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SKELETAL VARIATION & AHIMSA

I have just been to a fantastic workshop with Yin Therapy, the couple I am going to do my second teacher training with. I have worked through this already in my first teacher training, but its always great to refresh and be reminded how important it is to recognize skeletal variation.

Our bodies, our bones, our looks, our characters are completely different. While 1 yoga pose might be easily achievable for 1 person is might be completely impossible or extremely hard for another. It is so important to practice body awareness in your yoga practice.

Your yoga teacher can only ever be your guide – you have to be your own teacher. That applies to any physical activity or any activity at all. Only you know your body, only you can feel how the posture feels – is there pain / is there discomfort / do I need to back off / can I feel into this a bit more. Practising Ahimsa – Non Harming towards ourselves and our bodies and recognizing the huge variety of skeletal variation.

We also have to be aware when we have bone on bone limitations and that the results of pushing past those barriers can mean injury. They are a bit harder to recognise, as we usually don’t experience pain when bone comes on bone.

These images have been taken from Paul Grilley’s website. paulgrilley.com, the founder of Yin Yoga who has researched this really thoroughly.

The biggest things to remember in your yoga practice are:

– only move within your limitations

– if you experience pain – come out of the pose or back off a bit

– focus on the functionality of the pose (what is it meant to help you with / stretch / extent / compress) versus the aesthetics of the pose (looking at the person next to you / remembering a picture)

I hope you find this helpful.

#heartspace #yoga #skeletal variation #yin #paulgrilley

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SILENCE

A bit of a silence theme for me this week. this is the reading I chose to share in sessions this week and the card I pulled from my art of attention deck from Elena Brower.

#silence #heartspaceyoga #meditation #heartspace #yoga