THE SCAPULA IS A SESAMOID BONE

"A model that is more consistent with the anatomy of the shoulder has been previously proposed (Levin, 1997). It is based on a concept that the scapula is, in reality, a sesamoid bone. It functions much like the hub of a bicycle wheel, with the wire spokes of the wheel replaced by a tension network of muscles and fascia."

And here's a lovely video by the brilliant Zero Balancing teacher, Judith Sullivan, A New Way to Work with the Scapula. Remember bones are alive. They need and are responsive to touch, in many ways, as much as our muscles.

Of course it is only natural to wonder, “How Wings Are Attached to the Backs of Angels", a question not fully answered by this weird little short film.

Unlike the deep bowl of the pelvis into which your femur fits, that gives your hips their characteristic stability, the scapula has only a very shallow, almost flat depression at its lateral end, the “glenoid fossa”, on which rests the head of the humerus, the upper arm, attached via soft tissues. This gives the shoulder girdle its characteristic freedom; it is as remarkably mobile as the hip is stable.

The whole scapular-clavicular girdle may be said to largely float with only a single attachment to the axial skeleton, the tiny ball and socket joint between the medial head of the clavicle and the top of the sternum. Not only may we consider the scapula then as a kind of floating bone, but the whole shoulder girdle a source of flight as of course epitomized through the wings of birds and other flying creatures.

The roots of our wings.

“Consider Icarus, pasting those sticky wings on,
testing that strange little tug at his shoulder blade,
and think of that first flawless moment over the lawn
of the labyrinth. Think of the difference it made…”

~ Anne Sexton, excerpt “To A Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph

A TREASURE TROVE OF SCAPULAE