The femur bone is an exquisite piece of the body. Let’s take a moment to appreciate a subtle part of it’s design. The image below is a sideview of the right leg. See how the femur bone is curved? It’s designed to be springy. If it were straight, it wouldn’t be able to disperse impact nearly as well. Look closer and you’ll see how the curve of the femur continues down through the tibia to the ankle.

From the hip, follow the curve of the femur bone past the knee into the tibia and down to the ankle. Can you see the “S” shape?

Now let’s look at the whole in the image below. Starting at the number 1, trace the spinal curve down through the cervicals, thoracics and lumbars to the sacrum. There’s a little gap at the tip of the tailbone. The curve of the femur bone picks up where the tailbone left off and continues down to the tibia bone and ankle. The tibia in this picture looks a little straighter than the one above, it’s subtle but it is curved.

Can you see how the whole skeleton has one continuous curve traveling through it? It gives the impression that our body is designed to be more springy and absorb and disperse more impact than we may think. Imprint this curved image into your bodymap. Think about it from time to time and notice the sense of ease and resiliency that emerges.

Now that we’ve talked about curves, let’s talk about arches. Next we’ll take a closer look at the pelvis.