tiens, haras, and cores, too. They just don’t have belly buttons to reference their locations.
Learn, from my perspective, that of a canine body worker, about energetic transition points, the Limbic System, and how to help dogs deal with fear, anxiety, and more. It is a fun video. I hope you enjoy it.
This is one of over 30 short videos on our YouTube channel:
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Invitation
I welcome you – encourage you – to learn PetMassage for dogs in person. I teach workshops several times a year at the PetMassage School in Toledo, Ohio. Please visit our website. Learn how you can learn canine massage and manifest your spiritual/physical journey helping dogs with massage.