Bring Back Balance
Have you ever met someone who's been playing tennis for years? It's not unusual for the hands and forearms of avid tennis players to be bigger, more muscular, and better defined on the racket side than on the other. Makes sense, doesn't it?
Left-right asymmetry is very common.
But we rarely think of top-bottom asymmetry.
Practicing inverted postures regularly has the wonderful effect of balancing out the power, stamina and skill of the upper body with that of the lower body.
The body seems to have a natural wisdom about limiting significant disproportion between left/right, top/bottom, and (somewhat) front/back. My friends who lift weights tell me that if their legs start to significanly out-pace their arms, back and shoulders, lower body development 'stalls out' until the upper body can catch up.
Since most of us spend a lot of time on our legs and hardly any time bearing weight on hands/arms/shoulders/heads, it's common for the upper body to be weaker, smaller, and more easily fatigued than the lower body.
Start practicing inversions, and better harmony between the top side and the bottom will come your way. Better harmony leads to better overall improvements in health and well-being. And you can avoid injuries that sometimes occur with imbalances.
So, get some instruction and get inverted.
Don't just read about it. Get up. Experience it. Experience yoga!
Kevin Perry
www.ExperienceYoga.org
p.s., Inversions also help you eliminate left/right and front/back asymmetries by helping you be aware of and then let go of habitual body patterns. See my message posted below on April 4 called "Inversion Confusion" for more details.
p.p.s. Ladies, it's that time of year when those sleeveless tops are what you really want to wear. But who wants to be seen with that under-arm jiggle? Ugh. My students who've tried everything (weight lifting, aerobics, etc.) tell me that learning to practice hand-stand was IT. Handstands made their arms look like they want them to look in summer dresses and blouses. In Sanskrit, it's adho mukha vrksasana, by the way. That's literally translated, downward-facing tree pose.
Copyright 2005. All rights reserved by Mo Yoga LLC.
Left-right asymmetry is very common.
But we rarely think of top-bottom asymmetry.
Practicing inverted postures regularly has the wonderful effect of balancing out the power, stamina and skill of the upper body with that of the lower body.
The body seems to have a natural wisdom about limiting significant disproportion between left/right, top/bottom, and (somewhat) front/back. My friends who lift weights tell me that if their legs start to significanly out-pace their arms, back and shoulders, lower body development 'stalls out' until the upper body can catch up.
Since most of us spend a lot of time on our legs and hardly any time bearing weight on hands/arms/shoulders/heads, it's common for the upper body to be weaker, smaller, and more easily fatigued than the lower body.
Start practicing inversions, and better harmony between the top side and the bottom will come your way. Better harmony leads to better overall improvements in health and well-being. And you can avoid injuries that sometimes occur with imbalances.
So, get some instruction and get inverted.
Don't just read about it. Get up. Experience it. Experience yoga!
Kevin Perry
www.ExperienceYoga.org
p.s., Inversions also help you eliminate left/right and front/back asymmetries by helping you be aware of and then let go of habitual body patterns. See my message posted below on April 4 called "Inversion Confusion" for more details.
p.p.s. Ladies, it's that time of year when those sleeveless tops are what you really want to wear. But who wants to be seen with that under-arm jiggle? Ugh. My students who've tried everything (weight lifting, aerobics, etc.) tell me that learning to practice hand-stand was IT. Handstands made their arms look like they want them to look in summer dresses and blouses. In Sanskrit, it's adho mukha vrksasana, by the way. That's literally translated, downward-facing tree pose.
Copyright 2005. All rights reserved by Mo Yoga LLC.
posted by Kevin at 8:25 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home