My Journey Into Wings of Freedom,
By Debbie Rosas

My relationship with my shoulders began the day someone told me how many people were suffering from shoulder injuries. The numbers were staggering. And suddenly, I saw it everywhere—bodies moving with tension and unconscious habit. Palms turned down. Joints closed. Effort replacing elegance. In my classes, I watched students raise their arms with palms facing the earth, unknowingly locking the shoulder joint instead of liberating it. That moment ignited something in me. A spark of inquiry. A call to listen more deeply and to study more closely the miracle of the shoulder’s design.

I began to see the shoulder, or shoulder girdle, with new eyes. Not just as bone and joint, but as a sacred architecture—a radiant halo resting at the top of the body. I traced the elegant S-curves of the clavicles, observed how the scapulae glided like invisible hands across the back, and sensed how these bridges give rise to the freedom of the arms. I quickly understood the cost of habitual palms-down living. It collapses possibility. It closes the glenohumeral joint and limits the expressive power of the whole upper body. From this revelation I created, Palm Directions—Nia movements for a healing technique.

A somatic meditation in motion, inviting chi to spiral in, out, up, down, and around with conscious intention; these were not just new moves. This became a conversation—a conversation between sensation and structure, between spirit and science. A daily ritual of remembering that you get to choose. Do you want to open the shoulder joint and invite freedom or close it to invite form? Both freedom and form are necessary. It was through this deeper study that I understood the shoulder girdle.

Not just as a center of defense, such as in martial arts, but as a center of grace. A fluid, mobile architecture where power meets refinement. Where movement begins not with force, but with flow. I began to imagine halos—luminous rings encircling my shoulders. Not burdens, but blessings. Not weights, but light. I sensed my scapulae no longer as a bone buried beneath tissue, but as wings—sliding, spiraling, lifting. Wings that gave breath and poetry to my arms, hands, and fingers. Something in me softened. As I moved, I wasn’t just lifting—I was floating. Palms up. Palms down. Spiraling. Writing meaning in space.

Whether exploring dance arts, such as Jazz, or healing arts, such as Yoga, or even simply lying still on the floor; I began inviting my shoulder girdle into every conversation. I stopped bracing. I started listening. I stopped fixing. I began sensing. I began to see my shoulder girdle not as a cage, but as a cradle. A field of movement, not containment. A sanctuary where gesture is born and where the body’s wisdom whispers, “You were never meant to carry it all. You were meant to move it.” And so I keep returning to the space between my blades. The halo above my heart. To move not from habit, but from wonder.

Explore The Shoulder Girdle: Wings of Expression

The floating architecture at the top of your body is waiting to awaken your shoulder girdle. A design of bone, muscle, fascia, and breath. Not rigid armor, but fluid suspension. Not weight-bearing, but story-bearing. This is where your arms begin, but more than that, it is where your gestures rise from. Where emotion becomes motion. Where energy moves from the heart into the world. To live in a genius body is to feel this halo not as a place of tension, but as a space of possibility. Your shoulder girdle is your wingspan. It is your inner phoenix. It is the silent translator of your chest’s desire to be seen, felt, and heard.

When you sense your shoulder girdle from the inside out, you begin to understand its deeper language. That it is not fixed, but fluid. That it was designed not just for function, but for feeling. It holds the power to shrug, to roll, and to rise and fall with every breath. As you read the following, Voices of the Shoulder Girdle, you are invited to move slowly and somatically. To breathe into sensation. To listen with your bones. To allow the shoulder girdle to unfold. This is your opportunity to meet the clavicles as bridges. The scapulae as wings. The shoulder joint as a luminous cup for potential and expression.

Voice of the Shoulder Girdle: Wings of Freedom

I am your shoulder girdle. Not a single bone, but a collection of parts. Two clavicles—S-shaped bridges resting like slender wings across the top of your chest. Two scapulae—wide, thin bones behind your heart, sliding like hands across your back body. By design, I am meant to float. To suspend. To give flight to your arms—not to carry burden, but to conduct energy.

I do not root into the earth like your pelvis. I do not bear weight. I ripple. I respond. I translate breath into motion, emotion into gesture. I am the architecture of embrace. I make it possible for your arms to rise, circle, spiral, and surrender. When I am soft, your arms move like rivers. When I am tense, your whole chest tightens. When I am forgotten, your wings fall silent.

You keep me healthy by letting go. By turning your palms up and down. By letting your arms hang from the halo I create. By relaxing your jaw, aligning your spine, and allowing me to slide and glide behind you—like the slow beat of wings. Imagine me as a luminous ring encircling your shoulders. Let your head float up and out. Let your arms swing freely beneath me.

I open when you soften your jaw and wave your arms like birds released from stillness. In that moment, you remember me as a space of grace. I am the frame of possibility. I am the place where movement becomes meaning. I am your halo of expression, your wings of freedom, your invitation to open, to soften, to remember you were meant to move it all.

Voice of the Scapula: The Secret Support

I am your scapula—your shoulder blade.
I do not cling. I float. I am not fixed. I am free.
I slide, I glide, I lift, I fold. I cradle your back body like a pair of quiet wings.

You may forget me—hidden beneath muscle and skin—but I am the base behind your grace. I support your arms, not from above, but from beneath and behind.
I stabilize your gestures, sculpt your expression, shape your readiness.

When you reach up in an Upward Block or hold Ready Position, I rise with you.
When you spiral, cross, or fold your hands in toward your heart,
I move with elegance behind the motion, quietly guiding, gently anchoring.

Keep me alive by sensing my subtle dance—my shifting, lifting, yielding.
Let me move like breath behind your wings.

Voice of the Clavicle: The Curved Bridge of Breath

I am your clavicle—your collarbone.
Long, curved, and graceful, I rest at the front of your body like an arc of readiness.

I am your only bony bridge between the arms and the trunk.
I give shape to your chest, softness to your frame, and space to your breath.
I keep your shoulders from creeping too high.
I remind you to relax, to rest, to return to grace.

Trace me with your fingers.
Feel my S-shaped story—a wave of elegance folded across your chest like wings in repose. I am subtle, but essential. I prepare you to reach, to protect, to open, to receive.

Let me be your reminder:
Openness lives not in force, but in form.

Voice of the Shoulder Joint: Open by Design, Fluid by Nature

I am your shoulder joint—your glenohumeral gateway.
Where your rounded humerus nestles into the shallow glenoid fossa of your scapula, I am a ball held in a cup. A marvel of motion.

I was not built to bear weight. I was built to move.
To arc. To rotate. To open the arms wide like wings.
To lift you into gesture, to pull you back into center.

I am swaddled in synovial fluid to reduce friction.
Cushioned by cartilage. Supported by ligaments and tendons.
Held steady by the muscles of your rotator cuff—a soft sleeve of guidance.
I offer the greatest range of motion in your body,
but with that freedom comes a call to conscious care.

I am vulnerable when you forget me.
Strong when you spiral your arms with awareness.
I open when you turn your palms up.
I settle when you let your shoulders drop.

You protect me not with tension, but with motion.
You honor me by sensing, not forcing.
Let me move like music—freely, responsively, joyfully.

I am the expression of your inner world—
where emotion becomes gesture,
where thought becomes offering,
where your soul extends into the space around you.

You can grow into the deeper layers of your own body’s way again and again—to the ritual of turning palms up, to the wisdom of tracing clavicles, and to the quiet strength that lives in the wings behind your heart. You were built to express the light within the world. The shoulder girdle was never meant to be a burden. It was always your halo. Your wings. Your freedom. To lift arms not from strain, but from soul. To let them rise like wings. Because when you turn your palms upward—when you breathe into the lightness of your shoulder girdle you remember you were designed to open. To spiral. To fly.

Please enter your email to receive your FREE subscription to Awakening Body + Life at www.debbierosas.com for the latest DR Education publications to support Your Body + Life journey, as well as all the Nia Technique news, information, announcements, and events!