Posture
October 2023
I recently attended a postural restoration training course, and boy was it eye-opening! Those of you who have been practicing with me for a long time know that I tend to be, ahem, attached to proper alignment and a traditionalist at heart. Well, yoga teaches us the importance of non-attachment, over and over and over again, if we are open to receiving the messages. While I still think alignment is very important, my ideas of what constitutes proper or ideal alignment and how to create it have shifted through the years.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not a fan of telling students to just do what feels good. Very often what feels good in our bodies is nothing more than a shape that doesn’t create resistance or feel uncomfortable. Discomfort is not always a sign that we are doing something wrong. Think of the bad habits that you have tried to shake through the years. While it may feel “comfortable” to disregard your needs to keep the peace or to grab fast food instead of going home to make something healthy, the comfort is usually based in familiarity and doesn’t serve us in the long run. Especially with asana (physical) practice, we often move in such a way that reaffirms our strengths and our weaknesses. Habitual movement and old injuries are at the top of the list of reasons we end up solidifying inefficient movement patterns. Here I am reminded of one of my teachers sayings, “Practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent.”
As I continually adapt my daily habits, asana practice, and teaching to incorporate modern science and a broader understanding of body mechanics, I find myself more and more humbled by the complexity and the wisdom of the human body.