September 2023 | Flux

Jan 12

Written By MOSA

NOTE: This was originally published as part of my newsletter in October 2020. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive the next Om Letter direct to your inbox once a month.

After sending out July’s newsletter I had several after-class chats about why it’s so tricky for us to feel into the more subtle aspects of yoga. This led me to think more about what might be standing in our way of developing deeper sensory awareness within our movement practice and our bodies more generally.

During the pandemic I got an important insight while assisting on a week-long ‘Qi Gong for Yoga Teachers’ training (the same training I mentioned previously) which, due to government restrictions, had to take place online. This gave me the rare opportunity to watch more than 70 yoga teachers from around the world perform the same Qi Gong forms on one single screen.

Qi Gong, like all internal martial arts, embraces the roundness of the ball and socket joints found within our skeletal structure to create spherical movements that seek to reflect patterns and shapes found in nature. In this way Qi Gong maintains the full range of motion within each joint, whilst also collectively making them more pliable and soft. The result is a skeletal structure that is able to absorb the impact of dynamic movements such as punching, kicking or falling without injury.
And yet all I could see on the screen in front of me were locked-out elbows, retracted shoulder blades and hyper-extended knees.

Yoga, with its focus on extending and lengthening the body had taught these teachers to forget the inherent power of unlocking their joints.
Somatic approaches to movement equally emphasise moving from our skeleton, not only as a way of moving more efficiently (using more muscle can lead to faster fatigue), but also as a way of bypassing the habitual movement patterns of daily life that can be stored within our muscle tissue.

Let me elaborate on that. Our muscles tissue is known to send and receive information to and from the brain via an intricate network of connective tissue found throughout the body known as the fascia. Because of this, muscles have the unique ability to come into any movement with a preconceived notion of how this should happen - despite the fact that this notion isn’t always the most efficient or the most enjoyable way of moving. Understanding how to move from our underlying bone structure with a little helping hand from the Earth’s gravitational pull is really what unlocks our ability to move through the world with grace, efficiency and freedom.

To complete this circle of thought and return to the original question: when our physical Self is soft and pliable and, when we experience minimal interference from the muscle tissue, the path is clear for the body to communicate its underlying messages. Then, all we need is to be present enough to listen in.

In my upcoming workshop (details below) we will put all of this into practice and explore further. If you’re at all curious please do come along without worrying about being ‘good’ at something you’ve never tried before. As long as your mind is open to exploration, there will be plenty of options for every body. It would be a pleasure to see you there or, to welcome you in class soon.

With love,

OM x