Click on NOTE CATEGORIES to browse by topic, read through the entire archives, or type a topic in the search box.In which Katy Bowman tells Stephanie Domet why Diastasis Recti is the perfect title for this book, despite what some contest judges may think.
OVERVIEW
00:00:39 - Looking forward to New Zealand. Jump to section
00:01:19 - What is a Movement Matters Retreat? Jump to section
00:07:53 - Diastasis Recti - Complete? Jump to section
00:09:52 - Should the book have a different title? Jump to section
00:16:26 - “Think” - Corrective Exercises are not the solution. Jump to section
00:22:42 - Sitting, Sucking in, and Outsourcing. Jump to section
00:27:17 - Diastasis Recti on the Movement Matters/Alignment Matters Spectrum. Jump to section
00:31:11 - Resistant to Change or Resistant to Movement? Jump to section
00:35:54 - Drop Your Ribs. Jump to section
00:38:41 - Let’s Move! Jump to section
00:42:31 - What Katy wants the people of New Zealand to know. Jump to section
LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Music
STEPHANIE: Well hey there. Welcome to the Katy Says podcast. This is the seventh in a series of special episodes that we call Between the Lines: where Katy Bowman and Stephanie Domet explore the deeper messages in, and connections between Katy's books.
KATY: I'm Katy Bowman, biomechanist and author of Move Your DNA.
STEPHANIE: And I am Stephanie Domet, a chronically curious writer and radio journalist. Katy, you will soon be taking off for New Zealand.
KATY: I think New Zealand proper. I think the wilderness of New Zealand, the people of New Zealand, getting to know the food of New Zealand, just like a regular traveler. Just to go and see what happens. We're going without a plan, or a minimal plan anyway. So it's kind of exciting.
STEPHANIE: That's great. And it's already been a busy month for you. Here we are, end of September when this podcast comes out. You have the Ancestral Health Symposium in Seattle, a couple of library visits around Washington State, your first Movement Matters retreat.
KATY: Movement Matters Retreat - you know, I had a social media break and I'm trying to figure - I'm always trying to change the way that I do my work so that it aligns more with my work and when I discover areas that can use tweaking, I tweak. So I'm trying to figure out, you know, I started working with individuals and then small groups, and then large groups, you know, kind of scaled to 2 million podcast episodes downloaded, right? So congratulations for that milestone.
STEPHANIE: Back pats all around.
KATY: Yes, but I'm trying to scale back the other way because there's just qualities of what I teach that are communicated in smaller direct formats. So I'm trying to do more of the vitamin community, I guess, in my work. Helping create communities of other people who are doing this kind of thing in their local areas. But also just to connect more with people directly. Movement Matters retreats - and so I've always taught, I've always led movement workshops, but they've always been of the Alignment Matters nature.
STEPHANIE: Right.
KATY: So how do we have Movement Matters Workshops? And I thought well, we've talked about this a little bit before. It's the idea that part of your work is non-exercise work. Right? Where we're doing work for some greater good besides our own personal physical health benefit. At the same time honoring that we need these correctives to transition to be just overall more competent movers in nature, right? Movement Matters really explicitly defines nature as something that we need. It actually says all these other movements we've been doing over here in Alignment Matters? Those are actually elements of nature that we've been tinkering with them, kind of in the laboratory of the indoor, climate controlled, you know, non-nature, or highly fabricated equipment type things so we're trying to move away from that. So, putting all those things together, we have Movement Matters retreats which are 2 day events that blend exercise classes with labor on some sort of farm or space where that labor that you're doing is creating, in this case, it was at Finn River Organic Farm and Cidery, so we are tending apple trees. Apple harvesting. There's also a lot of seed research going on and Salmon research. So participating in those research projects a little bit with our physical labor. Helping do some of the labor that these farms require and then partaking in the process, even a tiny bit, as much as we can in a few hours, of the process. So we learn about how cider is made, and that includes sampling it, of course, right?
STEPHANIE: Obviously.
KATY: Duh. And you're with a small group of 30 people. So there's the community. You're outside. You're walking over the farm so you've got this texture - there's barefoot experiences. And so it's just kind of like putting all those things together on day one. Participating in some sort of system. Becoming more informed about what we pay as an end user and the cost, like what we're actually valuing an hour of labor at...
STEPHANIE: Right.
KATY: ... and then the second day is another element of movement that's not teased out tremendously in Move Your DNA but will in the next book which is like, we'll say, "Oh walking or natural walking, is, unshod or minimally shod, over natural terrain and you have to have grade, uphill and downhill... etc." Another element is that long distance is a thing.
STEPHANIE: Mm-hmm
KATY: There's a different skill set required, there's different parts of your body used. More parts of your body is used. Not only your body parts of the body are used more, there are more parts of your bodies used when you have to go over 20 miles than when you go 5 or 8. So that's the big physical feat. It's, It's, I'm there, as well as our staff, to kind of teach people how to become long distance walkers. And you get to actually accomplish that in a heavily supported environment in your community. And that's day 2. So that's a Movement Matters Retreat. Putting all that together.
STEPHANIE: It's fantastic bucket list type stuff.
KATY: Yes. Yes. And it's a, it's like the first non-fitness movement retreat, right?
STEPHANIE: Yeah.
KATY: In our circles where I'm trying to create is to educate. It's to educate about our food systems or our, any of the labor systems that we participate in daily. To educate, to help you embody some of that labor. And of course, there's going to be more of different types. You can pick what you're interested in. Like we've got a lot of different ones planned of different food types or non-food labor types. And I imagine someone's gonna be like, "I love this I buy this all the time but I never even knew what went into it and now I'm more knowledgeable about this thing that I consume daily." And of course, we imagine it being fun and joyous and indulgent at a certain level that you carved that much time out for yourself that you're in this space. So yeah. That's what's going on. And we're going to New Zealand for two months.
STEPHANIE: Mm-hmm.
KATY: I'm unsure. We've got a plan of what my regular work schedule can be. I know that I have to work. But I don't know what the infrastructure of another country is, you know, plus travel. So I tried to pack as much work into September. I feel like I ended up doing two months worth of work in 30 days. Because I was like well, I don't know. I have all these things that have to be done that I'm moving around in these months and I'll just do them all right now. So yeah, I'm looking forward to actually a long plane right to just sit there. I'm looking forward to that.
STEPHANIE: I bet! Hey listen, about the Movement Matters retreat, do I have to have read the book to fully benefit from attending one of these?
KATY: Oh no. No. I mean, it's nice because we're kind of talking about the ideas in it but it's not something that you have to, it's something that you learn just by doing. Right?
STEPHANIE: Right.
KATY: Again, do we need any books to learn this stuff in the books. Or all books just hold the things that are the truth of the world that you experience just by being out in it. So absolutely not required.
STEPHANIE: Of course, here at Between the Lines reading the book is what we do. We always recommend reading the book just because it's a good experience.
KATY: Well we're book nerds.
STEPHANIE: We are.
KATY: We're gonna be like, "why wouldn't you read the book?"
STEPHANIE: How helpful we are!
KATY: And we understand that.
A book that you described as "complete" during our lightning round word association quiz back in our very first episode. And now that you're not under the pressure of that lightning round, will you say a little bit more about Diastasis Recti. How would you describe this book?
KATY: Complete. That's interesting that I blurted this. I wonder if... so, the complete comes from, I think that was a lightening "pun". Complete meaning intact of the abdomen, of this part of the abdomen. And then out of all of the exercise books that I've done, the exercise type books, Diastasis Recti is the most robust in defining the problem and in offering graduated steps; you know, like level one, level two, level three, lifestyle one, lifestyle two, lifestyle three. It's just really robust. And it is my, it's my core strength book. It's got the name Diastasis Recti on it but it is my core strength book. I don't think I would write another book about the trunk. One, I don't really like to pull out various body parts, but I recognize that those are, if you recall from our earlier conversations, they're keyholes for people. There are people who will come to an idea simply because they have a local manifestation of a symptom of sedentarism. So Diastasis Recti is that it's a book, again, it's an every body book. If you were going to build a library of movements to do, it would just go there next to Move Your DNA and Whole Body Barefoot as being another set of movements that the body, that nourishes the body in a particular way. That kind of completes the movement diet, if you will. It's for everyone.
KATY: Yeah. And I think of a funny story. Books get submitted for book awards and you're picked, as you know.
STEPHANIE: Yes.
KATY: And Diastasis Recti was submitted to Health and Fitness in one particular award. And you get the feedback. So part of the submission for the awards is you get expert feedback on, you know, cover design and content, or whatever they're feeding back on. And some of the feedback on Diastasis Recti was: this is a really helpful, great book. It has all these things to do for the trunk and anyone could benefit. Like the exercises are so step-wise, what I call a graduating... The program starts at such a basic level so it could be for goldeners, it could be for people who are injured, it could be for all this stuff. So, therefore, I'm marking it down because it has a title of Diastasis Recti when it could have been a book for everyone. It could have just been a core strength book.
STEPHANIE: Right.
KATY: Which I found interesting feedback because, well, I mean, they're talking from "we know books and what... how you could have sold more books." And they didn't even know ... they were like, "What a strange title. This is the worst title." And I was like, not if you have a diagnosis of diastasis recti it's not.
STEPHANIE: And you're googling it!
KATY: It is the only book, at least at the time I was writing it. And it's the only layperson book that actually says, "Here's what you could be doing for the thing." Like, to me, you know, when you make something so so general, the person with diastasis recti, and this is a problem I run into in my work over and over again, if you have diastasis recti you do not think that you need a general core strength book. You need a book that talks to your situation. If you have plantar fasciitis, you want the book with plantar fasciitis in the title.
STEPHANIE: Mm-hmm.
KATY: We are so trained to think that we need a specific set of understandings for the thing that we have that this idea that I'm introducing which is like, well what if many of these things are just symptoms of the same thing which is sedentarism.
STEPHANIE: Yeah.
KATY: So it's kind of like dehydration will manifest in twelve different ways but in the end, the book says drink more water. Or drink this many cups of water. Which is an analogy I write about in the front of one of my books in the forward of it. So this is the one time I decided not to do that and put Diastasis Recti on the cover because it's such a prevalent issue. It's becoming more normalized meaning at this point, because of a change of definitions, everyone's really like, any separation, there's a lot of people who think that any separation, you know, even if you're pregnant and things are stretching out and your two halves of your rectus abdominis or the two rectus abdominis are moving away from each other, there's no amount of normalcy - it's becoming to the point where everyone, especially if they go through a pregnancy, will hear this term put upon them. So to me, I wrote a book for this group of people who is searching for information specific to them and feeling like none of it pertains. Whereas anyone who wants a core strength book, there's a million of those.
STEPHANIE: Right.
KATY: I can't speak to their effectiveness but there are a ton of them. But there are not to this group of mostly women who have this issue and, again, I think are underserved, often. I thought it was interesting the perspective was "this book is great but it's a terrible name." Like not evaluating it's actually the perfect name for the audience I wrote it for.
STEPHANIE: Right.
KATY: So yeah, that's a little behind the scenes of what it's like to be in publishing.
STEPHANIE: So do you have moments when you think you should have called that book something like "Junk in Your Trunk"? Or "You have an abdomen, here's how to better use it"?
KATY: No but there are times when I consider publishing a second book with a different cover and writing a different forward and selling that exact same book to people who would never get it because they don't have diastasis recti. I'm like, is that what I need to do? Do I need to, because I've already done the labor of writing the book, simply publish the same book under 5 different titles to sell 5 times more copies? Or really, my intention is not to sell books, but to reach, get that information to that many more people. Is it just that simple?
STEPHANIE: I mean, maybe?
KATY: Yeah. But wouldn't that be totally weird? Wouldn't that be weird to say "I'm gonna rewrite that book but here's the thing..."
STEPHANIE: I'm just gonna repackage that sucker.
KATY: Yeah. Almost like changing the subtitles of a movie to make it translatable to a different office. To me, that would be, like you don't do that in publishing. But we might be the new stage in publishing going, no, you just change the cover, you change a few key terms, and there you go. You've got a general core strength book.
STEPHANIE: Which seems like a niche core strength book if you're not, if you don't open the cover.
KATY: Exactly.
STEPHANIE: Yep.
KATY: That's more what I think about. It's never should I change another title it's like, "Could I do that?" That to me would be cheating. It would be cheating. But...
STEPHANIE: Yeah.
KATY: I imagine someday all of my books, they all have whole body in the title. There's a section of books on whole body where they get released as a single set. Where it is like the whole body...yes, the whole body box.
STEPHANIE: I love it!
KATY: [00:15:38] The whole body box. You know, and they're all the same size. And maybe they're wrapped in a gold box. Kind of like my Little House on the Prairie series. Or my Trixie Belden books where you're like, you just work through all of this. You need all these exercises. But anyway, that's the question that keeps me awake at night.
STEPHANIE: I mean, I don't have a diastasis recti but I do have an abdomen and I really dig this book. I found a lot in it for me.
KATY: If you have a trunk, this book is for you.
STEPHANIE: Diastasis Recti has this in common with Don't Just Sit There and probably with some of your other books as well; They both start with a section called "Think".
KATY: I think a broad stroke on my work is that corrective exercises aren't a solution. Because I think that there is this idea that to fix a physical ailment you just do some physical exercises on it until it fixes. Kind of like if you have a broken arm you put a cast on it and then the body itself does the work of healing; that the exercises are like a cast and the body itself does its own work for healing. Which I agree with in both cases. The difference is, in the case of a broken arm, there was a trauma that you were like, "Oh, when I got hit by a bat, that broke my arm." And that's an experience that we have so that's where that example comes from. Whereas in a lot of the other ailments where we are trying to use corrective exercises cast, what we're not aware of is, the bat that broke our arm is not usually the thing that we think it is. And so the bat's not gonna likely come back and hit your arm again. So thus, that cast, that temporary thing that you did, works. For a lot of people doing corrective exercises, they need them indefinitely because the bat that's hitting them all the time is their life. Their lifestyle. Their sedentarism.
STEPHANIE: Uh-huh.
KATY: So that's the first thing that I want to put right out there is; these are not really going to work ... like one of the reasons you have to keep doing the corrective exercises or the thing keeps manifesting or the issue keeps manifesting over and over again is you didn't change your life. You did not take the bat out. You keep whacking the bat on your body part and you don't know it yet because everyone's whacking the bat in the same way around you. Hashtag #whackthebat
STEPHANIE: (whispers) Movement Matters That was a role reversal that time.
KATY: It's gonna happen. It has to grow. It's like it naturally follows. The whisper naturally follows a hashtag.
STEPHANIE: No, I'm picking up what you're laying down, girl.
KATY: If not, it just becomes a battle of hashtag and then we're right there at an SNL skit.
STEPHANIE: Hashtag #agreed.
KATY: Exactly (whispers) see what I mean.
STEPHANIE: (laughs) All right. Where were we? We were repeatedly whacking our body parts with a bat.
KATY: Yes. And so that's the piece that I want to get out there is that we have to think bigger than we are missing three or four muscle strengths. It's like you are missing three or four habits in your life, components of your life, parts of your house, that keep you in this cycle. And I don't mind that people need to exercise over and over and over again. That doesn't bother me. The reason I'm trying to address that is when you work with enough people over a long enough period of time, what you recognize is there's a desperation that begins to mount. When you are taking the advised steps and things don't get better, because you've been told that the advised steps are the solution. And then what happens is when they don't work or you find yourself, "it's back again", that it then becomes this kind of cycle of, oh it's just, there's a victimization to your experience. There's a desperation that casts a hue on everything you want to do with your body. And then, I've seen it over and over again, there becomes a fear of movement. And I actually think that this phase, this cycle that I'm talking about informs the next generation about how their bodies are supposed to work. And then you have a next group of people who aren't moving because they already know that these things are inevitable to them. And then we have these narratives about the long history of ailments handed down from generation to generation within our family. And then sometimes that's reinforced by this idea that you have the genetics for it. So I'm just trying to go, let's change the entire system here. Is exercise something that humans need? No. It's something that humans in a particular culture will use to spot nourish. And let's talk about what we understand about nourishment. Is it something we need to do one time or do we nourish ourselves regularly through the day? Yes. Now let's talk about buying supplements in all these bottles and where they're manufactured and harvesting here. Is this something you can get from your diet that you just don't know how to eat in a particular way? And so, therefore, you're having to buy them over here? I'm just trying to get to the root of it to offer a different paradigm and to make the paradigm as robust as possible. So that's what I'm opening. That's why I'm opening the book with "Think". And think is just a different... we use the word think and then we use the word move. But I would interject that thinking is just movement for your mind.
STEPHANIE: Right.
KATY: [00:21:34] That your mind has to move first so that your body can move more fully. So I can put mind movement and then I could put body movement. I could change that if you want. I could even go change it on the books that I've already written. But I think that that is my intention by putting those two sections apart. Because I think if you jump to move and you don't do the think part you won't get to the root of it. You could make those hours you invest in movement so much more effective, I think, by having a broader perspective.
KATY: Well it's interesting that that was your takeaway of that piece. So my intention with that piece is, when you sit, sitting is a scenario that we put ourselves in that requires outsourcing.
STEPHANIE: Uh huh.
KATY: When you're fully using a chair, the chair does the work for you. It's not to say when you're sitting you shouldn't be using your abdominal muscles. It means that, why would your abdominals be tensing if there's the back of the chair right there to do the work. That the natural response to being in a chair is to allow the chair to do the work.
STEPHANIE: Right. Ok.
KATY: Which is a different statement than, if you're sitting in a chair you shouldn't be engaging your abdominal muscles. Because engaging your abdominal muscles in a chair is really my recommendation. Right? It's like you need to sit differently to stop outsourcing so much to your chair if you're going to be sitting still.
STEPHANIE: Okay.
KATY: Continuing...not sitting in place.
STEPHANIE: In an ongoing way.
KATY: Correct. Thank you.
STEPHANIE: Okay.
KATY: So that's different than your particular take away. Although it's the...this is what makes writing so challenging is because we hear it as we hear it. So now to your second point though which was, so I'm like, right now, I'm processing how you heard it. So you heard it as we've all been told that we're supposed to have good posture in a chair.
STEPHANIE: Yeah.
KATY: So like if I'm sitting in a chair, holding my stomach in, that that's wrong. Because why would you be doing that when the chair's right here.
STEPHANIE: It's doing the work. It's what it's there for.
KATY: Yes. So this whole thing is fascinating right now.
STEPHANIE: I guess I conflated these two ideas. Right? About sucking in your gut or outsourcing your movement to the chair...
KATY: So my overall recommendation is get rid of the chair so this conversation is moot. But we're in a chair. We're in a chair. So what am I supposed to be doing in a chair. So in Diastasis Recti the first thing is sit differently. Stop outsourcing to the back of your chair. Now I would say that outsourcing the work to a chair is a different issue than sucking in your stomach while you're in a chair. Like one way to work more... if you're gonna be in a chair, you need to figure out a way to work more while you're in the chair. Or you don't. But I would say that's my, if you're asking how to move more it would be, outsource less. Which means scooch your back away from the chair.
STEPHANIE: Right.
KATY: Now you're on the front of the chair.
STEPHANIE: And now your abs are gonna do something.
KATY: Now you're torso, if you imagine like a beam going straight up, it's going to tend to fall front to back to right to left and all degrees in between. Now your core must feel stressed to take more responsibility for that. Which is different than sucking in your stomach. To your point of why we're sucking in our stomachs all the time, we need to not do that. Yes. Absolutely. And that's a key part of Diastasis Recti which is there is a difference between allowing your torso to work and sucking your stomach in. So we've kind of conflated this idea that I need more core strength which requires more trunk musculature contraction, so, therefore, I will just tense everything and now I'm working my trunk all the time. So Diastasis Recti really separates between those two ideas. Which is you need an active trunk but bracing, abdominal bracing, or sucking in your stomach is not the same thing as having a responsive core to the fact that your torso is falling forward, back, right, left, and all the degrees in between, when it's upright.
STEPHANIE: Okay.
KATY: I know. It's technical. Hashtag #technical. I whispered the hashtag. What are you going to do about it?
STEPHANIE: I don't know. I feel like we're evolving to the next level with the whispering of the hashtags. I'm not sure I can totally keep up.
KATY: Well, we'll see how it goes.
STEPHANIE: So where does this book land in the spectrum that we always come back to: the Alignment Matters - Movement Matters spectrum? There's a subsection in this book called Alignment Matters.
KATY:It's kind of both. I mean I think all of the whole body series, right? So all of the little books, so Alignment Matters and Movement Matters kind of fall outside of the whole body series. The whole body series is Move Your DNA, Whole Body Barefoot ... they all have whole body in the title. Those are books that really say here are the correctives, Alignment Matters, and here is a larger look at the issue: the non-moving lifestyle around it. And that's Movement Matters. You will also see a lot of the exercises, very similar to Dynamic Aging, are more like, and because it's often more times prevalent ... I don't even know if it's more prevalent in women ... but I don't know if a man going in for like a hernia, would even be checked for that. I think to be even checked for a diastasis recti - it's not like a standard checking. Many people could have it. We don't even know.
STEPHANIE: Because we have this idea that this just happens to pregnant people.
KATY: Exactly and that's not. It's both genders. It's children. It's nulliparous women. Nulliparous means...
STEPHANIE: Having not borne a child.
KATY: Correct.
STEPHANIE: (whispers) Yes. Got one!
KATY: Nice to have a big fancy word.
STEPHANIE: Right?
KATY: I think so.
STEPHANIE: I do too.
KATY: So you'll see a lot of correctives relate to carrying things. Like here's how to put more non-exercise work in. How to think about moving when you're not exercising. That's what's Movement Matters about all of the books. Anytime we step outside of that "here's your twelve exercises. Here's the program. The end" we're talking more about non-exercise movement. And non-exercise movement is what's really what's hallmark too about Movement Matters is that we have got to start discussing more than exercise or people are never going to move more than an hour a day, which is sedentarism. I don't care how many exercises you stuff in that hour or even two hours. We are still sedentary. And if none of that exercise or movement that we do is to serve non-exercise purposes, then we're completely outsourcing. So I'm always talking more to like steer people towards ... away from sedentarism and away from outsourcing which are two different goals.
STEPHANIE: Yeah. You write: "If the physical outcome of your body isn't working for your life then it's the life that has to change to get your body working." I want to just hang out with that idea for a sec. Because this is basically your thesis over and over in every book. It's always in there. It's simple. It's profound. And frankly, it's a little terrifying.
KATY: You feel terrified? I'm sorry.
STEPHANIE: I mean, you know, people often are, I am, resistant to change.
KATY: Yeah.
STEPHANIE: And so that's the profundity of what you're saying. And it's as you've been saying, if you keep hitting yourself with a bat, you're gonna come up with the same result no matter how many correctives you're doing.
KATY: I love that I use the bat and a broken arm a violent example in the podcast. In the book, it's like sun on the carpet. Do you remember?
STEPHANIE: Yeah. I do it was more gentle.
KATY: It's more gentle. The sun's just fading the carpet there. Doesn't matter. You keep moving the carpet it's just gonna fade another spot. You have to fix the sun. And here it's like if you whack yourself with a bat. So, I'm really hearing, I'm hearing this idea that you're expressing as terrifying.
STEPHANIE: Mmm.
KATY: What Movement Matters is saying is that what if you are not resistant to change ... that you are resistant to movement. That your natural state is resistant to movement. That you're not at all resistant to change. That change is inevitable. That if you go sit outside, you will see that everything is constantly changing around you. You're not resistant to change at all. You're just changing over into the same thing over and over again because of your resistance to movement. I think that we've reframed - maybe we've just never known or understood - we've reframed resistance to movement as resistance to change when change, we are natural begins which means change is inevitable and constant. Seasons come and go. We change, we change, we change. But there's this resistance to movement and there's an unconscious constant seeking of things that allow us even less movement and that if you can reframe everything in terms of this is saving me movement, the very thing that I've already declared out loud in my journal or whatever, as the thing that I want. Then we'll see all the time that you're actually picking something that you don't want over and over and over again because you haven't framed it in movement. So I'm just trying to constantly do that to say, oh it looks like, you know, like I'm trying to help see things in terms of movement because I think a resistance to movement, a resistance to expend extra energy is a less judgmental way of understanding ourselves. It's a conservation thing. It's a thing that we understand about nature and the species that live within it. And therefore we're the same as everything else. We're just resistant to the physical change. It's just that some of us who have a certain amount of power are able to do that more and more the thing that it is that we vocalize that we don't want. And so if you're doing something that you don't want to be doing to me the first way of changing that is to recognize it. To see it. And to keep working to see it as terrifying as it is, to me it's the opposite of terrifying. To me, it's like, so there's something that I could be doing. To me, and this is just everyone has their nature, to me not knowing the laws in which I'm operating under, the physical laws, that's terrifying.
STEPHANIE: Right.
KATY: How can I negotiate this earth if I don't understand how the earth works. And so that's really just what motivates me all the time is to try to understand what are the rules. And the rules that I follow or that I'm trying to understand are the natural law level. The physical laws has been my personal pursuit. So just reframing things into that. So it's interesting. What terrifies one...
STEPHANIE: Liberates another.
KATY: Exactly it's like a lullaby to the other one. So it's so helpful, I think, these discussions between people, informed in all different ways, because it helps everyone I think.
STEPHANIE: So you're saying it's ok if I'm gradually losing my grip on the bat that I've been using to break my arm over and over.
KATY: Totally.
STEPHANIE: As long as I keep loosening up.
KATY: You know what? I don't even say you have to loosen it. I think maybe just see the bat might be the work of a lifetime.
STEPHANIE: Right. Just see the bat.
KATY: Seeing the bat helps inform the next group. Because we are informing - we're bequeathing what we know. So just seeing it might be all that gets accomplished.
STEPHANIE: In this go round.
KATY: Seeing it with one eye...
STEPHANIE: Like out of the corner of your eye.
KATY: Squinting. I'm just gonna look over there - AH - I see and I'm afraid. Ok, that's fine. You can't take away really that you've seen it. That will inform the next groups. I really don't have any other agenda. I guess all of this is just me working through what I felt like I needed to do with my life. And I'm happy with that. No one else needs to do a thing for me to do that.
STEPHANIE: Hmm. I'm gonna still work on loosening my grip on the bat.
KATY: Whatever you want. Whatever you want.
STEPHANIE:
KATY: The best chapter ever.
STEPHANIE: The best chapter in any of your books. And I've read them all twice. Drop your ribs. A message so important that it merits its own chapter though the chapter is just 5 short sentences which basically amount to "Drop 'em."
KATY: Yeah.
STEPHANIE: Why is that so important in this book?
KATY: Well, I mean if we talk about book structure, I mean, an editor will tell you that, you know each chapter, it warranted being its own chapter. There was a reason it was separate. It was not just to have - when you're writing a book, those who don't know, you don't just take your words and divide by ten and then give them each a chapter.
STEPHANIE: Oh if that were only...so easy.
KATY: It would be so much easier to do it that way. A chapter is saying; this is an idea that really requires a beginning, a middle, and an end. And it fits within this larger narrative but it's called out in a particular way because of its importance and its separateness. So, I had already talked about it. It had already been described and mentioned in other places where it was pertinent. Still, it was such an important concept that it needed its own chapter simply because you are perceiving importance by what's a chapter title. Like if you just skimmed chapter headings, someone else has done that work to help you say hey this is important. Read this section. Or this section is important and even if you didn't read it, the chapter header gives you, it informs you of importance. You're not just reading words. The structure is informing you - is shaping you. So I was like, well, it's important. I don't really have anything else to say about it. I'm not going to ... in fact adding more ways to restate would almost detract from this is so important it gets its own chapter. You already know what to do...
STEPHANIE: Yeah. So do it.
KATY: ...so do it.
STEPHANIE: Drop 'em.
KATY: So do it is like the importance of a chapter. In one section it's explaining how it works and here's how you tell if you're doing it. But in case it wasn't clear, so do it was the important part. Not that you grasped and could regurgitate the explaining but that you do it is the important part. It's the 30 hours. Right? That chapter is worth 30 hours.
STEPHANIE: That's the back to body school philosophy.
KATY: Exactly. You've got to do it. Like knowing about it is not the - regurgitate, draw me a diagram, pass a test on that section. It's that your body physically does it is how you know it. And so it got its own chapter.
STEPHANIE: I love it.
KATY: Well, what should it be. Hmm.
STEPHANIE: Hmm. Let's see.
KATY: Let's drop our ribs.
STEPHANIE: Ok.
KATY: So drop your ribs is like a meme. It's become a meme and that's great. Memes are effective because they communicate. They trigger a response in small amount of time. But drop your ribs is actually it's a tri-planar move. I don't bust out triplanar that often.
STEPHANIE: I'm in for it now.
KATY: She's like, "Great". So make sure everyone goes back and reads chapter 9 of Diastasis Recti.
STEPHANIE: Heavy lifting there.
KATY: Yes, so we've done this with our heads before. If you've ever ramped your head and if you do not know what I'm saying right now, you can actually go to NutritiousMovement, subscribe to the newsletter...
STEPHANIE: Yes.
KATY: and in the process of subscribing to the newsletter you will be taken to a small video clip of this exercise. So you can have video instructions if you want. It's called head-ramping. And what you do is, whatever your face - well it might be the world if you're walking around, you're gonna put your index finger on your chin. So you're going to lower the chin a little bit and then you're going to back the chin up like you're making a double chin but at the same time you're gonna reach the top of your head up towards the ceiling.
STEPHANIE: Mm-hmm.
KATY: So you end up doing three motions. Your head rolls forward a little bit, and then when you slide your chin back and up, you went back and up. So that's the other two planes. So you rotated forward, you displaced backwards and you displaced up. Three planes of motion in one head ramp. You can do them all in one sweep too. That's exactly what you're doing with the rib cage in drop your ribs. The rib cage is kind of like if you put your hands on your waist...
STEPHANIE: Yep.
KATY: ...and then slide them up to your ribcage so now your hands are on your ribs...
STEPHANIE: Yep.
KATY: ... on your ribcage. Your rib cage goes forward a little bit, kind of like you're doing a sit up.
STEPHANIE: Mm-hmm.
KATY: But then it also moves backwards and up towards the ceiling. So the spine, in between the rib cage and the pelvis gets decompressed a little bit. So you're going forward, back, and up all at the same time. That's dropping the ribs.
STEPHANIE: Okay!
KATY: Because triplanery, adjust triplanerly your ribs and then a big diagram isn't as catchy.
STEPHANIE: (laughs) So, marketing.
KATY: Well it's in there, at another point, you need something to stimulate you doing it. And long-winded stimulations don't always work.
STEPHANIE: You're right. But drop your ribs, very effective.
KATY: And it can be ramp your ribs, right? So ramp your head and ramp your ribcage. But of course, both of those things should really be done after you've shifted your pelvis back.
STEPHANIE: Oh right.
KATY: You start with your feet. You adjust your pelvis back. And really you end up ramping your pelvis almost a little bit as well. It's a little bit different but, yes, so your pelvis shifts back and sometimes too forward or backward depending on your knees straightened. Then you ramp or drop your ribs, then you adjust your head. And now you've moved lots of parts of you that aren't moved during your normal stance.
STEPHANIE: Feels entirely different.
KATY: Yep.
STEPHANIE: Great. All right. There you have it. We have been talking about Diastasis Recti by Katy Bowman which you can find in paper book. Paperbook. And in paperback where books are sold including online at NutritiousMovement.com. Katy, we mentioned at the beginning that you're off to New Zealand quite soon.
KATY: That I'm approachable. If you see me, come up and say hi.
STEPHANIE: Nice.
KATY: Yeah.
STEPHANIE: You probably won't bite.
KATY: Never. I don't think I've ever bit anyone.
STEPHANIE: Oh. That's a bold claim.
KATY: Yeah. I was not a biter and I don't think I've ever bit anyone.
STEPHANIE: Never too late.
KATY: I am someone who will swing a bat into your arm accidentally. It turns out.
STEPHANIE: No, you're someone who will ... this is something based on your life experience?
KATY: Yes. We'll just leave it at that.
STEPHANIE: Yeah. People can use their imaginations.
KATY: Just kidding. I didn't swing the bat. But it did happen.
STEPHANIE: You are the person who points out the bat.
KATY: I, yeah, I was the sedentary kid in the corner taking it all in.
STEPHANIE: Amazing! What a journey you've been on.
KATY: It's been great.
STEPHANIE: In this little series we are almost at the end of your books Katy. Quick write another one.
KATY: No.
STEPHANIE: Hashtag #justkidding.
KATY: Hashtag (whispers) #iresentthat
STEPHANIE: We still have to do our deep dive on Movement Matters which we will do when next we meet so if you've been reading along at home, Movement Matters is the book to pick up next. And there you have it.
KATY: Yep.
STEPHANIE: For now though, that's Between The Lines, on the Katy Says Podcast. You can find Katy Bowman at NutritiousMovement.com. You can browse books and videos and alignment snacks and ever so much more and find the newsletter there as well. Katy, thanks for this conversation.
KATY: Thank you, Stephanie. I always appreciate it.
STEPHANIE: Me too. I'm Stephanie Domet. Thanks for listening.
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VOICE OVER: Hopefully you find the general information in this podcast informative and helpful. But it is not intended to replace medical advice and should not be used as such.
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