Another local bellydancer, Latifa, linked to a fascinating article from Men's Health Magazine, Everything You Know About Your Muscles is Wrong. It's all about fascia! Fascia is the network of connective tissue that runs throughout the body. The myofascial net, in particular, embraces all of the muscle tissue. It was my understanding in my yoga training that fascia contains neurotransmitters that send signals back and forth to the brain (proprioception) and inform the brain of sensation and pain. This article is focused on new research that shows that fascia also displays a spring-like quality that can help your muscles act stronger, and accessing the fascia can benefit overall fitness training.

We all have specific habits and imbalances that affect our posture and how we move. Those habits become engrained in the fascia. Fascia is difficult to change, so this article is suggesting starting your workout by opening up secondary areas of the connective tissue. Even that is effective in bringing the body into balance. Oh hey look at that! Bring your body into balance and you won't hurt yourself! Isn't that yoga?!

The article led me to Thomas Myer's website, where I found an excerpt of a lecture about yoga and fascia. Muscles relax after the neurological signal from your brain that basically says, "OK we're just in triangle pose, no one is going to get hurt!" Depending on training, this can be as short as 30 seconds for your hamstrings (for example) to start to let go and lengthen. After, one to three minutes, you can access the myofascial stretch. Fascia stretches plasticly,and does not snap back like muscle does. So keep holding those poses and you'll break those habits and imbalances that are causing you pain!

While I was teaching and demonstrating bodywaves in my ATS class last week, one of my students asked me, "Are you doing a bellyroll?" and my answer was "Yes, sort of."

In a bodywave, the ribcage shifts forward and lifts, then the back body rolls back against an imaginary wall, with the shoulders touching first, then the ribcage, lower back, and finally the hips.

So, muscularly speaking, the latissimus dorsi contract to send the chest up and forward. Then, to bring the chest back, the rectus abdominis contract, first the upper section, then rolling down to the lower section. Finally, the contraction in the lower abs release, taking the spine back to the original dance posture.

In a bellyroll, the lats are out of the equation and the spine is held in dance posture. The rectus abdominis is still working, however, it's the obliques (mostly external, I think) that are driving the movement and the rectus abdominis is going for a ride on top.

Or at least that's how it's happening in my body.

Anyway, in my first go round at ATS General Skills, I learned about the latissimus dorsi driving the movement in Egyptian Basic. Try generating that movement ONLY using your lats. Amazing! You'll see in the attached image that the point of origin of the lats are way down towards the base of the spine, which gives the Egyptian Basic that dramatic swivel. In barrel turns, the lats are working to compress the side body for the initial "scoop" part of the turn. As mentioned above, in bodywaves, the lats are drawing together lifting the ribcage forward and up. I was under the misconception previously that the rhomboids were the inital part of the bodywave. While this will shift your shoulders back, your chest will not move up at all. You need to contract much lower down your back, towards the bottom tips of the shoulderblades to get that lift. So yay for the latissimus dorsi! To access your lats, transition between upward dog and downward dog. Down-dog lengthens the the latissimus dorsi, and upward dog works them.

It's very helpful for me to figure out exactly what muscle is working and how, both in yoga in dance, and I find descriptions like "this is a skeletal movement" to be frustrating and problematic. Bone doesn't move on it's own, so there must be some muscle taking that bone from point A to point B. You don't have to be an anatomy expert to investigate your movements and see how your body works.

If you've made a discovery of your own, please share! Also please let me know if my analysis make sense at all!

I received Paul Grilley's Anatomy for Yoga DVD for my birthday. It contains over four hours of workshop lectures and other fun interactive stuff. It's rich in content and is really getting my brain going about yoga and anatomy, so expect a series of anatomy inspired posts!

Paul Grilley is the dude behind Yin Yoga (although, unlike some supertar yogis... cough Bikram cough he claims not to have invented it and claims no ownership over it). Yin yoga emphasizes release of connective tissue and joints by holding postures for long periods of time. HIs anatomy lectures elaborate on his primary message, "Discriminate between the sensations of Tension and Compression when practicing Asanas." By Tension, he means muscular tension that restricts movement. For example, tension in my hamstrings makes a full split a distant dream for me. Compression is bone-on-bone contact. Compression stops normal people's legs from straightening beyond 180 degrees... not freaky hyperexteners like me, though. Heh.

Here's a great clip from one of the lectures that illustrates the variety in individual anatomy as well as Paul Grilley's thoughts on how these differences are reflected in yoga asanas.

What's so surprising to me, is that Grilley openly accepts all the variations of postures that take shape in different bodies. In fact, he encourages practitioners to explore the full range of motion and experiencing compression on the joint whether it is hypo- or hyper-flexible. I've been practicing yoga since 2001, and I don't think I have ever had an instructor be okay with my hyper-mobility. I'm not sure that I'm even okay with my hyperflexibility, between always being told things like "Hug in! More muscular energy! Microbend your knee!" by my yoga instructors and being prone to injury in my loose joints. Frankly, having permission to experience yoga in the way Grilley suggests boggles my mind. I don't think I've ever tried it, and now I'm really curious to drop in a Yin Yoga class and see what it does for me.

In addition, even though anatomy is a hard science, in yoga there is so much room for discussion about what a yoga posture is, and what is the "right" and "wrong" way to do it. If you have ever injured yourself in practice, or received an improper adjustment in a yoga class, you might certainly feel there is a "wrong" way to do yoga! I'm still churning all this around in my mind, and I do have probably at least two more hours of anatomy lectures to watch that may help me feel my way around the incredibly complex relationship between yoga and anatomy.

Thoughts? Have you explored the range of motion in your joints? What have you learned about how your body moves just by experiencing your yoga practice?

I am constantly encountering new realizations about yoga. Sometimes this takes the form of new understanding of my own body and this most recent case is my feet. I noticed some alignment issues when I was practicing dance in front of a mirror and traced the problem to my feet.

Our feet are our are physical foundation, and our whole body depends on their health! Poor alignment in the feet can cause knee, hip, and back pain. Unfortunately, our feet often go neglected. As a dancer, my feet require extra-special care, especially since I am a victim of chronic foot pain. I bring to you today my favorite healthy feet practice:

Basic Feet Warmups: (do at the beginning of every yoga or dance practice, at the end of a long day, or whenever you think it would feel good!)

1. Interlace your fingers between your toes like you are shaking hands with your foot.
2. Draw circles, rotating your ankle one way, and then the other.
3. Point the toes down and hold for two breaths. Flex the foot and hold for two breaths.
4. Give each toe a little twist and tug.
5. Massage the sole of the foot, starting at the base of the toes, and working your way toward the heel.
6. Gently pound the sole of the foot with your fist.
7. Give the foot friction, warming it up by rubbing briskly between the hands.
8. Clap the foot between the hands (I call this the standing ovation!)
9. Extend your foot next to the other, enjoy the difference in the feet, and repeat with the other foot.

General Feet Tips:

• In Tadasana, your feet should be directly under the bony part of your hips (towards the inside, not the outer fleshy part of your hips).
• To ground the feet, lift and spread the toes. Press through the four corners of the feet (mound of the big toe, inner heel at the base of the arch, mound of the little toe, outer heel).
• This action will lift the arches away from the ground and fire up all the muscles in the legs, providing a strong foundation for your standing poses.
• Try practicing all your standing poses with your toes lifted and spread. See how it feels, and notice if it improves your alignment.

I'm also a huge fan of of Yoga Toes. They help bring space and circulation to tight feet, and it feels so good. I have a pinched nerve in my foot and it really helps relieve the pressure if I'm having a painful flare-up.

For further reading, check out Yoga Nerd on "The Ground Beneath You for great instruction on how to work the feet in various asanas.

Usually your SI joint doesn't get much action. In most men the joint fuses by the time they reach adulthood. Women need flexibility in that joint for childbirth, as the sacrum moves in the joint, the pelvis widens to make room for the baby to get out. It's designed to only to slide up and down in the pelvis. However, it is possible to torque it and pull one side of the sacrum to the side, up, or otherwise grinding into the pelvic bone in a generally unpleasant way. This is sacroilitis or SI injury.