Spinal column and torso from  bencuevas.com/knit-skeleton
As archived on Facebook for Anatomy in Motion

I recently joined forces to help with a short presentation to parents about the Waldorf school 8th grade anatomy study. My son’s teacher is a seasoned educator and has taught many subjects over his tenure as a Waldorf teacher. But this was just a 40 minute coffee hour chat so I added in a couple of practical exercises and answered a few questions about range of motion and spoke about transference of forces from the different regions of the vertebral column. Mr. Wright though, blew me away with his illustration on the chalk board of a foot, sole to the sky, and illustrating how the ankle joint is a lever with the pivot point, a fulcrum, in the center of the 3 intersecting arches of the foot through the tarsals beneath the medial malleolus of the tibia. He used that image because in 7th grade he had them working with simple machines and thestudents fully understood all the aspects of levers.

So I sat there pondering the mechanical forces at play in our body noticing the ease and fluidity our bodies maintain in most areas despite the injuries and compromises we have because of our primarily sedentary lifestyles with devices always at our fingertips. And I was and am thankful because I’ve been given this gift of helping others regain some of the fluidity and ease that is natural to us through movement and rest. It’s always so lovely for me to gain another layer of understanding of why Zero Balancing works. In this case, the way I nestle my fingers into the multitude of joints on the feet can help that fulcrum point soften as if I were applying grease onto the lever, through the ligaments and tendons getting gently stretched and/or compressed so that excess tension is released. When the ankle joint moves more freely then the pressure on the knee can lessen and a cascade of relaxing and re-balancing occurs through the adjacent tissues and joints. Thus we have Zero Balancing! It is physics and the body’s own magnificent healing potential at it’s best.