By Kathi Duquette
Almost anyone can move their body through basic yoga poses and gain some physical benefits, but people that can focus on the muscles that they are working on will have a much better experience. Many people practice yoga simply for the physical benefits, including athletes. They look for increased flexibility or maybe relief from repetitive motion imbalances. Yoga will definitely help in those areas, but the true benefits of yoga come with building your mind-body awareness.
We know that mind-body awareness promotes stress relief. But mind-body awareness also promotes safer flexibility increases. Tight muscles are easy to injure if you don't pay attention to them and you try to force into a pose.
If you pay attention to the muscle you are trying to stretch, you can gauge how far to go into the pose to gain the most flexibility without injury. My students are always instructed to find their stretch inside their bodies. It doesn't matter how the pose looks so don't try to look like a yoga model, what matters is how the stretch feels and how you can adjust your body safely to gain the most benefit from the stretch.
The instructor is there to guide you safely into asanas (poses). There is a general direction of which way to move and usually some safety guidelines. I like to tell the class what muscle group they are looking for a stretch in so they can adjust if they need to in order to find their stretch.
Breathing is your connection to enhance your stretch and your mind-body awareness. The breath is such a powerful tool. Consciously sending fresh oxygen into the muscles you are working helps to warm them and allows some tightness to release. This simple action of sending your breath directly into specific muscles builds your mind-body awareness.
Weight lifters use the breath to enhance muscle contractions; exhaling on exertion. Cyclists regulate the breath to build cardio respiratory stamina, as do runners. You don't need to be an athlete; you don't need to be flexible. You simply need to pay some attention to your body and be good to it.
Most classes begin with some easy breathing exercises and some easy moving poses. These are meant to help bring your awareness into your body and warm up your spine, your joints and your muscles.
Once you begin to move into your poses you have two choices:
You can physically practice the poses while you think about everything you will need to do later, or what you did before class or whatever else is on your mind.
OR, you can take the time to pay attention to your body and give yourself the gift of yoga.
This is what we mean when we tell you to be 'present'. Pay attention to what you are doing right now. Practicing being present allows your brain to simply focus on the task at hand and not be short circuited by all the tasks you have left to do.
By being present you can focus on your stretch. Find your stretch and breathe into it. When you find your stretch and you are breathing into that muscle and it releases..... it is magical. It is a gift. It is the gift of yoga.
By Kathi Duquette
Certified Yoga InstructorCertified Personal Trainer
http://www.basic-yoga-information.com/
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posted by Cheryl Levesque @ 7:56 PM
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