March 8, 2019
Hej and Happy International Womens Day!
On Wednesday, after a nice morning with reading in the sun on the couch with a cup of coffee and Thor sleeping up against my leg, I put a bunch of clothes on (really cold outside these days), took T out, then grabbed my yoga mat and walked over to the yoga studio. I haven’t been there in forever.
The class was more like a restorative/stretch class, so pretty easy and relaxed. We used all the props there. Each person had 4 bolsters, 3 blankets, 4 blocks, 1 strap and 1 eye pillow. I felt very supported:)
While in class, I started to think about why restorative is good for you other than it’s nice to get some time for yourself while you are also stretching… In Wednesday’s supported pigeon I really didn’t feel any stretching, because I had so much props holding up the body for me, so I was wondering what it was going to be good for. Whenever I’ve done restorative yoga poses before I could see the benefits with it, but on Wednesday in pigeon it made me think.
Passive stretching is good cause you don’t have to use your muscles to hold anything and you can relax, it’s a good way to de-stress and release anxiety, and that’s why I would recommend anyone to do it. But like I just said, now I started to think about why it was going to be good for me and my body this day. There were so many props holding me up that it did nothing for my muscles. My muscles are long and I’m flexible (not as much now as they used to be but still) and for this reason I’ve also been asking the why question every time we had the “stretching section” in the middle of a dance class (which in itself is something I’ve questioned over the years…the muscles that just got warmed up is now getting cold in stretching..why are we doing this?). My teachers always just answered that even if I don’t feel anything in the stretches we do my muscles can still benefit from it. But on Wednesday it felt like I could have stayed in bed at home and get the same result. But maybe that was my practice that day, maybe I was only supposed to take that time to questions things or to meditate. Others with tighter muscles benefited in this so I’m not questioning the pose and props, just, what did it do for me or others with longer muscles?
It’s good to question things. If you go to a class and you don’t understand why you are doing something, then go ahead and ask the teacher why. I’ve had students who has no idea why we are doing certain movements in warm-ups and when they ask it’s my job to know why, it’s my job to only teach things I have an explanation for. If I have no explanation and can’t figure one out, then I should maybe scratch that out of my teaching (unless of course it’s just a transition move or part of choreography). I have always questioned things, I always analyze things my body is doing. It either made me the best student in the room or probably the most annoying one hahah.
