By Alana B. Elias Kornfeld

In a previous Fresh Living post, Valerie mentioned the famous foot “floint” from her yoga class with Aarona Pichinson, a longtime yogi friend of mine. As she wrote, it’s neither flex nor point, but floint. As her yoga teacher colleague at Beliefnet (who she referenced in her post), I am here to address the ideas behind the serious art of flointing.

I study Anusara yoga, which suggests there are two energetic flows: muscle energy, which moves into the body through the muscles (think: stretching your arm out to the side, hugging your muscles to your bone–rib-eye steak-style, and then drawing the energy from your fingertips, up your arm, to your midline) and organic energy, which moves from inside your body outward through the bones (think: elongating your arm bones out to the side and spreading your fingers).

Now we apply this to the feet. A flexed foot is an action of muscle energy because it encourages the energy to hug into the body (instead of away)–go ahead, flex your foot and you’ll notice that your toes lift toward your face. Now a pointed foot has the opposite affect: it sends the energy away from the body. Point your toes and you’ll see it lengthens the way your leg looks and points your toes away from your face sending the energy out.

So the floint, as Valerie points out, is the perfect balance between these two opposing energy flows. It’s a point, with the toes curled back (with the balls of your feet pressing away like on a gas petal); just like Barbie. One more thing to add to Barbie’s perfection: a flawless balance of muscle and organic energy. If the rest of us could be so lucky…