Pelvic Holds
Common Holds
Sacral hold 
Overview
Pelvic hold: Sacrum (see also Sacral Hold)
- The sacrum fits very neatly into the palm of the hand. It can help to have your chair by the knees so you are facing the head.
- To help someone lift their pelvis evenly: ask them to bend their knees and place both feet flat on the table, then ask them to lift their pelvis, then slide your hand in to make contact. Get them to drop back down and then straighten their legs again. Sometimes it is good to keep the knees up as this softens the back - the client can let the knees fall together to make it easier for them.
- Nearly everybody needs a pillow or cushions under the knees. This flattens and softens any lumbar lordosis and supports the knees. If you can slide your non-sacrum hand easily under the low back in supine, it is a good sign there is holding in the whole body and/or low back/psoas tension..
- Try and make sure your elbow is as close to the midline as possible (it helps if the table is not too wide) - this often means moving the pillow under the knees towards the feet.
- Use a soft hand. Try to think of your hand as a bag of fluid with no bones, this somehow helps prevent the feeling of being crushed.
- Imagine your hand below the table to help create space within the negotiation of contact.
Variations
Pelvic hold: Bilateral hold across ASIS
You can stand or sit on the table for this hold. If sitting as normal you can use a cushion under your arm to reach across. This is a good hold to get a sense of twists across the pelvis and a good alternative to the sacral hold if this is uncomfortable for you or the client.
Pelvic hold: Bridging across ASIS
This is an old school hold to gently compress the ASIS together to free up the sacrum. In biodynamics you do not compress the bones together but you can use the inner elbow and the hand of the upper arm to make a relationship to both innominate bones, whilst your lower hand is in the sacral hold.
Treatment Notes
Pelvic bones open like a flower in inhalation
On the inhalation phase of primary respiration there is a widening across the top of the pelvis and a rolling out across the front of the pelvic. These movements are most easily felt with your hands over the ASIS (anterior superior iliac spine). The pelvic bones mobility (movement between structures) is much bigger than the movements in the cranium. It is common to feel twists across the pelvis, one ASIS feels superior or inferior to the other as it rotates posteriorly backwards on the sacrum. This is often due to postural habits of standing with more weight on one leg. As patterns of experience change, the whole pelvis can shift and you can get a clear sense of one side dropping towards the feet or towards the table.
Intraosseous dynamics of the innominate bones
The motility of the innominate bones (inner dynamics of a structure) can be felt as a softening within the bones, a sense of inner breathing and expansion. Orienting to intraosseous fulcrums between the three parts of the innominate bone at birth can support resolution of chronic hip issues. Try orienting to the inner breathing of the innominate bone as the ilium, pubis and ischium expanding out from the centre of the acetabulum.
