Vol 14, Issue 4/2003
The collar-bone: a key element in the skeleton
An approach to the theme. By Ömer Humbaraci
We usually take the collar-bone for granted and give it no attention. Few realise that it is more or less directly involved in every movement made by the arms or hands. Due to the epidemic occurrence nowadays of incorrect postures of the head and shoulders, the collar-bone is permanently limited in its mobility. This in turn affects the mobility of the arms and the transmission of force. Ömer Humbaraci has investigated these functional-anatomical relationships and explains them for medical lay persons. In his view they provide a key to efficient movement of the arms and hands. He proposes three tests with which readers can themselves explore and optimise the collar-bone-to-hand line.
Disclaimer.
This article is based on my own experience and is meant as a primer for reflection and study. I accept no responsibility whatsoever for any and all damage caused by experimenting on the basis of the information given in this article.
The bat dream
I stood for no reason at all – as is always the case in dreams – inside what looked liked a big office hall. It was of the gloomy Kafkaesque kind you never enter out of free will. Actually, it looked exactly like my local income tax office. All the clerks sitting at their desks somehow appeared to be Taijiquan teachers and students – Sigmund Freud would have had an interesting interpretation to that. Mine however, is the only appropriate one. That dream reflected the delicate question: ”What do I write about – and how?”, but back to the dream.
To my great surprise, the illustrious Yang Chengfu was also there. He sat at a big mahogany desk with beautiful bat figures carved onto it - hundreds of them. His imposing body mass attracted me irresistibly like the Moon the seas. I glided towards him over the office floor, filled with great expectations. As I was about a meter away from him, I noticed that something was wrong with the big man. It wasn’t the PC and screen he was looking into – anachronisms are common stuff in dreams. No, it was his hanging head, his bent neck, his hunched back and his sad features.
Yang’s tired eyes slowly shifted away from the screen. He looked at me for a second, and then answered the question that came to my mind, just before I could ask it. In a dream-world, understanding goes purely intuitive ways.
"What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”
"Know, Long Nose (Chinese tag for European), that I have been banned in this hell, to learn how to read and write.”
"My goodness, but why?”
"As a living man, I was illiterate. I regretted it at the time: I felt so stupid and ignorant. And so, the gods sent me here to learn to read and write – maybe out of compassion. It’s been nearly a hundred years now: since then, I’ve been peering into this strange window, shuffling papers on this desk, and barking at lazy employees.”
”Only Confucian hell-judges can imagine such a mean, refined torture,” I said.
"Well, yes. I wish I never had regretted never having bent my head over books, papers, numbers and all kinds of tools. Look at what has become of me, now!”
"True it is, Tai Sifu. I don’t recognise you anymore. In all the photos I’ve seen of you, you look powerful and happy. You tower above people and things – but now...”
Yang gestured me to be silent. "Spare your words and listen carefully, Long Nose”, he said. "Go back to the world of the living and tell them...”
I had no time to hear the rest. All of a sudden, the hundred bat carvings on the mahogany desk came to life, soared up to the ceiling, whirled down onto Yang and lifted him up, up and away through the ceiling. They disappeared into the night sky - and I woke up.
You’d be wrong now if you think of vampires. In ancient China, bats were a symbol of good luck. Great Master Yang was freed from his hell and happy again. So was I, because I knew now what I was going to write about: hanging heads and collarbones.
Some functional anatomy
I’ll first go through a few functional relations between head, collarbone and hand, and move over to practical uses of the collarbone in Taijiquan. I did cut a number of anatomical and physiological aspects of the matter for simplicity’s sake. The whole point of this exercise is to show how the collarbone can provide a key to many problems in Taijiquan.
Many people have to think twice when asked which bone connects the hand to the rest of the skeleton. Therefore, let’s start by looking at the collarbone (clavicula), for that’s the one. It’s articulated onto the upper end of the sternum (manubrium sterni). It then leads to the shoulder blade, which in turn, joins the upper arm bone (humerus), which in turn again, joins both lower arm bones (ulna & radius) at the elbow. These bones then join the wrist, and we finally reach the hand and fingers.
One could think now that the head has nothing to do with all this, but I’ll try to show how it in fact very well does. No moving muscles, no moving bone-line: let’s therefore look at some muscles that influence the hand’s power. They seem to have little to do with it, but if we follow that collarbone-to-hand line from sternum to fingers, we’ll get an idea why.
The sternocleidomastoideus muscle connects to the collarbone, and the levator scapulae muscle connects to the shoulder blade. Both muscles connect to the lower back part of the skull: therefore, any movement of the head will influence the collarbone and the shoulder blade - and vice-versa.
Collarbone and shoulder blades are the first two elements of the collarbone-to-hand line: we begin now to grasp how and why the head’s posture influences the hand. The habit of hanging down the head or pushing it forwards, or tilting it to the side, will cause with time a shortening of the sternocleidomastoideus and of the levator scapulae
muscles. This is the beginning of a slow but relentless chain-reaction. The collarbone begins to lose its mobility, and that affects the big pectoral muscles (pectoralis major). These attach to the sternum and the upper part of the humerus: chest and arms also begin to lose mobility. With time, all pectoral and related muscles shorten.
What happens then to the levator scapulae muscle? It must constantly work against the falling weight the head, and gets quickly tired and cramped. That causes headaches and contributes to lifting up the back muscles, since the shoulder blade practically ”swims” in them. The back and the neck begin to lose their mobility. That’s how you get to say that some people or things are ”a pain in the neck”: it’s not their fault, it’s yours.
Then, there are the small pectoral muscles (pectoralis minor) and a series of smaller muscles (serratus anterior). Simply said, all these attach to the upper ribs and converge onto the shoulder blade. They will have the same fate as the pectoral muscles.
It’s interesting to note at this point, that Chinese acupuncture places the first and second points of the Lung Channel (P1 - Zhongfu, P2 - Yunmen) in the region where the small pectorals join the shoulder blade (processus coracoideus scapulae). If that region loses its mobility because it’s sagging or stiff, one will talk about ”stagnating Yin Qi” or ”blocked Yang Qi”. Applying Tuina (finger pressure, Reiki or Shiatsu) to these points can relieve certain types of headaches. Here we meet the head again, there where it shouldn’t be.
The head also affects another muscle, the deltoid. It attaches to the collarbone and to the shoulder blade and to the top of the upper arm, the humerus.
Some practice
All these muscles have either the collarbone or shoulder blade in common: these two bones closely interact. That leads us to understand the key-role of these bones in a practical way. It should by now be obvious which role the weight of passive arms play, together with that of a sagging head and chest. In ancient sword-play, moving the arms up and down was an essential exercise: if you had to wield a weapon weighing up something like 2 to 5 kilograms, then your arms had to work properly, otherwise, you’d lose your breath pretty quickly, and get tired to the point where you had to cry for mercy.
Now things are getting really interesting. To use the hand properly - whatever the kind of activity - you must mobilize the whole line from the fingertips to the sternum. That line will conduct mechanical energy practically without loss, and will also allow powerful, fast and precise hand motions. You’ll also activate many other muscles which remain habitually passive during work or Taijiquan exercise.
Let’s first take some simple tests to check if some muscles in the collarbone-to-hand line are shortened. That line is a long way, and faulty parts in its path can make the way hard, or even impossible to go. Specific methods - not stretching! – will bring shortened muscles back to their physiological length. They’re too complex to explain here, and require qualified instruction and consistent exercise over longer periods.
Lie down on your back, stretch your arms out and down on the floor behind your head. If they don’t completely lie on the floor, then it means that your pectorals and also probably some muscles of the back are shortened, like the latissimus dorsi.
Try and "wear” a stick as in the photo. If you feel pain in the deltoid, then it’s shortened, and probably also other muscles that closely work with it.
Supposing now that all your muscles are more or less in a pristine state, let’s see what gets better when activating the collarbone area. Here are tests, some of which I presented during an ”imprinting seminar” I held in Hamburg, March 2003, for a handful of Taijiquan enthusiasts, of the kind ”I’m ready for the unconventional!” The written descriptions given here will never replace live teaching, and therfore, I can’t guarantee that you’ll do these tests correctly right away. Obviously however, the more you’ll try, the more you’ll learn. As a rule, just follow the instructions, without being too clever or forceful about it. These tests are meant first to let you understand the benefits of the collarbone-to-hand line, and second, to get familiarized with its use.
The arch test.
Those who read my article on the ”chain arch” should easily grasp the idea behind this test . Kneel down as in the photo; make a fist, and place your knuckles on the floor in front of you. The distance between your knuckles should be about double the distance between the outside of your shoulders. Your arms should now form an arch. Now get someone approximately your own weight to sit on your shoulders - feet off the ground!
If you don’t use the collarbone-to-hand line, you’ll probably collapse, or really have to exert yourself. Try again, but this time, move all the muscles along a line from the hands in the direction of the collarbone. You should be able to carry that person comfortably, and even take her for a ride. Keep on trying, until you instinctively get the correct bone-line right away. That’s fun, and lets you meet people from an original perspective. Use your mind, and you’ll soon think of ways of applying variations of this test in Tuishou.
The pull test
To do this test, you need a partner of about your weight. Take an easy ”bow and arrow” stance, take hold of his arms, and pull him quickly away behind you, like in the photo. He has to oppose reasonable resistance. You’ll soon notice that your back muscles block, or that you will have to use brute force to succeed – which has nothing to do with Taijiquan. In the second try, use the collar-to-hand line, moving from the collarbone to the hand: you should be able to pull him easily. This test will give you a few useful insights on Dalü – the Great Pulling.
The ”palace of the thousand pains” test
In Chinese acupuncture, the point between the 7th cervical vertebra and the 1st dorsal vertebra (TM14 – Dazhui) is sometimes called ”the palace of the thousand pains”. The reason is that the 7th cervical vertebra is at a crucial spot between neck, shoulder and back. It gets under severe and continuous mechanical stress when it has to support the passive weight of a sagging head and arms - for days, weeks, months, and years. The ”thousand pains” refer not only to the physical strain, but also to the thousand griefs that usually plague people with that condition. Therefore: before saying, ”it’s all in the mind”, try saying ”it’s all in the mind’s box.”
To do the test, just take an easy ”bow and arrow” stance, let your arms hang down relaxed, and have someone lightly push you from behind on the 7th cervical vertebra. It’s easy to find: at the base of the neck, it’s the most prominent one. Your torso will most probably tilt forwards. Now lightly mobilize the collarbone-to-hand line - from the fingertips in the direction of the collarbone. Your torso should now magically resist the push.
The reason is that when you allow your arms to hang down, the whole rib-cage sags forwards. The head sags forwards too, and pulls the levator scapula upwards, which reacts and stiffens. In turn, it pulls the shoulder blades upwards and outwards: this imperceptibly blocks all the deeper postural muscles of the whole spine. They can’t steer the push, and give sudenly way.
If you now activate the collarbone-to-hand line however, the rib-cage gets also activated and gently rises. The levator scapulae loosens and shifts back to its physiological position, and so does the head. The shoulder blades now move downwards and inwards, physiologically centering and loosening the deeper spine muscles. These are now lightly activated, although they may feel relaxed. That should help understand that ”relaxing” in Taijiquan is not to be taken to the letter… the famous ”Sung” technique is certainly not a matter of passivity.
Django’s legacy
The irony behind this article is that I have practically no deltoid on the left shoulder, and that subsequently, I can’t lift my left arm. That was my life’s first bad accident: while pulling me out of the motherly womb, an inept obstetrician managed to break that muscle. Years of struggle with this disability led to new ideas about the arms, and helped me kick the holy cows of fatalism out of my way.That’s where the legendary gypsy guitarist, Django Reinhardt, comes in. One day, his caravan suddenly caught fire and he got trapped inside. His left hand got so badly burnt, that he lost the use of all his fingers. But Django did not desist from his art: he trained and trained and managed to regain the use of the thumb, of the index and of the middle finger. He developed his incomparable ”three finger style”, which has inspired many jazz guitarists. If you feel you’re ineffective, no matter what you’re doing – keep on trying. You may succeed or not, but you’ll get rid of the nagging feeling of inadequacy, that’s for sure.
