Skillful Transitions: How we get into and out of yoga poses.
Sometimes I think yoga land can get so focused on being in a pose (asana) that developing the in-between movement, the movement that gets us into and out of it is overlooked. For example, stepping one foot forward from downward facing dog into a lunge or moving from a low lunge into high lunge. It’s where I often see people struggle.
So I’ve been exploring just that. The transitions. This way of moving requires dynamic stability, coordination and learning to yield - being less rigid. It’s a practice of being adaptive. And our brains love it. It’s the juice for motor learning, but it can be challenging. It will reveal your blind spots. That’s ok. Don’t let it stop you. Screw up and keep going. I think it’s a fun and interesting way to move all on its own. And it can help us in our vinyasa yoga practice.
Now that I’ve convinced you that moving through transitions is fun and valuable you might be wondering, how do I do it? Could be that we don’t know how to get better at the transitions - how we physically get from one place (pose) to another on the yoga mat. Especially if the focus in a group class is on the pose not the commute between them. Check out the video below for one of the way you might practice transitions. Twisting aka rotation in body nerd language is naturally dynamic. When you twist from your center like I’m doing in the video rather than holding the twist static (still) like we do in a yoga class then we are practicing all those things I mentioned above - dynamic stability, coordination, yielding, motor learning. VOILA you’re doing a transition. The practice of moving from one place into another. If you give this a try, let me know how it goes.