I squat, do you?

I come from a family of squatters. In fact, my family comes from a land of squatters. I don't mean anything figuratively by it, as in, I like to go into empty houses and occupy it illegally. I mean literally that I like to squat. I like to squat with my knees apart, with the backs of my ankles against my sitting bones and my elbows gently pressing on the insides of my knees. My brother likes to squat with knees together wrapping his arms around them with a graceful curve to his back that looks completely natural.

I am of Korean heritage, and believe you me, it is not an uncommon sight to see people of all ages and both sexes squat, especially on the countryside. My husband, who is a white American, does not like this sight. It unsettles him to see people in this position because he thinks that it exposes some kind of vulnerability. It is as if humanity is now so beyond this way of sitting that to squat would mean some sort of recidivism.

When I incorporate squatting, or malasana, into my yoga classes, I see all kinds of responses from people. There are those who proceed to squat with ease with all points of their feet touching the floor, gently rocking side to side until they find a comfortable position to settle in. Then there are those who have their heels way up off the floor that they are barely balancing on the balls of their feet. They try to rest their elbows or hands on the knees, but struggle to keep the equilibrium. They don't look particularly graceful, but they try. And there are those that just don't try. It hurts their back, it hurts their feet, it hurts everything.

In many exercise routines, repetitious squatting is touted as one of the best and most effective ways to tone all muscles in your legs, in the core, and the back and the butt. One simply cannot squat without engaging all these muscles especially when weights are involved. Can you imagine a weightlifter who can't squat? Weightlifters always start from a squat because, when performed correctly, it is one of the most optimal ways to engage the whole body in lifting that weight.

In many Chi Kung books some form of squat with knees pulled in close to the body is invariably recommended for stomach troubles. The position of legs puts gentle pressure on the abdomen and helps alleviate any pains that may be caused by poor digestion. Squatting is also touted as the nature's best way to eliminate waste. There are many websites that will describe exactly and vividly how that is, although we can imagine that how pressure on your lower abdomen would promote elimination, I will not get into detail. (You can follow the link here to find out if you are so inclined.)

But it is not just my American husband who finds squatting so primitive that it is almost repulsive. The history of this intense Western dislike of squatting goes even as far back as the 19th century when the British Empire ruled India as
Galen Cranz describes in his book, Rethinking the Chair: Rethinking the Culture, Body, and Design. Squatting was seen as a sign of primitiveness while sitting on chairs was seen as a sign of civilization. Squatting became one of the compasses with which the progress of civilization was measured while the chair, and all variants thereof including the infamous couch, became the measure by which to gauge a society's civilized status.

So then we finally come to the culture of the supreme civilized being by this measure, the couch potato. The couch potato has completely abandoned squatting (egad!) and thoroughly embraced the art of sitting on the most comfortable chair one can think of. Moreover, as the term "couch potato" implies we completely abandon the involvement of a single muscle in the body when we sit now. We are left wondering, is this what civilization means?

Besides the benefits of squats in terms of modern-day fitness, the simple act of everyday squatting instead of sitting can be beneficial. Yogis do it now as yogis have done it for thousands of years. Denise Kaufman explains it well in the following video:




In yoga, malasana, or the garland pose, is used to invite openness in the hips and in the groin area. The benefits of open hips is obvious. When runners come to my class and complain that their hips are really tight, I invite them to follow a hip-opening routine. I see this tightness in runners all the time. Their muscles are so tight that they almost pop out of the skin in a neat line from the top of their upper leg down to the top of their knee. This muscular tension keeps their hips from opening, and the leads to tightness in the area, leading to injuries.

Squatting is one of the easiest ways of opening the hips. It has nothing to do with the impoverished Third World, primitiveness, or recidivism. Rather, it has everything to do with what we have given up in the name of civilization.

So let's get off the couches and squat. After all, what do we have to gain here? Stronger muscles in the back? Sure! Flexibility in the hips? Absolutely! Stronger core? Of course! Wider range of motion for the feet? You bet!

I would like to think we also gain openness, which we as "civilized" beings unfortunately interpret as vulnerability, through squatting, not just literally, but also figuratively, in our bodies and mind.