Friday: Hip Opening and Setting Intentions

I spent Friday with one of my best friends and got to have dinner with my Mom before traveling to PradipikaYOGA for the workshop at 6pm. This workshop focused on setting an intention for 2017 and opening up the hips.
What a delightful class. Since this is the first workshop she has taught this year, Amy started us off with setting an intention for 2017. I sat there and was not sure what I wanted from my practice this year. Did I want to be altruistic in my intention, or did I want to dig a little deeper into my personal journey? I decided to set my intention with two simple words; discipline and dedication.

I want to be disciplined throughout 2017 as I go through Teacher Training at Practice Indie and discover more about myself. At this moment, discipline and dedication mean that I want to become a better version of myself. I want to be more dedicated to my practice and I want to be disciplined in my actions. I want to be a positive ray of sunshine to everyone I meet.

You probably have poor posture.

After we set our intentions, we started off the class with learning some basic anatomy of the hips. How people tend to stand and hold themselves. It turns out that most people have horrible posture. A lot of people, especially when standing in a line, stand with their hips pressed forward placing all of their weight on the low back. What should happen is that the hips should be somewhere in the sweet spot of not turned forward but not turned backwards. The torso needs to be long with the core engaged. The curvature of the low back must be maintained, with the body’s weight evenly distributed.

How to have good posture:

1. Stand tall and bright, like a toddler. What this means is to stand tall, lengthening the sides of the body and lifting the armpits from within (not shurugging up the shoulders) while squaring off the shoulders.
2. Lift the rib cage away from the hips. You want to bring space throughout the torso.
3. Take the hips and notice how you are standing. Are the hips tilting forward or backwards? Once you stand up tall, the hips should naturally fall into alignment with the spine. The hips should be neutral, allowing the spine’s curves to be fluid.
4. Bring the shoulders back, drawing the shoulder blades together.

It is important to keep in mind that the arms are meant to rest within the shoulder socket. You lose mobility when the arms are not fully housed in their sockets.

There is so much to remember at all times. It seems overwhelming at first but once you get into a pose and apply what Amy was teaching, it makes perfect sense. Now the trick is to get the body to remember the lesson. This is why good posture is lacking on so many people.

As people age, we tend to allow gravity to bring the rib cage closer to the hips, losing that length and brightness of the torso. Additionally, we get so used to holding ourselves with poor back posture that the hips and back ultimately suffer.

Amy provided a lot information about how to engage the hips by maintaining the femur in the hip socket. By maintaining the femurs in their sockets this, you maintain the full range of motion. This aids in bringing space into postures like Virabhadrasana II (Warrior II). As you come into the pose, you lean forward, taking the booty out a bit and then internally rotate the bent leg to bring the booty back under your torso, which also helps the femur back into its home in the hip socket. At the same time you externally rotate the straight leg. The internal and external rotations help to build a solid base, helping you to stand tall in the pose. Doing this also helps you to go deeper into the pose without much additional effort.

It really is amazing how subtle changes can affect posture and movement. I did not realize that the full range of motion for the legs and arms rely upon the shoulders and hips being fully engaged with the arms and legs fully resting in the hip/shoulder sockets. Saturday’s classes, which will be reflected in a post coming soon, continue to build upon subtle anatomical changes in workshops focusing on the upper body and inversions.