Welcome to this week's Friday Round-up.
Happy appropriately snowy May-long weekend – hooray for rain and moisture!
This week’s follow up is less about postures and alignment, and more about what’s behind them.
It all started on Tuesdays when one of Gentle Beginner class yogis asked me about the right way to
practice cat and cow stretch. I think my answer surprised her!
Cat and cow stretch is one of those every day poses go-to poses with a gazillion and half of variations, and just as many ways to cue it.
In class, sometimes we focus on finding equal movement throughout all segments of the spine; other times - on isolating the movement to low, middle, or upper back. Sometimes we add a spinal stretch by lifting the spine super high and coming up
onto the fingertips. Sometimes we rock back and forth – we might be holding our pelvis in neutral, or we might be rounding our lower back.
So what’s the right way to do it? What do you think?
In response to Tuesday question I said: “ What is your intention? What do you want to get out of the pose?”
Whenever I teach a pose, a sequence, a class, and even a session, I have an intention behind my
words.
Is it the spine mobilization we are focusing on? I’d start with movement isolations, and then progress toward equal movement throughout all segments of the spine.
Do I want to teach my students (YOU!) how to connect breath to movement? We begin with general up and down movement, and add some back and forth rocking.
Are we working on hip mobilization? Neutral pelvis it is.
Am I after
improved neurodynamics for pain relief? There’s a pattern for that, too.
I get even more particular when working with private clients. During
one-on-one’s we can really hone in on our intention behind the practice. What is the goal here? What do my clients want to accomplish? What kind
of compensation patterns do I see?
I have attached some general instructions for cat and cow stretching here. Play with the pose, and try on the different variations we’ve done so far in the class. Notice how different variations challenge different areas of your body. What are the ones that make sense in your body? The ones that don’t?