I could never sit cross-legged as a child (I don’t think – okay, I know – they called it ‘criss cross applesauce’ back then, but maybe younger millennials will remember it that way). My hips just don’t want to rotate externally (quoth my pediatrician, about my feet and legs, “Good for a runner, bad for a dancer,” a pronouncement in direct opposition to my natural talents and proclivities (running is terrible and makes my tongue hurt)). Even now, after years of yoga, although I can sit in sukhasana, I still laugh every time that it translates to “easy cross-legged seat.” Please put me in supta virasana or something, truly (not really, but normal virasana with no blocks or props or anything is leagues more comfortable than sukhasana.
Sometimes this inability led to me being…not in trouble, exactly, but semi-scolded. But why? Usually this happened not when I was sitting with my legs out in front of me on the trampoline at gymnastics (when it would have made sense to tell me to sit differently so no one tripped over them/landed on me), but when I was sitting with both tucked under me, folded into a smaller package than ‘applesauce’ and vastly more comfortable as well. In that case, it’s not a safety issue, so it starts to veer into a “small children must comply” and “there is one way of doing things” – granted, it was probably reflexive on the part of my instructor to some degree. But there’s no reason for kids to have to sit identically if they’re not in the way (and that’s a loaded statement, I know).
I feel the same way about pen/pencil grip. It wasn’t so long ago that left-handed kids were forced to write with their right hands, and it’s not a big jump from that to “You must hold your pencil at this angle between finger x and finger y or it’s NOT CORRECT.” I’m pretty sure the “rules” about how to hold a writing utensil aren’t based on anatomy or orthopedics (but then, I do hold my pencil ‘incorrectly’ and I do have tendinitis…it must be due to my bad form and not to the years of tennis, harp, piano, and typing, surely!) I will add that the first grade teacher who tried to correct my pencil grip was herself “adjusted” by some higher up and instructed to form her letter y’s differently. But I still write them the way she did, with a scoop instead of a v forming the top!
