Yoga On & Off Your Mat
Alignment and Awareness

One benefit of our yoga practice is to learn the correct body mechanics.  Throughout the day, some of our postures and movement patterns may cause pain.  Being aware of how you move your body, and then, moving in correct alignments can help you to live pain free.

If you have poor movement patterns, you will most likely repeat those patterns in your yoga practice, thus bringing on pain during practice.  If you use your practice to identify correct movement patterns you can retrain your body to habitually fall into correct movement patterns. Then your pain will be gone forever.

If you have a pain that is actively aggravating you, it is important to continue your practice!  It will help you, but please be intelligent about how you practice; you may have to modify many of the poses so as not to aggravate your pain, and to allow the area to rehabilitate.  If you listen to your body and what movements feel good—especially when pain flares up—your body will tell you what movements are healing for you!

Remember - stress is usually the root of most chronic pain!  Remove stress and tension, and the pain will go away . . .

Sometimes we experience pain that is rooted in our emotions.  Certain areas of our body are connected to certain emotions. By healing our emotions, attitudes, and responses you can release physical pain—and vice versa. We may release pain with a yoga pose and at the same time the emotional health will improve. Many times this will lead to a bout of tears or unexplained happiness right there on your mat :)

Correct body alignment is not always easy to maintain. Many of the muscles that you use to hold you in alignment have become weak, and other muscles have become tight and pull you out of alignment—these muscles need to be stretched and relaxed.  Once the weak muscles get stronger and the tight muscles relax the correct alignment will be much easier to hold.

Yoga is not just about flexibility, but also involves strength. While holding a yoga pose you are supporting your body weight, and when held in correct alignment with deep rhythmic breathing your body will gain strength as the pose releases tension—a win-win situation.  This strength combined with the release of tension will help your body to realign itself correctly, relieving pain.

Use your yoga practice not just to be “present” on your mat, but to have a higher awareness of posture and alignment off your mat as you live and move about your life.  Yoga is not just practiced on our mats; the real “game” you are practicing for is when you step off your mat.

© 2009 Bobbi Misiti    BeFit Body & Mind YOGA

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