I’m working with my student — Carolina in this video. She’s trying to stop locking her arms in the Plank Pose and in the Upward Dog. One of the things that happens when she finds the muscles in her arms and stops hyper-extending her elbows — is that it becomes very clear that she isn’t externally rotating her arms and taking her shoulders back in her Upward Dog. This is really common for students who are hyper-mobile and lock their arms in this pose. When they lock their arms in poses like Upward Dog — it looks like the shoulders are rolling back and the arms are externally rotated but they really aren’t at all. If we don’t address the elbow joint first — then we never get to work on opening her shoulders. Once we address the hyper-extended elbows, it clearly magnifies the tight shoulders and what Carolina needs to work on.
Undo your patterns and see what is revealed. How are you avoiding what you need to work on? What complicated ways have you figured out to make things easier? And so that you don’t have to feel uncomfortable?
I love breaking this stuff down and helping my students get closer to the truth. Join me next weekend in Port Orange at Kula Yoga for an Asana Breakdown and Alignment Workshop and a whole weekend of workshops and classes!
