Anyone who studies kinesiology–the science of movement–will know that for the purpose of categorizing movement, three planes of space are used and any movement will occur in one or more of these planes of space.
Movement that occurs in the sagittal plane–the red plane in the image above, is flexion and extension, or bending forward and bending backwards. The sagittal plane is named for Sagittarius, the archer, and it intersects the body from front to back, in the same way that an arrow, fired from a bow, to the forehead, would do.
The coronal plane, demonstrated by the purple square in the image above can also be easily remembered if you think of the haloes, or coronas, that are depicted around the saints’ heads. Movement in the coronal plane is lateral flexion, or bending from one side to another and what is called abduction and adduction in anatomical terms–which means moving an arm, a leg or the trunk sideways, either away from the body’s central axis or towards it.
And the horizontal plane–the green square–is easily remembered because it is the only one of the three that is horizontal. Movement in the horizontal plane is the movement of rotation–rotation of the arms or legs, internally or externally around their axis or rotation of the spine or trunk around their central axes, to name a few of the many rotations that can occur in the body.
Up until now, very scientific, and not terribly interesting, right?
But when we think about how we inhabit the space around our bodies through these planes, we begin to perceive how our presence in space forms and limits our movement and our awareness.
We are designed to inhabit and move in all of the planes of space. When we do, our movement is balanced and fluid, our joints open and lengthen as we move through them, and our awareness too, is situated in the present moment– a present moment that takes into consideration, the past and the future.
We can, in a sense, connect our inhabiting of the planes of space to the way that we experience time.
The sagittal plane is linked to a time continuum that moves from the past into the future. Awareness in the sagittal plane is awareness of what is in front of us and behind us, of where we came from and where we are going.
Think of a person who is goal oriented, sometimes to the point of no longer being in the present moment. When this person walks, they are focused on where they are going. They do not take time to smell the roses, or enjoy the scenery along the way. It’s all about where they are going.
This is a person who will initiate their movement forward with flexion, shortening the front of their body. Often, this shortening happens in the hip joint, placing undue stress on this articulation and leading to hip problems.
When the body is in balance in the kinesphere (kinesphere=the sphere of our awareness of and presence in the space surrounding our bodies), the psoas muscle, working in conjunction with the core stabilizers of the belly and spine, the transversus abdominus and the multifidi, is the major muscle that brings the leg forward in our gait pattern. Hip flexion that is commanded by the psoas, is a movement that opens the hip joint as the leg swings through, aligns the joints of the leg and contributes to harmonizing the intervertebral joints in the spine, as well as the autonomic functions of the lower belly. But when our presence in the sagittal plane overwhelms our presence in the coronal plane, the psoas will not be able to do its work, the hip joint shortens as we step forward and the belly and lower spine stay immobile.
Movement in the sagittal plane is also accompanied by the quality of focus in our vision. We have an object of our attention and a goal in mind. When vision becomes over-focused however, it leads to eye strain, neck and shoulder tension and sympathetic activation.
Movement in the coronal plane has a very different quality. The coronal plane can be thought of as the infinite now. When I am present in the coronal plane, I am noticing the sights and sounds and smells that surround me, and that make up the ever-changing context of this unique moment. My peripheral senses come online. I am aware of my surroundings, and the smells and sights and sounds all around me, come into my awareness.
Think of the way that a young child moves through space, before it has learned to be in a hurry, to be productive or to have a goal. Its attention goes from one sensorial experience to another. A bright color, the flight of a bird overhead, or an insect crossing its path, the smell of a beautiful flower. Movement is indirect, and awareness spreads out to the sides.
When our presence in the coronal plane becomes all consuming however, we lose our sense of direction, and can find ourselves awash in the ocean of present time sensory experiences. Our attention is captured by every stimulus and we no longer remember where we are going to or where we came from.
Again, balance is the key word here. When we inhabit the sagittal and coronal planes with equal amounts of attention and awareness, we find that we are both present with our goals and our movement forward and with the context in which we are moving. We get where we are going, but we take time to smell the flowers on the way. In our sense of time, we find that we are situated both in the continuum of past to present, as well as the eternal now. Focal and peripheral vision are in equilibrium, and in terms of movement, a rare and beautiful grace occurs–contralateral movement!
Contralateral movement, or movement in the horizontal plane, arises spontaneously when sagittal and coronal plane movements are in balance. This is the moment when we begin to see movement flow through the body in a long, gracious spiral, from the feet to the head, when the shoulders and hips, counter-rotate to each other naturally, when there is a tiny counter-rotation in each segment of the spine that maintains all of the intervertebral discs healthy and juicy. Counter-rotation in the joints of the legs allows full extension of the knee in the gait, which in turn, transmits the push of the feet on the ground into the spiral movement that goes upwards and out through the crown of the head.
True contralateral movement is Grace, and it cannot be commanded. It ignites us when we balance the qualities of doing and allowing, of focused awareness and open awareness, of past-future and present time, as embodied in the movement through the planes of space.
Read More: In this follow up blog, I discuss practical applications in both trauma healing and movement work and give some simple self help tools.