04.06 Concept: Midline — Transcript

04.06 Concept: Midline — Transcript (English)

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Transcript

Midline.

You will often hear this word in any Baseworks practice session.

Generally speaking, the midline is a line that separates our body into left and right halves when standing upright on two legs.

In Baseworks, when we refer to the midline, we place imaginary dots on the shoulders and the hip bones.

The dots create this rectangle, and when we plan the movements, the task is often to maintain the left-right symmetry of this rectangle.

Now this is easy and quite natural when the leg position is symmetrical.

But you’d be surprised how easy it is to lose the midline as soon as the leg position becomes asymmetrical or the direction of the gravitational force changes.

When the limbs move to any asymmetrical position, it’s natural for the hips, shoulders and the spine to follow.

It’s called segmental rolling and it happens reflexively or unconsciously.

In Baseworks, we’re trying to interrupt this unconscious movement pattern and to move in a less natural but more conscious way.

Let’s look at a few common tasks that are related to the midline.

In Z-lunge and all forms that progress from it, we’re trying to keep this upper body rectangle intact rather than allowing the segmental rolling.

Segmental rolling may look like the hip opening towards the extended leg, or the shoulder opening towards the extended leg, or the shoulders not being at the same height.

Although these demonstrations are a bit exaggerated, with lower amplitude, these movements are very common.

Another typical Baseworks task is to stick to the midline when when we flex the spine with an asymmetrical positioning of the legs.

In this situation, we want to see perfect hinging.

When looking from the front, we want the spine to flex exactly between the feet and not deviate from it.

When we lie on the floor with one hip flexed, as we flex the spine upward, we want again the spine to be aligned with the midline.

As you can see, in Baseworks we’ll look for symmetry and the midline in forms which are naturally asymmetrical.

By interrupting unconscious movement patterns with more conscious ones, and by trying to trace the movements of the spine, hips and shoulders in space, we build more spatial awareness, as well as the awareness and control over the muscles and the movements of the trunk.

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• Date: 2026-02-03