ABSTRACT In this article, which is a chapter excerpted from Your Body Mandala (2018), Mary Bond explores the nature of the human spine, the evolutionary journey that led to the various movements capable by the spine, and the variability of shape observed within individual spines. Bond describes the sacrum clock movement exercise and how to visualize accessing the movement of the coccyx.

Editor’s Note: What follows are introductory passages from Chapter Eight of Mary Bond’s new book, Your Body Mandala: Posture as a Path to Presence (Mill City Press). The book will be available in July on Amazon and through Bond’s website, healyourposture.com. At the point in the book that this chapter appears, themes of fascial connectivity and intelligence, biotensegrity, and interoception have already been introduced. Online audio and video files link the reader to Mary’s recorded presentations of the somatic meditations. The book is intended more for the general public than for professionals, yet the rich somatic exercises will benefit any of us as well as our clients.

Ida Rolf’s pelvic lift is familiar to all Structural Integration (SI) practitioners as a primary integrative tool of our work. This article will discuss the history and purpose of this intervention and explore some alternative ways of teaching it for client self-help.